Template talk:Inscription

autocategorization

If nobody opposes it, I will remove the "objects with inscriptions in "lang" categories. They do not fit well into the current category system. I'll just keep the "needing translation" maintenance categories". --Zolo (talk) 07:14, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

method

Example: Signed bottom right, in oil: Jheronimus bosch.

Example: Bottom left, on a label: No. 3225 / BABCOCK GALLERIES / 19 EAST 49TH STREET / NEW YORK.

now gives: Date bottom right in pencil:

Theo van Doesburg / 1917.

I want to add a new parameter to this tl for the way some inscriptions are added. For example "in handwriting", "in black oil", or "on a label". I thought of calling this parameter "method" to be put after pm "side". Is that ok? I could of course use the existing "description"-parameter, but as File:Theo van Doesburg 165.jpg shows, this can be a little messy. Vincent Steenberg (talk) 18:14, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Would there be any clear difference between "method" and "description". If not I dont think it should be a new parameter - the distinction between "comment" and "description" is already not that clear. However, I agree that the layout could be better, I just dont know how to have something that would look fine for all inscriptions while remaining relatively simple. --Zolo (talk) 08:46, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

sorry for my late response, but I overlooked this discussion. The problems is that when I use "description" I have to fill in any particulars by hand often using tl LangSwitch. This is a little time consuming and also the description is given after the inscription itself. So with a new "method"-parameter this could be put nicely in between the other parameters. For example: "Verso, on a label:" or "Signature bottom right in oil:". Vincent Steenberg (talk) 13:39, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

If I understand you well, the "method" parameter should have a something similar to {{Inscription/label}} to avoid langSwtiches. It can be done but the list of methodes seems potentially infinite. About placing it before the text of the inscription text proper, it would indeed look better the after it in many cases, but maybe not in all languages, and since there is no clear-cut distinction between "description" and "method" I still find it a bit confusing to add a new parameter. The list of frequently used methods could also be used in the description parameter. --Zolo (talk) 08:50, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

ok, how about using "method" in the strictest possible sense. I mean, how many ways are there to apply an inscription? I can think of inscriptions "in oil", "in ink", "in pencil", "engraved", "chiseled" and, like I said earlier, "on a label" (see examples). Maybe we could use {{Technique}} for this? Besides, "method" should not be confused with "form". So I don't mean "in Gothic letters" or "rotated 90°". Moreover, I think, there will still be plenty of use for parameter description, for example for particulars as "Added later", "apocryphal", "fake", etc. Vincent Steenberg (talk) 13:20, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

There are still many possibilities (theoritacally it could be "on a label, in oil"), but if we can make use of {{Technique}} it could make sense). I will try to figure out how to do it, but the "in" may well be a translation headache (or you can add it if you see a way to do it. ). --Zolo (talk) 10:23, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

ok, thanks, I will try. I think you could use a "switch" for that and let tl technique do the work in the background. If the list of methods gets too long, let me know. I'll try to keep it simple. Vincent Steenberg (talk) 18:25, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

I have added it here. It calls {{Technique}} and adds "in" in English, which means it will not work well for "on a label" and this kind of things (I think, it is potentially simpler to add "on a label" in the position parameter). I am not sure the "in" will work well, if not I will change it for parentheses. -Zolo (talk) 17:49, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Changed it to medium, which makes the restriction clearer. --Zolo (talk) 08:17, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

"signature and date"

I'll try to replace "type = signature and date" with "type = signature /date" and so on. It would allow to more easily take advantage of already existing translations like {{int:wm-license-information-date}}.--Zolo (talk) 07:42, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Multilingual inscription

Is there any way to declare multiple languages? I have a Greek + Hebrew inscription for instance (File:Epitaph Ammias Musei Capitolini NCE2771.jpg). Jastrow (Λέγετε) 19:35, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, you can add to language codes separated by a "/" (in this case: "grc/he")--Zolo (talk) 08:42, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Usage in multilingual descriptions (was: German translation)

Please can someone check the use of a German translation in the instance of this template, on File:Worcester Police Station 1939 foundation stone.jpg? It's not displaying. Please also note (via the history) the alternative presentation that I have just converted. Andy Mabbett (talk) 11:55, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

