View source for Template talk:Gutenberg book

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{{Copied |from=Template:Gutenberg book |from_oldid=654024303 |to=Template:Gutenberg book/sandbox |diff=https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Gutenberg_book/sandbox&oldid=672562320 |to_diff=672562320 |to_oldid= |date=10:41, 22 July 2015 }}
==line break?==
I don't know much about templates, however [[Around the World in Eighty Days]] had the following line:
 { {gutenberg|no=3456|name=Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours}} ([[French language|French]])
Whish translates as:

* {{gutenberg|no=3456|name=Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours}} ([[French language|French]])

Should there be a line break at the end of the template?
[[User:Paul Weaver|Paul Weaver]] 07:55, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

:Not sure I follow.  Why are you expecting there to be a line break?  The way it renders seems perfectly fine to me.  [[User:Adicarlo|AdamDiCarlo]] 04:22, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

::I would argue against trying to put a line break after the template because for some instances (one example is shown above) it is helpful to add a little more information explaning some details of the text.
[[User:Andrew Sly|Andrew Sly]] 22:54, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

:: The template has been fixed, it did have a line break [[User:132.185.240.121|132.185.240.121]] 13:23, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
:: (That's Paul Weaver by the way, I forgot to log in. It originally looked like ''at Project Gutenberg(line break)(French))'' [[User:132.185.144.120|132.185.144.120]] 14:19, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

The example at the beginning of this section appends additional information to show the language of the text in question. In case it's of interest to people using this template, I've found
[[:Category:Language icons|Language icons]] are a good way to indicate this. For the example above, it would simply be <nowiki>{{fr icon}}</nowiki>

[[User:Andrew Sly|Andrew Sly]] 23:53, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

==title/author syntax seems awkward==
Am I the only one who finds <nowiki>{{gutenberg|no=2383|name=The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems ''by Geoffrey Chaucer'}}</nowiki> rather awkward?  Is this a [[misfeature]] of the template?  If so, and if anyone is working on the template, I would suggest syntax like: <nowiki>{{gutenberg|no=2383|name=The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems|author=Geoffrey Chaucer}}</nowiki>.  In case of multiple authors, comma separated or else mulitple 'author=' attributes accepted? &mdash; [[User:Adicarlo|AdamDiCarlo]] 21:27, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

:I would say that you should not try to include too much extra material within the template. The ideal content for "name=" should be just the title of the book. Anything else that might add further understanding could be added after the template as discussed above. In the example given, the only places where I could imagine the template being used is in an article where Geoffrey Chaucer has already been mentioned as the author, so further mention of him in the external link would seem to be redundant.

::I'm not proposing we put more material in the template, I'm just saying that the recommendation for how to mark up this case is awkward.  I guess I read your answer as saying, "we don't want to encourage use of author in the template by additing an optional attribute, but we have thate example just so people can deal with the (very rare) cases when the need to include the author in the Gutenberg citation."  Which is a fine answer, tho I should add a caveat to the example itself, if so. &mdash; [[User:Adicarlo|AdamDiCarlo]] 19:20, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

:I second AdamDiCarlo's request. And as for complication, we don't seem to have a problem making any of the [[:Category:Citation templates|citation templates]] esoteric. [[User:Jareha|jareha]] <sup class="plainlinksneverexpand">[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:jareha&amp;action=edit&amp;section=new (comments)]</sup> 05:11, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

:: I too felt the urge to include an author, primarily for when the author has a wiki page that can be linked.  I stuck in an optional "author" parameter to do that.  An example can be seen in [[George Bass#References]].  That's the only place I've used it for now, so if this unleashes a storm of controversy that's the only place to revert :-) -- [[User:Kevin Ryde|Kevin Ryde]] 01:26, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

::: Excellent.  I made use of that on the page.  I think this makes the citations look much better as well, that is, closer to what a normal book citation looks like. &mdash; [[User:Adicarlo|Adam Di Carlo]] ([[User talk:Adicarlo|talk]]) 09:25, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

==citing title which is also wiki article==
Is there any advice for citing a title in gutenberg which is also a wikipedia article?   Or is the answer "don't do that, leave the etext link in to wikipedia article"?  &mdash; [[User:Adicarlo|AdamDiCarlo]] 04:23, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

