Template talk:Prevnext

Huh?

Why do we want to have a "next/previous" box showing continuity, series, and publication? Unless I'm totally missing what you're trying to say, using Adventure 365 as an example:

• "Next continuity" is "Post-Crisis"
• "Next series" is Action Comics
• "Next publication" is Adventure Comics 366

What obvious thing am I missing about why this is a good idea as implemented here? -- Omnicom 20:35, 29 November 2007 (PST)

Reboot can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe you are misinterpreting the meaning of the three "nexts". For Adventure Comics #365, the three links would be:

• "Next (in story) continuity" is Adventure Comics #366
• "Next (in the same) series" is Adventure Comics #366
• "Next (in) publication (order)" is Action Comics #360

In some cases, the next issue in all three categories would be the same issue, in some cases three different issues. Next in continuity might be the second story in the same issue, a flashback story, etc. Looking at the same basic time period as your example, going back 10 issues or so to Adv 353, the next issue in continuity is Adv 356, as the 2 intervening Adv issues are a double-length Adult Legion story. If a casual browser is flipping through issues in the wiki in sequence, they can choose several different paths to follow.

The one drawback I see to the current template is that it appears at the bottom of the page, so someone browsing through the issues has to scroll down to the bottom of the page to click the next link. Not really that bad, but I wonder if there is a way to incorporate the same functionality and skip the page scroll. Also, we might want to reword the text in the template - if Michael could not easily interpret the correct meaning from what was there, then other people will be confused as well.

I would be interested in developing a similar interface specifically for cover images, so that one could browse through a whole series of covers. For that, I think just the "in series" links make sense, although perhaps there is an argument for "next in continuity"?

-- Gopher 03:57, 30 November 2007 (PST)

Yeah, CG's pretty much got what I was going for - so far, I've only done the Damned and Rifts issues (e.g. Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #125, which is an example of them all being different):

• "Next, By Continuity" is the next non-cameo story in that continuity
• "Next, By Series" is the next LSH issue in that series (where two series run alongside each other, like LSHv4/Lgs, that's the next one in that particular series, but where one series replaces another, like the LSHv4/Lost/Worlds/TL sequence, I'm just going on to the next series in turn with that field), and
• "Next, By Publication" is the next non-cameo issue published, even if it's Elseworlds like Superboy's Legion or (most of) Universe Ablaze.

If it's confusing, suggestions for better terminology would be helpful :).

As for the bottom-of-page thing, well, the infoboxes (e.g. {{issue}}) have basic previous/next fields in them that should be visible from the top of the page, whereas I was beginning to get annoyed when I had to keep scrolling up the page when I reached the bottom or go via the category. - Reboot (SoM) talk page 09:55, 30 November 2007 (PST)

Some other possible wordings for clarity

• Next story in continuity, next issue in storyline (I lean toward the first, because the link might not lead to another issue)
• Next issue in series, next in series
• Next issue by publication date, next published issue, next issue published, next Legion publication, next publication

Another consideration - for the publication date link, what issue will be represented if there were multiple issues published the following week? All such issues? The first alphabetically? What if there was another issue published the same week as the featured issue - how do we determine which is considered "next" in that context if there are no indications given by the stories for the issues involved? In the LPH, I have tried to stick with alphabetizing issues published the same week, but we dont have that easy out in this instance. -- Gopher 07:30, 4 December 2007 (PST)

Two things - remember the structure - it's not going to say "next in...", it's going to say "in..." in the row, "next" in the column:

« Previous    Next »{{{issue}}}
{{{prev_continuity}}}  By continuity {{{next_continuity}}}
{{{prev_series}}}  By series {{{next_series}}}
{{{prev_publication}}}  By publication {{{next_publication}}}

, and remember length. I'm already having to trim stuff like "Titans/Legion of Super-Heroes: Universe Ablaze #4" down - and the widest point of a column determines the width of the whole column. It's how I ended up with the wording that I did. (e.g.) "Issue by Publication date" is a pretty big chunk of the whole width.

