Talk:The Works of Kim Stanley Robinson
From The Kim Stanley Robinson Encyclopedia
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Science In The Capital
Can someone provide a source verifying that this is the official name of the current series? I've seen it referred to this way for a while but I don't remember it ever coming from an official source. As far as I know it's just based on the old Amazon.com placeholders that called some of the novels Science In The Capital before their actual titles were finalized. But then, there was also a placeholder called The Capital Code, and there was a period when people were calling the series that. I'd like to know for sure that either one of those titles is actually the title of the trilogy/novel before calling it that. Otherwise, I think we should come up with a name for it the way fans came up with RGB Mars (though I prefer Mars trilogy or just plain Mars), like 40/50/60 or something, and not base its name on Amazon.com placeholders. thoreaubred 21:01, 30 July 2006 (MDT)
- The pre-publishing listings are all there is to it. The name "Science in the Capital" comes from these, and was also mentioned in prints of TYORAS too. "Capital Code" came later I think. But there is really nothing official in any series/trilogy name. Mars can be called Mars Series with The Martians. The earlier series has many names, like "The 3 Californias", "The Orange County Trilogy", "The Californias Trilogy"... We can pick any of these, but it's best to settle on a canon. I vote for 3 Californias, Mars Trilogy and Science in the Capital. --Orodromeus 08:48, 3 August 2006 (MDT)
- My only concern is that Science in the Capital was a working title and was used as a placeholder, the way The Years of Rice and Salt was listed early on as A World Without Europe, and is not actually considered a name of the series by the author or publisher. Unless we can find someone like KSR or his publishers referring to the books as the Science in the Capital series, I don't want to call them that based on an Amazon.com placeholder alone. I would rather make up a fan name for the series like 40/50/60 the fans basically named Mars the Mars Trilogy or RGB Mars. thoreaubred 18:56, 3 August 2006 (MDT)
- Ok I can see your point. I'm all for coming up for a new title. Coming up with things is a trait of influential works and online communities are no exception. I'm not the best qualified to baptise this series since I've not read them, but here's some suggestions: The NSF Trilogy, The Climate Change Trilogy, The Science and Politics Trilogy, The 40/50/60 Trilogy, The Global Cooling Trilogy... Science in the Capital or Capital Code isn't exactly appropriate since not all of it takes place in Washington DC right?--Orodromeus 03:10, 4 August 2006 (MDT)
- My only concern is that Science in the Capital was a working title and was used as a placeholder, the way The Years of Rice and Salt was listed early on as A World Without Europe, and is not actually considered a name of the series by the author or publisher. Unless we can find someone like KSR or his publishers referring to the books as the Science in the Capital series, I don't want to call them that based on an Amazon.com placeholder alone. I would rather make up a fan name for the series like 40/50/60 the fans basically named Mars the Mars Trilogy or RGB Mars. thoreaubred 18:56, 3 August 2006 (MDT)
- It does take place mostly in Washington, D.C. I think Science In The Capital is a fine name, if that's the official name. I just want to find an additional source and not base the assumption solely on Amazon.com placeholders. If it does turn out to be the official name, I have nothing against it. Obviously KSR likes the phrase, as it is also the name of a chapter in Antarctica. It's a good phrase. Let's just make sure it's acually the name of the series. thoreaubred 04:01, 4 August 2006 (MDT)
- As I mentioned above, The Capital Code was another placeholder, but it was even earlier than Science In The Capital. There was even cover art made for it, trying to make it look like some kind of John Grisham-style thriller, with a man running with a briefcase and everything (actually I wish there was still a good image of that cover art floating around so we could include it on the site as interesting trivia about how the publishers were determined to market these books as "thrillers" from the beginning.) If anything, "The Capital Code" is even less trustworthy than "Science In The Capital" simply because it was earlier, and the placeholders on sites like Amazon.co.uk changed from the former to the latter. But early on, some people began calling the series one, and some people the other. Meanwhile the question is: is either one even the official name of the series, or was everyone just so eager to give a name to the series that they started calling it those things before it was even published, and they stuck? thoreaubred 23:36, 6 August 2006 (MDT)