:Again, I think this is a case where, if the article is well-written, this will simply not be an issue. The gutenberg template should be used where it links to an item which is clearly closely related to the subject of a wikipedia article. This will often be an article about a certain book, in which case any meaningful links should have already been made in the article. Do you have any examples I could take a look at? [[User:Andrew Sly|Andrew Sly]] 22:54, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

::The article in question was [[William_Harrison_Ainsworth]].  Previous to my edit, all of the book titles were wikilinks (to non-existant articles).  I decided to un-link'ify them.  I think you're saying: if an author article contains a link to the book article (e.g., the book is significant enough to warrant it), the gutenberg reference should be in the book article and not the author article anyway?  Which is a sensible answer, I guess, in the name of reducing redundancy. [[User:Adicarlo|AdamDiCarlo]] 19:30, 20 October 2005 (UTC)


:Perhaps it helps to put it in perspective by saying that both the Project Gutenberg catalog and wikipedia are works in progress. Both have their own quirks and attempts to get them to work together will always have weak points.

:Personally, my opinion is that the best place to use a gutenberg template is in an [[wikipedia:external links|external links]] section, not in a list of book names. I also try to make any external links relate as directly as possible to the main topic of the article, rather than to something related at a tangent. So, I generally use a template:gutenberg author in an article about an author, and a template:gutenberg in an article about a book, or an article where the gutenberg text is about the same subject as the article and is relevant. [[User:Andrew Sly|Andrew Sly]] 22:42, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

==Use with bibliographies==
I removed the "of", for use in cases where the title was already mentioned (all Gutenberg titles are also available in printed form; the links will typically appear in bibliographies where title, author, year, ISBN etc. were just mentioned. [[User:Dbachmann|dab]] <small>[[User_talk:Dbachmann|('''&#5839;''')]]</small> 17:03, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

== New wording for template ==

Currently the template looks like this:

:[http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/{{{no}}} Free eBook ''Pinocchio''] at [[Project Gutenberg]]

I'd like to suggest a change to look like this:

:[http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/{{{no}}} ''Pinocchio''] a free e-book at [[Project Gutenberg]]

Or another alternative:

:[http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/{{{no}}} ''Pinocchio''] a free [[e-book]] at [[Project Gutenberg]]

It is common practice in external link sections to highlite the title of the book, with other descriptive information afterwards. It looks cleaner, is easier to read, and is more standard. ''Highlite the title only'' is standard practice not only on Wikipedia but everywhere in citations. The fact that it is "free" and an "e-book" and "Project Gutenberg" is just descriptive information that should not be part of the title. For example see the external links section of [[David Copperfield (novel)]], the Gutenberg doesn't fit in with the others. There are many other examples like this where this template doesn't fit in with other standard formating. Note the above wording is just a suggestion, but the key is to have only the title of the book as the external link, and have the title come first. I assume the mention of a "free e-book" is there for newbies, so wikilinking [[e-book]] would be in line with helping newbies as well. -- [[User:Stbalbach|Stbalbach]] 15:38, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

:It now seems to read: 
::"[http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/{{{no}}} ''Pinocchio''] available for free via [[Project Gutenberg]]" --[[User:Blainster|Blainster]] 23:55, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I'd much prefer it read something like ''"Full text of [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/{{{no}}} ''Pinocchio''], available from [[Project Gutenberg]]"''. Somehow I find myself unhappy with the word 'free'. --[[User:Tagishsimon|Tagishsimon]] [[User_talk:Tagishsimon|(talk)]]

:I don't care for the word "free" either (as if other links are not free? It's also redundant with "available"). But I do think it is important that the first word in the sentence be the title of the work. -- [[User:Stbalbach|Stbalbach]] 00:15, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

: I'm not in agreement with Blainster at all.  Tons of boilerplate verbiage is a bad thing, not a good thing.  Imagine a case where you want to cite 8 gutenberg titles!  We should be striving to look like other WP:CITE templates, IMHO. &mdash; [[User:Adicarlo|Adam Di Carlo]] ([[User talk:Adicarlo|talk]]) 09:29, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

== Esamples of correct usage ==

<nowiki>{{gutenberg|no=2383|name=The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems ''by Geoffrey Chaucer'}}</nowiki><br>
should perhaps have another apostrophe at the end?<br>
<nowiki>{{gutenberg|no=2383|name=The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems ''by Geoffrey Chaucer''}}</nowiki><br>
Are they even necessary at all? --[[User:Bensin|Bensin]] 14:26, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