It is displayed only if you set your language to German (like many other templates, it does not show all languages by default to limit clutter). The line break is not very nice but I think the template would need a Lua conversion before we solve that. --Zolo (talk) 12:35, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

So there's no way of using the inscription template and showing the translation in the correct part of the description? Or in other words: To find the translation in your own language, you have to read the foreign language part? (See File:Inschrift_Kirchenraum.jpg for a non-english example) That's not a perfect solution, is it? --Tkarcher (talk) 20:47, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't understand what you mean. The template shows the original language first, but that sounds rather natural to me to show the real inscription before the translation, at least when the inscription is not too long. --Zolo (talk) 08:04, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

The problem is that the template was designed to be used within the "Inscription" section of the {{Artwork}} template, not the "Description" section of {{Information}}: Multilingual descriptions are divided in different paragraphs for different languages. The inscription template can (or better: should) only be added to one paragraph, so if you want to read the translation, you have to read through the foreign language paragraph to find it. The best solution would probably replacing the information template on the respective pages with the artwork template. (Which I just did in File:Inschrift_Kirchenraum.jpg) --Tkarcher (talk) 09:35, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes, the template was conceived for use in {{Artwork}}, and it seems better to use them. Alternatively we can get a similar layout in {{Information}} using the "other fields" parameter.Zolo (talk) 07:17, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

DescriptionInscription	description
Inscription InfoField	Herr Gott, Du bist unsere Zuflucht für und für. Ps. 90, V. 1. [Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations. Ps. 90, V. 1.]
Date	~
Source	~
Author	~

Looks good! I didn't know about the "other fields" parameter, and I agree: This is far better than using the description section or using the artwork template when no artwork is depicted. Thanks for your help! --Tkarcher (talk) 07:56, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

other languages

I do not understand how to tell if other languages work properly with this template. I just updated File:Manon Balletti (1757) by Jean-Marc Nattier.jpg to use this template (and others that auto-translate) but I have no idea if the languages (French and Russian) whose translations I removed from the file's description are showing properly in those languages. (And why are en and de listed as separate parameters from translation?) I looked at the template, but the instructions under "Localization" did not seem to fit what I saw. Can someone check the file for me and confirm that the information is displaying correctly in French and Russian? Laura1822 (talk) 00:04, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

I am wondering about the same. I have no clue how the "translation" parameter should be used. Only en and de are listed, but I just tried to use nl as a test, which worked as far as I can tell[1]...

To answer your question, I think appending ?uselang=xx or &uselang=xx (the second one when there is already a ?-parameter in the url) to the URL and opening it in a private/incognito window (to ensure your own language preferences are not used) should do the trick. E.g. this is French and this is Russian (again, right click and open in private). Hope this helps. --Azertus (talk) 21:36, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, but you do not need to be logged out to use ?uselang it should work in all cases.

the |nl= etc. works for all languages (it was supposed to be documented but there was a type [2]). Translation can be used if there is a translation template. like : Paris, Août 1920-> {{Inscription|Paris, Août 1920|lang=fr|translation={{Paris}}, {{ISOdate|1920-08}} }} ->

Paris, Août 1920

[Paris, August 1920]. --Zolo (talk) 18:21, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Latin "pinxit"

When the signature says something like "Nattier. p.x. [pinxit]" or "Metsu fec. [fecit]" (for "painted" or "made" respectively), is that meant to be included in the "language" parameter of the template (i.e., Latin) and then translated in the "translation" parameter? Or is it considered obvious, and it should use language=~? Does the "full form" parameter really need to be included (i.e., full form= Nattier pinxit)? Or just include the transcription exactly and ignore the rest? The latter is what I've been doing, trying to keep things as simple as possible. Laura1822 (talk) 00:15, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

I would say that it should be considered latin, because many people would probably not understand what it means. Full form is optional, if that makes things clearer, it should be included, but if it is not there, nothing bad should happen. --Zolo (talk) 07:14, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Okay, so I did this:

{{inscription|Nattier. p.x. / 1757|full form= Nattier pinxit / 1757|type=signature|side=recto|position=center right|language=la |translation={{LangSwitch |en=Nattier painted [this] / [in] 1757}} }}

which renders

Signature recto center right: Nattier. p.x. / 1757 [Nattier pinxit / 1757] [Nattier painted [this] / [in] 1757]

It doesn't display "Latin" anywhere (so why include it?), and I don't like the brackets within brackets in English. The general rule is that missing words are placed in square brackets. To be pedantic, they should be in parentheses () with an i.e. to distinguish the full form, viz.: (i.e., Nattier pinxit / 1757) (i.e., Nattier painted [this] / [in] 1757), but the i.e.s are no longer considered essential. Perhaps the square brackets are used differently in other languages?

Anyway, is that what you had in mind? Why is there a separate parameter for |en=? Thanks so much! I'm a big fan of these templates for artwork. Laura1822 (talk) 17:47, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. I think in French some people use suare brackets and other standard brackets, but I do not know which is the most "correct" one. Maybe things would be better if the translation was shown in italics rather than inside brackets ?

There are two main reasons for the "language" parameter:

• When the inscription is in your language, the translation does not show. (English user French user (doesn't work too well for Latin, because so many templates are not translated in Latin).
• When no translation is provided, the file is categorized in a maintenance category. As the template is not always properly used, it is not always convincing, but see Category:Objects with inscriptions in Tahitian needing translation. --Zolo (talk) 07:20, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

So what you're saying is, if I want the English translation to show for French users, I need to use the separate |en= parameter? Okay, that works for me.  :)

As for the brackets, I don't know if italics would be better. I can live with it as-is; translations can never be perfect, after all. I guess I just wanted to know if it would be a really easy fix, but it's obviously not. Thank you for all your hard work! Laura1822 (talk) 13:46, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

No actually if the inscription is in French, French users will not see any translation (why would they need it ?). If the inscription is in say Russian, they will get the French translation or if there is none, the English one. |en= XX is the same as |translation={{langSwitch|en=XX}}. --Zolo (talk) 19:33, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

w:Obverse and reverse

Would we want to add the options 'obverse' and 'reverse' to the side parameter, for use on coin images such as File:50pfennig.1921.JPG? If you use them right now, nothing is displayed.

When you use the position parameter instead to note this information, reverse is incorrectly linked to the w:Recto and verso page, as can be seen on File:5 Mark DDR 1982 - 200. Geburtstag von Friedrich Fröbel -.JPG. --Azertus (talk) 14:48, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

I added obverse and reverse to Template:Inscription. --Zolo (talk) 18:05, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Inscription and annotations

Hi, i am currently browsing through the category Images with annotations to determine annotations that contain inscriptions. Thereby, i found that actually annotations and inscriptions could be combined in a beneficial way. Lets assume that the annotator had the possibility to indicate that the annotation he/she is writing is an inscription in a certain language. This would save the work that i am doing now which is adding the {{Inscription}} template to the annotations. Furthermore, the "annotation user interface" is easier to use than added the same into wikitext. This way more people could be motivated to add inscriptions. And, for me the location of the inscription within the picture as an important information which we additionally we gain. Howeber, for this the implementation of the Gadget-ImageAnnotator needs to be adapted and we would also need to think about how to display the annotated inscriptions also in the information below the image. Otherwise, it is not accessible e. g. on smart phones or tablets. Is there any comment or doubt about this idea from the inscription experts? --Arnd (talk) 14:52, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Only for use with {{Artwork}}?

The description of this template says that it's to be used with the "Inscriptions" field of {{Artwork}}, but is it also okay to use it in the "description" field of {{Information}}? On {{Transcribe here}} the instruction is to use this template with the latter. It seems that this template could apply to more than just artwork. — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 00:05, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

I don't see anything wrong with using it in {{Information}}, I think you can add that to the description. That said, it seems that in many usecases of {{Transcribe here}}, {{Artwork}} would be more appropriate than {{Information}}. --Zolo (talk) 11:10, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Too much italic text

fore more than a few words, having text in italics is an accessibility issue; it reduces readability.