- Yes, that's the tentative thriller-like cover was talking about. It's on my TYORAS copy and it's described as Capital Code series, not SitC as I mentioned bove. Anyway, what I don't understand, threaubred, is what you mean by "official"? The name KSR has used for the series? Well it's just "the new volume in a series feturing global warming" and such, no mention of SitC or CC. If Amazon lists it as SitC today, is that official for you? Me, I could care less. Since I haven't hearkd KSR say otherwise, I say let's adopt one name and make it canon. I listened another audio interview with KSR yesterday, and SitC seems to fit pretty well. --Orodromeus 03:01, 7 August 2006 (MDT)
- As I mentioned above, The Capital Code was another placeholder, but it was even earlier than Science In The Capital. There was even cover art made for it, trying to make it look like some kind of John Grisham-style thriller, with a man running with a briefcase and everything (actually I wish there was still a good image of that cover art floating around so we could include it on the site as interesting trivia about how the publishers were determined to market these books as "thrillers" from the beginning.) If anything, "The Capital Code" is even less trustworthy than "Science In The Capital" simply because it was earlier, and the placeholders on sites like Amazon.co.uk changed from the former to the latter. But early on, some people began calling the series one, and some people the other. Meanwhile the question is: is either one even the official name of the series, or was everyone just so eager to give a name to the series that they started calling it those things before it was even published, and they stuck? thoreaubred 23:36, 6 August 2006 (MDT)
- I guess I didn't understand you above. You're saying that your copy of TYORAS has a promo for the next book, and it's called The Capital Code? Or is it called Forty Signs of Rain and it says it's part of a series called the capital code? If it's only the former, that's just another case of the publisher's early working title for the book being marketing before the book even had a final title.
- What I mean by official is that either the publisher or author has referred to the series as "Science in the Capital" or "The Capital Code" since the publication of the first book. Amazon isn't enough for me, because they like many other sites on the internet could just be running with the placeholder names even though neither the publishers nor the author have said that those are the name of the series.
- The thing is, for all I know KSR has confirmed one of those as the name of the series in interviews, but I just don't remember. But I read and listen to his interviews from time to time for research and notes, so if he does confirm it, I'll come across it eventually. I think for now it's okay to keep using Science in the Capital until we have a better idea of whether it's official or not. We don't need to declare it official or not official today. thoreaubred 03:12, 7 August 2006 (MDT)
- Ok, so we agree on our definition of official. But for all I remember KSR never referred to them as SitC or CC or any title in fact, other than "ongoing series". A post-volume 3 interview may settle that. But my memory could be wrong. What's weird about my TYORAS copy is that the Capital Code (with its preliminary man-with-briefcase-running cover) is advertised on the inside cover, and then there's a full page advertisment of 40SoR at the end of the novel after Book X, with synopsis and teaser comments. I guess someone forgot to take off the Capital Code ad when the reprint with the 40SoR page was done. --Orodromeus 06:27, 7 August 2006 (MDT)
- Is the Capitol Code image in color or black and white, and how big is it? In any case, do you have access to a scanner? It would be good to have an image of that cover art, even if a bad one, and it seems to have vanished completely from the internet. thoreaubred 06:53, 7 August 2006 (MDT)
- Small, b&w, in bad shape because of the embossed letters from the other side of the cover (The Years of Rice and Salt is embossed). Can't be used, sorry. --Orodromeus 07:04, 7 August 2006 (MDT)
- Phew! I finally found an image. After not finding it on the image searches of Google, Yahoo, and AltaVista, I managed to find it on an obscure site called picsearch.com. It's small, but it's better than nothing. Having this image has reminded me to write something about the way KSR's publishers try to market his books in various ways. It's pretty bizarre how determined they were to market these novels as thrillers, which they are not. KSR originally wanted to call at least one of them Abrupt Climate Change, but the publishers didn't like it. True story.
- thoreaubred 07:46, 7 August 2006 (MDT)
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Chronological, or grouped by series? / General appearance discussion
Should the list of novels in this article be grouped by series as they are now, putting them out of the order they were written, or should it just be a straight chronological bibliograpy? If we're going to use this as one of the alternat mainpages, what I would like to do eventually is have little tables for each work, with links to categories in the tables. Perhaps we could do that, and also have a straight chronological list, so that the series are grouped in their tables on one part of the page but there is also a chronological list that is easy to see. thoreaubred 20:41, 2 August 2006 (MDT)
- Go right ahead, sounds fine.