: Complete obsoleted now that we have a proper author attribute, so the question is moot. &mdash; [[User:Adicarlo|Adam Di Carlo]] ([[User talk:Adicarlo|talk]]) 09:26, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

==Adds blank ==
This template adds a blank before the period. [[The_War_of_the_Worlds#External_links|Example (link 2)]]. --[[User:Subfader|Subfader]] ([[User talk:Subfader|talk]])
: Fixed.  Thank you. [[User:Plastikspork|Plastikspork]] [[User talk:Plastikspork|<sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ</sub><sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)</sup>]] 17:58, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

== Bullet ==

The template could really do without a bullet. It does not look right when used outside a bulleted list, e.g. in an inline reference. [[User:GregorB|GregorB]] ([[User talk:GregorB|talk]]) 11:35, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
:Agree. But the template is also often used in the External links section, which is normally formatted as a bulleted list; so either we'd have to go round all those articles inserting the missing bullet by hand, or put some sort of parameter into the template, like {{para|bullet|no}} for use in the inline instances. --[[User:Redrose64|<span style="color:#a80000; background:#ffeeee; text-decoration:inherit">Red</span>rose64]] ([[User talk:Redrose64|talk]]) 13:35, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
::Apparently this has been done (it's actually {{para|bullet|none}}), and a good thing too, I was wondering why it was making a line break when used within <nowiki><ref></ref></nowiki> tags... [[User:Herostratus|Herostratus]] ([[User talk:Herostratus|talk]]) 05:47, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
::I just got bit by the bullet, {{para|bullet|none}} should be the default behavior, with {{para|bullet|yes}} adding the bullet. In an "External list", an editor is expected to bullet the cites. I suspect the extra linefeed was a coding flaw. [[User:User-duck|User-duck]] ([[User talk:User-duck|talk]]) 21:56, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
:::This is a bit of a mess. When used with any option other than {{para|bullet|none}} and preceded by a bullet, the template and the preceding bullet render as an extra blank bulleted line before the bulleted template. I have created {{cl|Pages with Gutenberg book template using bullet}} in order to see how many templates are using "none"; with 2,400 transclusions, the category may take a few days to populate. We may need to modify those {{para|bullet|none}} pages when we fix the template. Editors are welcome to experiment in the template's sandbox and on the testcases page. – [[User:Jonesey95|Jonesey95]] ([[User talk:Jonesey95|talk]]) 22:43, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

== Italic override ==

The template needs an override to turn off italicization for works which shouldn't be italicized.--[[User:Jfhutson|JFH]] ([[User talk:Jfhutson|talk]]) 18:13, 18 May 2016 (UTC)
:Please provide a link to an example article in which this feature is needed. Thanks. – [[User:Jonesey95|Jonesey95]] ([[User talk:Jonesey95|talk]]) 18:40, 18 May 2016 (UTC)
::[[Ninety-five Theses#External links]]. See [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Text formatting#Names and titles]] --[[User:Jfhutson|JFH]] ([[User talk:Jfhutson|talk]]) 20:34, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

== Fixing links ==

It seems like gutenberg changed their URL from etext to ebooks (where I've seen it so far, including the templates doc), causing the template to break, someone with editing privileges please modify the template [[User:8ya|8ya]] ([[User talk:8ya|talk]]) 14:52, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
:I sent a note to Project Gutenberg asking them to put in a site-wide redirect. This template uses <code><nowiki>[[gutenberg:</nowiki></code> to make its links, which can't be fixed at this template. I'll ask at [[WP:VPT]]. – [[User:Jonesey95|Jonesey95]] ([[User talk:Jonesey95|talk]]) 16:19, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
::I have worked around this problem temporarily by manually inserting the new URL prefix instead of using Wikipedia's built-in prefix. – [[User:Jonesey95|Jonesey95]] ([[User talk:Jonesey95|talk]]) 16:32, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

== Add to '''doc'''? ==

<pre>{{Gutenberg
|bullet=
|ref=
|no=
|name=
|year=
|author=
|first=
|last=
|authorlink=
|origdate=
|origyear=
|chapter=
|format=
|others=
|edition=
|series=
|language=
|publisher=
|pages=
|doi=
|id=
|isbn=
|oclc=
|access-date=
|quote=
}}</pre>
: .... [[User:0mtwb9gd5wx|0mtwb9gd5wx]] ([[User talk:0mtwb9gd5wx|talk]]) 02:11, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

== Subject Parameter or Even a Template? ==

This came up because I edited the [[Sam Slick]] page to add a Project Gutenberg link to [[Thomas Chandler Haliburton]] -- which is only partly helpful since he wrote other books too. There's a "Sam Slick" subject in PG, but there is no "subject" parameter in the template that lets me point to it. Can it be added?