Is it possible to override the template's default italicisation?

If not, please can that be made possible? Andy Mabbett (talk) 23:11, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Anyone? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:25, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

long texts

This template works badly when the text is long, see File:Chayyam guyand kasan behescht ba hur chosch ast small.png --Z 08:17, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

Documentation of available types

@Speravir: Thank you for your work on the documentation of available types at Template:Inscription/label. However, I think it is preferable to have it at one place where it can be read as a whole. Can we move it to the main Template:Inscription/doc? --Marsupium (talk) 11:45, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Oh yes, of course this is possible, Marsupium.  Done — Speravir – 18:39, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Blank space

There is a lot of blank space between two types of inscription (see File:Bad Honnef Weyermannallee 1a Gedenktafel Brungs.jpg). Can't this be reduced? One blank line would be enough in my opinion. Thanks--Leit (talk) 02:03, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

Poem setting

Could this template please have a 'poem' setting, so that line breaks like those in the version used on File:Jim Simmons election leaflet.tif are rendered, using <poem> markup? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:22, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

I agree linebreaks are needed. Signs and plaques that are transcribed with this template tend to come out strange. --Awkwafaba (talk) 03:20, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

I've added a linebreaks option. You also need to enable multiline, which happens automatically if the text is longer than 200 characters. Example below. Zarxos (talk) 08:16, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

This is a test

Of keeping line breaks You can see

That they are all retained

Rogue paragraph break

In:

{{inscription|1=BERNAR VENET<br>
ARC DE 124,5°

Jacques Chirac, Premier ministre de la République français,<br>
a inauguré cette ceuvre de Bernar Venet le 2 Juillet 1987,<br>
Féalisée grâce au concours d'Air France, elle a été offerte à Berlin<br>
par la France pour celébrer le 750&me anniversaire de la Ville.
|language=fr}}

which renders as:

BERNAR VENET

ARC DE 124,5°

Jacques Chirac, Premier ministre de la République français,
a inauguré cette ceuvre de Bernar Venet le 2 Juillet 1987,
Féalisée grâce au concours d'Air France, elle a été offerte à Berlin

par la France pour celébrer le 750&me anniversaire de la Ville.

the HTML output is:

<i>BERNAR VENET<br>
<p>ARC DE 124,5°
</p><p>Jacques Chirac, Premier ministre de la République français,<br>
a inauguré cette ceuvre de Bernar Venet le 2 Juillet 1987,<br>
Féalisée grâce au concours d'Air France, elle a été offerte à Berlin<br>
</p>
par la France pour celébrer le 750&amp;me anniversaire de la Ville.</i>

with an errant paragraph starting before "ARC" and ending before the final line. I cannot figure out why. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:04, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Andy I noticed something similar. There were no changes to the template, other than my edit to suppress categorization (for some reason inscription categorization code is very expensive and some files were timing out). There were resent edits to {{Artwork}} related to inscriptions, see here but you are not calling it through {{Artwork}}. --Jarekt (talk) 12:33, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

@Zolo, Bjankuloski06, and Zarxos: Can you help? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:02, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Poking around for a while, it seems this only occurs when the text passed to the template is wrapped in a <div> block, which the template automatically does for transcriptions longer than 200 characters. I can't figure out why that would cause this behavior, but there it is. I would remove the div, but it has to be there to properly style right-to-left text. In the meantime, you can use transliteration instead of 1 and you won't get the weird line break, though the other formatting is different:

{{inscription|transliteration=BERNAR VENET<br> ...}}

Which renders as:

-BERNAR VENET

ARC DE 124,5°

Jacques Chirac, Premier ministre de la République français,

a inauguré cette ceuvre de Bernar Venet le 2 Juillet 1987,

Féalisée grâce au concours d'Air France, elle a été offerte à Berlin

par la France pour celébrer le 750&me anniversaire de la Ville.-

Zarxos (talk) 10:39, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

@Zarxos: But that's a horrible cludge; this is not a transliteration. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:22, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing: Looks like I have been able to fix this by wrapping the text in another div in the template

Preventing italicisation

Is it possible to override this template's default use of italicisation? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:19, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

I've added a noitalic option to the template. You can set it to 1 or true, anything other than blank.