- I'm thinking that this mainpage will be the default mainpage for the works that don't have their own dedicated section. I see no reason why, in time, that each of the major fictional universes wouldn't have their own portal/subsection just like Mars. It's just a matter of time and effort to write the articles for them. I intend to work my way through the rest of KSR's catalogue in due course, and I'll probably make notes as I go, so these other 'worlds' can be explored as thoroughly as Mars. NB. A long-term project, of course. Carlos 21:05, 2 August 2006 (MDT)
Nice! Carlos 21:36, 2 August 2006 (MDT)
- Thanks. I was just trying to visualize the idea; I'm going to do more work on it later.
- Do you know why there is space between some of the tables but not all of them? (i.e. there is no space between Science in the Capital and Other novels, but there is space between Mars and Three Californias.) I must have spent an hour tweaking things trying to figure out what the hell is casuing that. thoreaubred 22:09, 2 August 2006 (MDT)
- It looks ok in my browser currently. Have you fixed it? Make sure your screen resolution/browser window is big enough, if it goes below a certain size required for all the info to fit properly, weird things sometimes happen. BTW, FYI, I'm using Firefox. I hope you all are, too. Or at least Opera. Anyone still using IE deserves all the problems they get, IMO.
- Hehe, I don't want to get into a controversial and/or off-topic discussion, but I still use IE simply because I never have had problems with it, and when I use Firefox on other people's computers I do have a lot of problems (crashes, etc.) Way back in the day I vehemently preferred Netscape over IE (I kind of tuned out the fact that Netscape crashed every 5 minutes) until one day I was using IE to access a site Netscape couldn't access and I suddenly realized I had gone hours without my browser crashing, and I was seduced.
- Back on topic, I guess some of these little visual problems I'm having must be on my end. I might give Firefox a try, and see if I can live with it. But also keep in mind that it's good to know how the site will look to those still using IE. thoreaubred 22:24, 2 August 2006 (MDT)
- You're absolutely correct, of course, but I just have an instinctive negative reaction towards a browser developer that so flagrantly ignores agreed-upon web standards just because they think they're big and powerful enough not to have to. Try building a few sites using correct CSS conventions and see if you don't hate IE by the end of it. And the amount of IE-specific hacks and workarounds called in the CSS reference section of these very wiki pages should be enough to make anyone's blood boil. Just look at 'em!! Ok, rant over now. Carlos 23:18, 2 August 2006 (MDT)
- It looks ok in my browser currently. Have you fixed it? Make sure your screen resolution/browser window is big enough, if it goes below a certain size required for all the info to fit properly, weird things sometimes happen. BTW, FYI, I'm using Firefox. I hope you all are, too. Or at least Opera. Anyone still using IE deserves all the problems they get, IMO.
- To answer your original question - I don't know exactly, as it's looking fine for me now. However, bear in mind that the four 'columns' are not tables, but rather cells within one bigger table, so their padding and spacing is determined by 'cellpadding' and 'cellmargin'. Also, note that these tables that we have copy-pasted from everywhere seem to use a mixture of standard HTML table markup and CSS markup (within the 'style=' parameter. I think the CSS parameters take precedence, and it's certainly a more powerful method though it can be confusing, and it's a world of hurt if it gets too comlplicated. Carlos 22:49, 2 August 2006 (MDT)
- I've just come home from work and fired the pages up in IE, and I see the problem you're talking about. Methinks IE is not following the rules again, surprise, surprise. Anyway, I'll take a look at the code and see if I can figure it out. Carlos 05:17, 3 August 2006 (MDT)
- Maybe we should just pick a different kind of table(s) to use. This kind just seems more confusing than it's worth. thoreaubred 06:21, 3 August 2006 (MDT)
- Update: I've fixed the layout over at The_Mars_Trilogy_Encyclopedia (I hope). You wouldn't freaking believe it - For some mysterious reason, in IE, when the picure was displayed in the left box it messed up the cell spacing for the cell. Absolutely ridiculous, and only in IE you'll note! The solution/hack: I put the image in its own nested table within the cell. Completely stupid, and very ugly practice, but welcome to the world of making webpages display correctly in fucking Internet Explorer.
