Teb728

Contact me at Wikipedia

I seldom visit Wiktionary any more. So if you want to contact me, I recommend using my Wikipedia talk page —teb728 t c 04:27, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

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Hello, and welcome to Wiktionary. Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

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Gothic transliteration...

...is no substitute for using the original script. Wiktionary's policy is ‘all words in all languages’. There are plenty of good free Unicode fonts which support Gothic, see w:Wikipedia:Gothic_Unicode_Fonts for some examples. Widsith 06:21, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

OE verbs

Thanks for all your help with the strong verbs. And thanks also for picking up the Wiktionary converntions so quickly. One minor point with the Pronunciations, a decision was taken a while back to represent English [ɹ] and American [ɻ] both as /r/. (Consequently we've been doing the same with OE.) I argued against this at the time, but it's important to maintain the standards agreed by the community, at least until it comes under debate again. Widsith 08:19, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Templates

Why are you replacing the Unicode templates with Latinx ones? Latinx doesn't display bold ǣ properly, or at least it doesn't on my browser. Widsith 16:49, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

The short answer is that on my browser the Old/Middle English characters display as boxes with {{Unicode}} (or with no template).

The specific reason is that of the fonts listed in {{Unicode}}, my system has Arial Unicode MS and Microsoft Sans Serif. (This is a rather common configuration for users of MS Windows and MS Word.) And since Arial Unicode MS appears before Microsoft Sans Serif in the template's font list, it is the font chosen for {{Unicode}} on my browser. But Arial Unicode MS does not support the Latin Extended-B range well.

I asked at Wikipedia for an admin to change the order of the fonts, but instead a guru there created w:Templates:latinx. When I started working at Wiktionary, I copied it here. Actually to work the same as at Wikipedia, it needs support in Wikimedia:Common.css. With such support it affects only MSIE users. Users of other browsers like (I presume) you are unaffected by it.

I put a proposal for such support at Wiktionary:Grease pit#Classes for support of Unicode ranges. At first Connel was opposed, but I think he now sees the necessity of such a change. (See his latest comment at Wiktionary:Grease pit#Problems displaying IPA in edit & special chars boxes.) --teb728 18:34, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, you seem to know what you're talking about. But for me, the only difference is that I can't see bold ǣ anymore. Widsith 18:48, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Please be patient. If and when my proposal in the Grease pit is implemented, templates like {{Unicode}} and {{Latinx}} will affect only MSIE users. This should be what you want, assuming 1) you don't use MSIE, and 2) you don't need {{Unicode}} (as opposed to nothing) for the display you want. (On MSIE I do see a bold , in case you were worried about that.) --teb728 01:17, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

No, I still can't see it on either Safari or Mozilla Firefox. Widsith 08:23, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

How about fixing that in your monobook.css by defining: .latinx {font-family: some-appropriate-font(s);} (Don't use font-family /**/:inherit; that's a hack for IE6.)

I see you are trying to define a class="AR" -- and probably having no luck with it. The problem is that {{ARchar}} specifies a font-family, which overrides your class. The problem with that won't affect class="latinx" because {{Latinx}} no longer specifies a font-family. A change is in the works to take out the font-family from {{ARchar}} too, but that will require a change in Common.css. (BTW, you shouldn't use font-family /**/:inherit; in class="AR" (unless you are defining it only for IE6.)) --teb728 09:30, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I still can't get it to work. I don't understand how template:Unicode managed it fine if Latinx has such a problem. Widsith 10:16, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Also, what on earth have you done to the Unicode template?? It doesn't display bold macrons on any letters now...I'm getting some horrible blurry on-the-fly boldening. Same with Latinx. Widsith 10:32, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

OK, try this in your monobook.css: (It should set the font list for you for both templates to the old Unicode font list.)