{{inscription|1=This is an inscription with the noitalic option activated.|noitalic=1}} Renders as:

This is an inscription with the noitalic option activated.

{{inscription|1=For comparison, this is a default inscription.}} ->

For comparison, this is a default inscription.

Zarxos (talk) 07:59, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

This template and Wikidata

I posted a bunch of questions at the Wikidata Property:Inscription Talk page about how to model complex inscriptions so that they will (might?) populate this template smoothly in the future. I'd appreciate any comments or suggestions. Thanks! - PKM (talk) 23:47, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Adding lang= HTML tags

As far as I can see the template doesn't set lang= HTML tags neither for the inscription text nor for translations. Does anyone feel like adding this to the code? Thanks in advance, --Marsupium (talk) 08:22, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

It has turned out for the inscription itself this was already added in multiline mode. Now added for non-multiline mode as well. Should probably still get added for translations. --Marsupium (talk) 23:07, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

Inscription: Type=Donator, Sponsor

Inscriptions can be specified. This is very practical. In addition to the various multilingual possibilities listed under type (such as artist's initials, signature, signature and date, seal, etc.), could one also add Donator (Sponsor)? It often happens, for example, in medieval stained glass that the donor has his name or initials added to the painting. Who can add this possibility? Thanks -- Matutinho 21:13, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

Script and partial transliteration

Some objects will use non-Latin scripts that may for metadata, bibliographic, or user purposes be aided with a Latin transliteration prior to a translation, so additional parameters would be appreciated. It would also be nice to display the language and/or script for the user when it's not obvious (for example, Chinese characters can encode many language families, including historical Chinese languages, that would not be obvious in any way to the user). Finally, it would nice to be able to flag images that require transliteration in addition to translation. SamuelRiv (talk) 16:47, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

Too much whitespace

Hi. It seems that this template was altered on April 2 by User:Jonesey95. Apparently it was an attempt to solve another issue, which is all very fine, but the change introduced a lot of whitespace around the inscription, in the form of line breaks. For short inscriptions it takes up a lot of space, for example here: File:Adolf Mackeprang - En vogterdreng med en flok køer i et skovbryn.png. Is there a way to make the linebreak less obtrusive (a half-line)? Cheers Rsteen (talk) 04:20, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

The template was failing to trim white space at the start and end of |1=, leading to this undesirable display. I have fixed that problem. Jonesey95 (talk) 04:28, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Background: I added the line break to fix significant problems when bullets are used within this template. There is still something causing div tag errors and misrendered bullets in the Inscription at Category:Portrait of Margaret van Eyck, File:Duke-chandos-first.jpg, and similar pages. The code misnests bullets and div tags, and pulls information from Wikidata. It may be something called from within {{Artwork}}. I have made a few changes (on 2 April 2023), and most pages are better, but some pages may still be broken. Basically, there is an asterisk followed by div tags trying to format the text that comes after it, but some of that text spans multiple lines, which makes a closing div tag exist at a different level from the asterisk. That is invalid syntax. It's a fundamentally bad design and implementation. Probably the only real solution is to remove the asterisks entirely. I think the asterisk comes from Module:Wikidata art, in the section starting "if more than one than[sic] return bulleted list", but I am wary of bypassing that section because it may work fine in most cases, and that module has 14 million(!) transclusions. Maybe we could edit Module:Artwork to strip the bullets from "data.inscriptions" at line 977. Jonesey95 (talk) 04:35, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks Jonesey95. It looks much better now. Cheers Rsteen (talk) 05:10, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

That problem should mostly be Fixed by this edit. I hope and think it shouldn't have broken anything else anywhere else. --Marsupium (talk) 22:45, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

Template for non-artwork?

i used this for File:章云风出生证侨批.jpg, but it automatically sets it to Category:Objects with inscriptions in Chinese needing translation, which is not really necessary? do you have to have an english translation of every transcription? RZuo (talk) 11:21, 2 January 2024 (UTC)