- Regarding this page, there is something similiar but not identical going on, but I can't really know for sure until we put the real images in rather than the placeholders. Carlos 06:26, 3 August 2006 (MDT)
- For the record, The_Mars_Trilogy_Encyclopedia always looked fine in IE on my computer. It was only this one that was/is having problems with the spacing between the cells. thoreaubred 06:31, 3 August 2006 (MDT)
- Ok, now the images are in, the margining seems OK in IE for me. You? The way the text wraps leaves a bit to be desired though. Carlos 07:33, 3 August 2006 (MDT)
- Everything looks good to me now. Thanks for doing the covers! thoreaubred 19:02, 3 August 2006 (MDT)
- Ok, now the images are in, the margining seems OK in IE for me. You? The way the text wraps leaves a bit to be desired though. Carlos 07:33, 3 August 2006 (MDT)
- For the record, The_Mars_Trilogy_Encyclopedia always looked fine in IE on my computer. It was only this one that was/is having problems with the spacing between the cells. thoreaubred 06:31, 3 August 2006 (MDT)
- Maybe we should just pick a different kind of table(s) to use. This kind just seems more confusing than it's worth. thoreaubred 06:21, 3 August 2006 (MDT)
- I've just come home from work and fired the pages up in IE, and I see the problem you're talking about. Methinks IE is not following the rules again, surprise, surprise. Anyway, I'll take a look at the code and see if I can figure it out. Carlos 05:17, 3 August 2006 (MDT)
- It's nice like this, by series on top and chronological below. There should be a way to have the cells of the Series to have a fixed width so that there's a similar display no matter the browser's window's size. style="margin:**px;" maybe? This is not CSS or HTML is it? --Orodromeus 08:54, 3 August 2006 (MDT)
- To answer your original question - I don't know exactly, as it's looking fine for me now. However, bear in mind that the four 'columns' are not tables, but rather cells within one bigger table, so their padding and spacing is determined by 'cellpadding' and 'cellmargin'. Also, note that these tables that we have copy-pasted from everywhere seem to use a mixture of standard HTML table markup and CSS markup (within the 'style=' parameter. I think the CSS parameters take precedence, and it's certainly a more powerful method though it can be confusing, and it's a world of hurt if it gets too comlplicated. Carlos 22:49, 2 August 2006 (MDT)
- On the topic of the chronological list below, I would like to possibly convert its table to colums, with each current header (Novels, Collections, etc.) in a separate column, so that it fills the page from left to right rather than being a long vertical list on just the left side of the page. thoreaubred 19:07, 3 August 2006 (MDT)
- Yep. See if you can get create the columns within the one box though, so you'll need no border between cells, and the box will have to define the table and not the cell. Carlos 19:15, 3 August 2006 (MDT)
- On the topic of the chronological list below, I would like to possibly convert its table to colums, with each current header (Novels, Collections, etc.) in a separate column, so that it fills the page from left to right rather than being a long vertical list on just the left side of the page. thoreaubred 19:07, 3 August 2006 (MDT)
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Book cover images
Carlos, did you get the images for the Mars covers from a particular website, where I could conveniently get images for the other book covers in the same size? thoreaubred 01:17, 3 August 2006 (MDT)
- Google Image Search. Found the biggest ones I could then scaled them to a fixed size in Photoshop. Amazon usually have pretty good ones too, though. Carlos 04:53, 3 August 2006 (MDT)
- I see. I was hoping you had found them at that size so that I could easily find the others in the same size, to keep them consistent. Resizing them all seems a bit tedious. Perhaps we should pick a site that has them all in a small size like that (like Amazon.com) and use all the ones from there. Or you could continue do to what you did with the Mars books for the rest of his books, if you prefer doing it that way (if I do it I'll probably just gets the ones from Amazon.com and replace those with Amazon ones to keep them consistent.) thoreaubred 04:57, 3 August 2006 (MDT)
- Happy to do the re-sizing. I'd prefer that anyway, as even Amazon's ones aren't always consistent. Plus the colour and quality varies substantially on Amazon, so I'd prefer to tidy them up and make them consistent. But if you can find a big version online of each one, make a note, or upload the file, because a bigger starting image will yield better quality once edited. Carlos 05:06, 3 August 2006 (MDT)
- I see. I was hoping you had found them at that size so that I could easily find the others in the same size, to keep them consistent. Resizing them all seems a bit tedious. Perhaps we should pick a site that has them all in a small size like that (like Amazon.com) and use all the ones from there. Or you could continue do to what you did with the Mars books for the rest of his books, if you prefer doing it that way (if I do it I'll probably just gets the ones from Amazon.com and replace those with Amazon ones to keep them consistent.) thoreaubred 04:57, 3 August 2006 (MDT)
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Thoughts
- Are the Science in the Capital (if that's what we're calling them?) stories set within one universe? This will affect whether they will have a common character/location set, or whether they are all distinct.