(That's assuming it shouldn't be a template by itself, of course, in which case I could write { {Gutenberg subject | id=9673 | name=Sam Slick} }). [[User:Jmgamble|John Gamble]] ([[User talk:Jmgamble|talk]]) 04:49, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
:You could hack the current template:
:*<code><nowiki>{{Gutenberg book|no=subject/9673|name={{noitalic|Books about Sam Slick}}}}</nowiki></code> gives
:*{{Gutenberg book|no=subject/9673|name={{noitalic|Books about Sam Slick}}|bullet=none}}
:-- [[User:Michael Bednarek|Michael Bednarek]] ([[User talk:Michael Bednarek|talk]]) 05:06, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
::That's really clever, and if I could be assured that I wouldn't be struck down by an editor's lighting bolt I might do it. [[User:Jmgamble|John Gamble]] ([[User talk:Jmgamble|talk]]) 14:25, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

== &lt;templatedata> addition ==

I have added &lt;templatedata> to the template to replace the old table for the parameters. I have filled out the information that I can, but would request that someone who was more involved in building this template fill it out further. I don't think I fully understand all of the fields, and think that it would benefit from someone who does doing some stuff with it. [[User:ACB Smith|<span style="color:Black;">'''Smith'''</span>]][[User talk:ACB Smith|<span style="color:Black; font-size:50%">(talk)</span>]] 11:58, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
:I have restored the actual documentation and tidied the TemplateData section. TD is computer code for the Visual Editor.  – [[User:Jonesey95|Jonesey95]] ([[User talk:Jonesey95|talk]]) 16:28, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
::Can you explain a little more about your reasoning? Visual Editor headaches were what prompted me to add the TD, but it displays sufficiently similarly to the old parameters table (and in fact has more information) such that it serves the same purpose as the old parameters table above it, especially since that parameters table wasn't filled out and the note about preferred variables in bold is moot given that none have more than one variable. Also, that parameters table and the example below are missing several of the parameters available in the template itself. Given that the majority of use is going to be simple, which already has copy/paste templates above, what's the benefit of repeating some (but not all) of the information above? [[User:ACB Smith|<span style="color:Black;">'''Smith'''</span>]][[User talk:ACB Smith|<span style="color:Black; font-size:50%">(talk)</span>]] 17:09, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
:::Thank you for adding the TemplateData; it will help editors who use the Visual Editor. TemplateData is not documentation. It happens to be stored on the /doc page for most templates, but it is a different block of code with specific formatting and significant limitations (no wikilinks or wikitext, for example). It is fine to duplicate information from the actual documentation in the TemplateData section. If useful parameters are missing from the documentation, removing the documentation does not help; information about them should be added instead. – [[User:Jonesey95|Jonesey95]] ([[User talk:Jonesey95|talk]]) 20:24, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
::::Oh, interesting. I'd always assumed that because it displays as documentation, it did count as documentation.
::::On that note, do you have an understanding of how the different author name fields interact? [[User:ACB Smith|<span style="color:Black;">'''Smith'''</span>]][[User talk:ACB Smith|<span style="color:Black; font-size:50%">(talk)</span>]] 12:46, 24 January 2025 (UTC)
:::::It appears that {{para|last}} is preferred over {{para|author}}, and that {{para|first}} is displayed only if {{para|last}} is present. You can add to the testcases page to be sure. – [[User:Jonesey95|Jonesey95]] ([[User talk:Jonesey95|talk]]) 18:54, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

== Italics ==

As discussed a few years back, is it possible to add a parameter that disables the italics?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:ISFDB_title Template:ISFDB title] allows short stories that are linked to using the template to appear with inverted commas rather than italics.

See for example [[The_Dream_Snake#External_links|here]].

Thanks.