.latinx { font-family: TITUS Cyberbit Basic, Code2000, Doulos SIL, Chrysanthi Unicode, Bitstream Cyberbit, Bitstream CyberBase, Bitstream Vera, Thryomanes, Gentium, GentiumAlt, Visual Geez Unicode, Lucida Grande, Tahoma, Arial Unicode MS, Microsoft Sans Serif, Lucida Sans Unicode !important; }
.Unicode { font-family: TITUS Cyberbit Basic, Code2000, Doulos SIL, Chrysanthi Unicode, Bitstream Cyberbit, Bitstream CyberBase, Bitstream Vera, Thryomanes, Gentium, GentiumAlt, Visual Geez Unicode, Lucida Grande, Tahoma, Arial Unicode MS, Microsoft Sans Serif, Lucida Sans Unicode !important; }

--teb728 21:36, 21 June 2006 (UTC) p.s. with a change I just put in {{Latinx}}, it might work with just what I told you before. --teb728 22:00, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

You are probably sick of the sight of me by now, but I still have a problem with the IPA template. Its output is now in no way different from just entering characters without the template. The biggest problem is with combining diacritical marks, which used to appear neatly over the right characters, but now hover in mid-air. In other words (plain text) /ɛ̃/ now looks the same as (Template:IPA) /ɛ̃/ to me. Any fix? Widsith 07:25, 27 June 2006 (UTC) Ah – don't worry, Stephen seems to have fixed it. Widsith 08:50, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Is it still fixed? I ask because I see that Stephen made an additionaly change which looks to me like it may undo his earlier fix. --teb728 18:51, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Widsith 19:09, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Font templates

Why have you changed the font templates, such as {{ARchar}}? I can hardly read the Arabic, Persian and Urdu now. —Stephen 01:35, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I see that {{RUchar}} is also broken now. —Stephen 01:39, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Typically browsers other than MSIE6 select fonts appropriately for the character codes. So typically font-families need to be specified only for that browser. Classes were just defined in Mediawiki:Common.css, which specify font families only for MSIE6. So, my changes to the templates were to make use of those classes. From what you say it appears that other browsers need help with fonts for Arabic style script. So I have reverted the changes in the templates for the languages you mention.

• Do you see problems also for Bengali, Kashmiri, Kurdish, Sindhi and/or Thai?
• What browser do you use?
• What problem did you see before I reverted? Wrong font? Wrong size?

--teb728 02:44, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

If I may butt in, it may be worthwhile to confirm that the browser's cache has been refreshed to pick up the new Common.css. Rod (A. Smith) 02:56, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

If Rod is right, and it is a cache problem, then كلمة will appear normal after refreshing (using only the new class). --teb728 04:36, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I’m using the latest version of Firefox in Win XP Pro. Yes, I refreshed immediately, but it didn’t make any difference. They appear in the wrong font, at least. It’s difficult to say whether there was a problem with size as well, since fonts in the Arabic script and numerous other non-Roman scripts exhibit very different sizes at the same "point-size" value. Tahoma has a large x-height, and Arabic appears large in Tahoma; in Times New Roman, the x-height is very small, and Arabic is very tiny in that font.

However, looking at the Thai, it leads me to believe that the sizing is working all right, because the Thai is large enough to read ... but it’s not in the selected font. The Bengali looks good, but that’s because it looks good on my system without any template at all. The Sindi is not only too small, like the Arabic, but many of the special Sindhi characters do not appear correctly, because only a select few fonts are capable of displaying Sindhi. The Kashmiri is tiny (meanign the wrong font), like the Arabic. The Kurdish, like the Sindhi, is not only too small (wrong font), but the special Kurdish letters do not appear correctly, since they require certain fonts. —Stephen 04:55, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

By the way, RUchar suffers from the same wrong font, and when accents are added to Russian words such as Template:RUchar, the accent mark in the wrong font is misplaced ... very high in the air and far to the right: мо́ре. —Stephen 19:30, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Latinx template

The Latinx template is supposedly fixed: it should have no effect now on browsers other than IE6. Is it working for you now? --teb728 02:58, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Ooh – yes it is. Widsith 17:02, 30 June 2006 (UTC)