- Likewise with the 3Calis. As I understand it, they are each set in parallelrealities, which makes character lists rather complicated. I'm not saying we need to figure out how to handle this yet, just that it's something we'll have to deal with later when someone undertakes the job of documenting these works.
- Carlos 18:44, 3 August 2006 (MDT)
- The SitC books are indeed one universe (KSR has even been calling them volumes of one novel--uh oh!) I only put Characters and Locations under each of them because I was copying and pasting from Three Californias. I was putting together a very rough visualization of my idea for the page, so definitely feel free to change things like that. Mars and SitC should have only one category menu each. Three Californias are alternate futures and should probably by treated as three separate universes, but if for some reason we want to treat them as one universe we could probably make that work as well. thoreaubred 19:00, 3 August 2006 (MDT)
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Short stories
Do you want to list all the short stories here as well, or put them on their own page, called List of Short Stories or something?
Also, they say here that Escape From Kathmandu is a collection of stories rather than a novel. Move it down?? Carlos 22:32, 3 August 2006 (MDT)
- Short story options:
- 1. Every short story has its own article, and therefore we list all of them on the Works page.
- 2. Uncollected stories have their own articles while collected stories are grouped on collection pages, therefore we link to collections in one column and only uncollected stories in another column.
- 3. No short story has its own article; there is one article with short summaries of all the short stories. We link to that article, but probably also to each collection.
- I'm actually not sure which of these options I prefer. Maybe we should start writing up descriptions of all the short stories and see how much content it is.
- I'd be inclined to go with option 1, but I'm not sure how much info about the stories we are going to be able to find. If there's only one or two sentences of info for each one, then Option3 would be best. Carlos 23:21, 3 August 2006 (MDT)
- Definitely option 1. Even if they're short articles we can't call this an Encyclopedia if it doesn't include everything. The page for the published short story collection will have publishing details and a series of links. Then for the individual stories pages, I was thinking of something like this, a table at the bottom with 'previous', 'next' and 'part of' links.--Orodromeus 03:10, 4 August 2006 (MDT)
- But even if we don't give them each its own article doesn't mean we're not including them. If all we have is a three-sentence plot summary of most of them, wouldn't it make more sense to have them grouped under headers in either articles about the collections or one article about all the short fiction? The thing is that KSR is a novelist at heart and he only did short fiction early on as most writers do for practice whether they even like the short story form or not. Robinson has made comments suggesting that he's not that fond of the form, and is far more partial to the novel. Therefore, we're not going to be tearing his short stories apart with all kinds of research and analysis; we'll probably just be summarizing what they're about in most cases. thoreaubred 04:01, 4 August 2006 (MDT)
- Escape From Kathmandu - The thing is that it's a collection of previous stories/novellas with the same characters, but I believe there is new content as well that was not previously published. This makes it the same as Icehenge, which was a previously published novella (or two?) expanded into a novel with new content. Icehenge is generally considered a novel, so in my opinion Escape should follow the precedent and also be considered a novel. I've never seen any official word from the author or publishers as to whether either book is officially a novel, so it's up to us to make the call until we find something more official.