[[User:McPhail|McPhail]] ([[User talk:McPhail|talk]]) 16:21, 7 March 2025 (UTC)
:{{done}}. Set {{para|italics|no}} as needed. – [[User:Jonesey95|Jonesey95]] ([[User talk:Jonesey95|talk]]) 16:52, 7 March 2025 (UTC)
::Thank you. -- [[User:Michael Bednarek|Michael Bednarek]] ([[User talk:Michael Bednarek|talk]]) 02:02, 8 March 2025 (UTC)
::Thanks! [[User:McPhail|McPhail]] ([[User talk:McPhail|talk]]) 22:34, 9 March 2025 (UTC)
'''Comment:''' {{ping|User:Jonesey95}} It's still better to fix the new parameter, because quotation marks aren't displayed properly. For example, compare {{tl|ISFDB title}} (short=yes) with {{tl|Gutenberg book}} (italics=no):
* {{ISFDB title|40961|short=yes}}
* {{Gutenberg book|32032|italics=no}}
Please note that quotation marks are inseparable from the name in similar templates.--[[User:Russian Rocky|Russian Rocky]] ([[User talk:Russian Rocky|talk]]) 01:44, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
:Feel free to change the sandbox and show the improvements on the testcases page. The most recent change broke formatting and caused syntax errors in cases where the title parameter value either started or ended with italic markup. – [[User:Jonesey95|Jonesey95]] ([[User talk:Jonesey95|talk]]) 01:49, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
::It broke formatting because "|name=An Essay on Criticism ''by Alexander Pope''" uses italics. The template still doesn't work correctly in [[Harmony Compiler]]:
::*{{gutenberg|no=7409 | name=An Essay on Criticism ''by Alexander Pope'' |bullet=none}}--[[User:Russian Rocky|Russian Rocky]] ([[User talk:Russian Rocky|talk]]) 02:05, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
:::Well that one was just broken, GIGO. I have fixed it. I did not make a note of the other syntax errors caused by the recent change, but there were a few dozen of them in the Linter errors lists. – [[User:Jonesey95|Jonesey95]] ([[User talk:Jonesey95|talk]]) 02:30, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

== Gutenberg Canada ==

Given there is a Gutenberg_book template, and a Gutenberg Australia template, is there any scope to create one for [https://gutenberg.ca/ebooks/ Gutenberg Canada]? [[User:McPhail|McPhail]] ([[User talk:McPhail|talk]]) 13:41, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

== Proposed change PAGENAME -> PAGENAMEBASE ==

I propose we (myself or someone else) edit this template to change <nowiki>{{PAGENAME}}</nowiki> to <nowiki>{{PAGENAMEBASE}}</nowiki>. This means that trailing parentheticals will be stripped, so "''Novel Name'' (novel)" would simply become "''Novel Name''" in the template. I've used this for [[Template:StandardEbooks]] to great effect, and I don't think the change should break any of the existing uses of the template. [[User:ACB Smith|<span style="color:Black;">'''Smith'''</span>]][[User talk:ACB Smith|<span style="color:Black; font-size:50%">(talk)</span>]] 10:03, 4 August 2025 (UTC)
:Do you have an example of a page where this change would be helpful? – [[User:Jonesey95|Jonesey95]] ([[User talk:Jonesey95|talk]]) 13:14, 4 August 2025 (UTC)
::Yes - look at the external links section of [[Saint Joan (play)]]. This is perhaps a smidge artificial, as I was the one to add it to that page, and I could have added the name field, but it's an example of a place where I shouldn't have to do so because the template should be able to handle it by itself. The link above it, made from the StandardEbooks template, uses <nowiki>{{PAGENAMEBASE}}</nowiki> and thus doesn't have that problem. [[User:ACB Smith|<span style="color:Black;">'''Smith'''</span>]][[User talk:ACB Smith|<span style="color:Black; font-size:50%">(talk)</span>]] 13:05, 5 August 2025 (UTC)
:::Thanks for the example. This seems like a helpful change that probably (maybe) won't break anything. I have implemented it. Other editors are welcome to revert or propose a new change if this change breaks existing template transclusions. – [[User:Jonesey95|Jonesey95]] ([[User talk:Jonesey95|talk]]) 14:19, 5 August 2025 (UTC)
::::Thanks, Jonesey! I come across a lot of Gutenberg links in my editing, and I'll keep an eye out for any unexpected effects. [[User:ACB Smith|<span style="color:Black;">'''Smith'''</span>]][[User talk:ACB Smith|<span style="color:Black; font-size:50%">(talk)</span>]] 09:46, 8 August 2025 (UTC)