Template talk:en-timeline

Can I just say this is the most useless templates. Apart from looking quite pretty, what does it do? Mglovesfun (talk) 10:02, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Proposal to restyle with smaller font for listed dates
Is there any objection to reducing the font size for the dates listed above the scale (i.e., the dates passed as parameters to the template)?

For example, instead of:



one could have something like this (using style="font-size:80%; line-height:1em;"):



It's a little less obtrusive and, though smaller, I find it more readable overall.

Wlgrin 00:26, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Template:timeline
Ugly, ugly, ugly. Readers can read numbers. Let's not create a big boxy template to do something that can be replaced by simply putting the citations in date order and putting the years in bold, which we already do. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:15, 6 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep; important visual summary and organizer for use in Citations namespace. --EncycloPetey 22:16, 6 November 2010 (UTC)


 * At the very least, it should not be fixed to this specific timerange. Then it might be usable for other languages as well. -- Prince Kassad 22:39, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh I forgot to vote: delete as redundant to mw:Extension:EasyTimeline -- Prince Kassad 22:41, 6 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Possibly. There is currently a separate template for Latin .  The issue I forsee is that a generic template would need to have the language coded in order to avoid oversized templates, and that could mean a very cumbersome template.  How many modern languages have a modern period that extends further back than the  template currently accommodates? --EncycloPetey 22:42, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I had something else in mind. While, for example, has a parameter that links back to Middle English, there is no timeline template for Middle English itself which would link to Modern English and Old English. -- Prince Kassad 22:55, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I think the limiting factor there is that we have very, very few Middle and Old English citations, partly because we have only a couple of editors working on those languages. Since we treat Middle English and Old English as separate languages, the templates will never be used together on a page unless the spelling is the same for more than one period.  Even then, they will appear on separate sections of the page.  So what kind of linking did you have in mind?  Wouldn't it require linking to a different spelling (or spellings) in order to move to an older period of English?  If so, what happens when there isn't a single spelling for the older form? --EncycloPetey 23:04, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * It is already there. See . The problem is that there's no timeline template to use for a hypothetical Citations:Sandeboxe page. -- Prince Kassad 23:09, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, I understand now what you mean. So, why not simply create an  or a more generic "Medieval period" timeline for all middle-period forms of European languages?  As I said, I don't see how a template designed for c.1500-2000 could be easily adaptable to cover numerous date ranges.  However, I could imagine several such templates covering standard broad ranges of dates, such as the first millenium BCE or similar.  There still, we do run into the problem that an older form of a word in one language is in another language (such as tracing Old Spanish back to Latin, or Russian to Old Church Slavonic). --EncycloPetey 23:15, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Still delete but the way. This has no value. The citations should have the year next to them, which can be used to 'organize' them. This template adds nothing to the organization that cannot be done without using the template. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:16, 31 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep per EP. - -sche (discuss) 01:40, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Passes. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:54, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Changing table id to class
This table has. I will change it to.

This can appear multiple times on a page, and having elements with duplicate IDs renders the HTML invalid. Also shortening the name to save a few kajilabytes of downloads over the rest of time.

In my browser, it doesn’t cause any visual changes. If you are using this in your personal style sheets and something gets broken, just change any occurrence of  to. —Michael Z. 2020-11-19 04:04 z  04:04, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

Separate dates with HTML breaks
Separate the dates with HTML br elements, thus:

Otherwise, extra space creeps into the table cells in the template, and the spacing gets thrown off. This is quite noticeable when there is a tall column of number, and when multiple instances of this are on a page, they will not line up. —Michael Z. 2020-11-19 21:02 z  21:02, 19 November 2020 (UTC)