- Let's avoid looking to Wikipedia as a source by which to verify our own information. That's one article on a general encyclopedia; this is a KSR encyclopedia edited only by serious KSR fans--who do you think is more authorative? If you have a question like this one, I think we have enough knowledgable people here that you could just ask on a Talk page and not even have to bother looking on WIkipedia. After all, to look to Wikipedia for verification of our own knowledge/discussion/reasearch is to defeat the purpose of even creating our own wiki in the first place. thoreaubred 23:09, 3 August 2006 (MDT)
- Actaully, I take back my statement that there is no word from the publisher about Icehenge. On my Tor copy, at the top of the front cover it says "The Award-Winning Author's First Martian Novel". As for Escape From Kathmandu, the best I could find is in the Acknowledgements, where Robinson refers to "...while I was writing the book...". The combination of him referring to "writing the book" as well as the Icehenge precedent seems like enough to me to consider Escape a novel. thoreaubred 23:17, 3 August 2006 (MDT)
- "If you have a question like this one, I think we have enough knowledgable people here that you could just ask on a Talk page and not even have to bother looking on WIkipedia"
- I thought that's what I did? Although I wouldn't have even asked the question had I not seen the conflicting info on WP. And considering that they had a brief summary of the work, whereas we only had it mentioned in a list, I thought that was reasonable grounds for clarification. Eventually we hope to be the authorative source of KSR info, but I don't think we're quite there yet. Carlos 23:21, 3 August 2006 (MDT)
- Sorry, I probably could have phrased that better. That is what you did, indeed. My only point is that this is a case where probably one editor on Wikipedia put that statement on there and there wasn't even discussion about it, so it's one random person's claim but since it's on Wikipedia is causes you to question our information here. Simply by asking the question here yould get you multiple people's knowledge about it without even having to be confused by questionable information from Wikipedia. By saying "Wikipedia says this... should we change what we currently have?" you're asking in a way that suggests that Wikipedia's current information, not ours, is the default. Whereas simply asking "Does anyone know whether Escape From Kathmandu is officially a novel or a collection?" would get the job done without giving undue weight to Wikipedia before any of us have even weighed in. After all, this case is a perfect example where Wikipedia is inconsistent in calling Icehenge a novel and calling Escape a collection on the same page. Wikipedia's article on KSR is messy, and if I had more respect for Wikipedia I would improve it, but I would rather just direct my energy here and not even bother with Wikipedia. thoreaubred 23:37, 3 August 2006 (MDT)
- I think you're too stuck with the details here. Asimov's "I, Robot", like "Escape from Kathmandu" I guess, consists of short stories taking place in the same universe, shown chronologically. But I wouldn't call I, Robot a novel: it's a short stories collection, closely linked, but a short stories collection nevertheless. TYORAS is similar but there was never a debate that this is one novel (and its Books are numbered). Likewise, I'd have individual pages for each short story collection and a global Kathmandu page with the overarching characters, places, themes referenced. If the debate is over where should we put it in the bibliography, I'd say in the short story collection. Has any of us read this one? Lol!--Orodromeus 03:10, 4 August 2006 (MDT)
- Sorry, I probably could have phrased that better. That is what you did, indeed. My only point is that this is a case where probably one editor on Wikipedia put that statement on there and there wasn't even discussion about it, so it's one random person's claim but since it's on Wikipedia is causes you to question our information here. Simply by asking the question here yould get you multiple people's knowledge about it without even having to be confused by questionable information from Wikipedia. By saying "Wikipedia says this... should we change what we currently have?" you're asking in a way that suggests that Wikipedia's current information, not ours, is the default. Whereas simply asking "Does anyone know whether Escape From Kathmandu is officially a novel or a collection?" would get the job done without giving undue weight to Wikipedia before any of us have even weighed in. After all, this case is a perfect example where Wikipedia is inconsistent in calling Icehenge a novel and calling Escape a collection on the same page. Wikipedia's article on KSR is messy, and if I had more respect for Wikipedia I would improve it, but I would rather just direct my energy here and not even bother with Wikipedia. thoreaubred 23:37, 3 August 2006 (MDT)
- Actaully, I take back my statement that there is no word from the publisher about Icehenge. On my Tor copy, at the top of the front cover it says "The Award-Winning Author's First Martian Novel". As for Escape From Kathmandu, the best I could find is in the Acknowledgements, where Robinson refers to "...while I was writing the book...". The combination of him referring to "writing the book" as well as the Icehenge precedent seems like enough to me to consider Escape a novel. thoreaubred 23:17, 3 August 2006 (MDT)
- But what about Icehenge, which is also a group of novellas but is referred to on its cover as a novel? What's most important to me is consistency, and the problem is that Icehenge has always been widely referred to as a novel. If Icehenge is a novel, Kathmandu should be a novel, that's what matters to me. And again, consider the evidence of the phrase "while I was writing the book" in the Acknowledgements for the author's possible view on this. If it's a collection of novellas written separately at diffrent times, would he refer to "while I was writing the book"? To answer your last question, I have read it, and I readily admit that it is four different stories, if that's your question. thoreaubred 04:01, 4 August 2006 (MDT)
- A side question: did someone put the 'Contents' table & links on the top of this page or is it made automatically when the number of headers is bigger than, say, 4? --Orodromeus 03:10, 4 August 2006 (MDT)
- It's automatic, but I think it can be removed if you don't like it there. I do like it for talk pages though. thoreaubred 04:01, 4 August 2006 (MDT)
- To suppress (which you really only need to do on fancy formatted pages, add __NOTOC__ . To force it (when less than 4), add __FORCETOC__. Carlos 06:33, 4 August 2006 (MDT)
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Complete List table
I'm having trouble figuring out a way for the Complete List to be in its own table at the bottom with various columns going across the page. When I have two columns like right now, the text in the columns is vertically centered so they don't line up at the top. I don't know how to fix that. So if anyone wants to play around with a better table for that, please do so. thoreaubred 22:08, 6 August 2006 (MDT)
- So you want it in a coloured box like before, but with columns like they are now? That shouldn't be too difficult. That's how I've got the "Learn how to contribute" box on the Homepage and the Site Activity box on the Mars page. Maybe take a look at that table code, but I'll take a look at it myself later on when I've got some time. Carlos 23:24, 6 August 2006 (MDT)
- You're the table master around here, so if you could take a look at it that would be great. I had enough trouble with those colored tables without trying to make multi-column versions. When programming/markup language gets to a certain level of complicatedness is when my computer literacy starts to break down. thoreaubred 23:31, 6 August 2006 (MDT)
- I'm finding them a bit confusing too, as it seems to involve a wierd mish-mash of HTML, CSS and Wikimarkup, and you never quite know which one is going to override which. Trial and error, pretty much. Carlos 03:27, 7 August 2006 (MDT)
- You're the table master around here, so if you could take a look at it that would be great. I had enough trouble with those colored tables without trying to make multi-column versions. When programming/markup language gets to a certain level of complicatedness is when my computer literacy starts to break down. thoreaubred 23:31, 6 August 2006 (MDT)
- Hope it's better now. Carlos 05:16, 8 August 2006 (MDT)
- Looks great, man. I don't know what we would do without you! thoreaubred 13:48, 8 August 2006 (MDT)
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Series cover layout
Another thing I was thinking is that it might be good to have the covers of the "trilogies" in the top tables in one row at the top of each table, with their titles under them. That would leave more room in the rest of the table for a list of categories. Alas, this is another thing I don't know how to do in these colored tables. thoreaubred 02:32, 7 August 2006 (MDT)
- I'm not sure I quite get what you mean. Could you do a quick mockup with simple graphics or MSWord tables or something just to clarify how you envisage this? Carlos 03:31, 7 August 2006 (MDT)
- Like this, though the exact position of the categories here is arbitrary. The only important thing is to show what I mean about the covers being at the top, so there is room for the category list below:
- thoreaubred 03:52, 7 August 2006 (MDT)
- Here's another scenario, if we have separate categories for each California book. If they share categories, and in the case of Mars and Science in the Capital as well, there would just be one column of categories on the right instead of three.
- thoreaubred 04:02, 7 August 2006 (MDT)