And here's how I sort issues in the same week:

1. Continuity order - e.g., LSH v4 #86 should be read before Final Night #4, even though they both came out in the same week.
2. Significance - If the above doesn't separate (e.g., one's an Elseworlds) Legion series go above Legion miniseries, and both go above guest appearances, while cameos don't count at all for the purposes.
3. And if all else fails - Alphabetise.

Plus, I'm not being as absolutely strict in the continuity field as I might be - technically, the epilogue to the first story of Legion Worlds #2 takes place after various other issues (some time during The Legion #1 or #2, IIRC), but I'm just keeping the story together. Similarly, the lead of Legion Worlds #6 could technically takes place any time during The Legion #1-8, and probably leans towards earlier, but I'm going to include it in the order between #8 & #9 rather than break up the arc if I can help it. - Reboot (SoM) talk page 16:10, 4 December 2007 (PST)

Issue title link lengths are going to be an issue whether or not we change the text for "By continuity", etc. A couple of thoughts at to how to make them more manageable:

1. There's no reason why we must keep the template to 85% page width. It's nice that it matches some of the other templates that are already in place, but its not a necessity. Since it wont be on the same page as the existing templates, there's no current "clash", and in fact one can even make the argument that at 100% width better fits with the category box that will be immediately following it in most cases. That being said, I think the next item is a better first course of action to alleviate title size issues.
2. I did some analysis on issue title length, using the titles listed on Legion Publication History. Of the 1500 or so issues in the LPH, this list covers about 98% of them. Including the issue number, the top 15 series titles by length range from Titans/Legion of Super-Heroes: Universe Ablaze #4 (49 characters) to Amazing World of DC Comics #16 (30 characters). In the case of Universe Ablaze, you could potentially have that series title for both the previous, current and next issue listed in the template, which as you have pointed out is completely unmanageable. However, by simply using the convention of replacing Legion of Super-Heroes with LSH across all titles, title lengths are reduced to a maximum of 36 characters. Taking the liberty to list Superman's Girlfriend, Lois Lane as simply Lois Lane (same for Jimmy Olsen) and listing such titles as Eclipso: The Darkness Within as simply Eclipso, the maximum title length is further reduced to 33 characters. Even the 33 only applies to the Justice League and Justice Society titles, with everything else being 29 characters or less. Once you get down in that range, there should be far fewer, if any, conflicts that mess up the way the template displays. I would assume almost anyone using the wiki knows what LSH stands for, and in most cases using shortened titles like Lois Lane is more common than full version references anyway. If anyone is still unclear as to what issue is being referenced, a mouse-over will reveal the full title. Even if we didn't have the space issue in the template, I think using the shorter conventions will make the template cleaner, less cluttered and easier to read with little or no loss of understanding.
3. In instances when the story title is listed, why not shorten it to something like Legion Worlds #2: Story 2? While we can control issue titles to some extent, story titles will be much longer in some cases. We're fortunate in that most of the longer series titles (using the shortening conventions listed in #2) don't tend to be series with multiple stories. -- Gopher 09:16, 5 December 2007 (PST)

Cover template

As a draft: Template:PrevnextCovers. Which previous/nexts go in & out, etc, are of course up for debate.

« Previous cover	Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #124			Next cover »
By publication	By series		By series	By publication
Legionnaires #80	Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #123		Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #125	Legionnaires #81

- Reboot (SoM) talk page 19:33, 4 December 2007 (PST)

Seeing the actual template, I think it makes sense to keep it to just the "in series" links. Publication/Continuity just don't have the same relevance with the cover images. If we follow that path, we could remove the "By publication" etc text altogether, and its still pretty obvious to the uninitiated visitor what everything means. -- Gopher 08:24, 5 December 2007 (PST)

What's getting me (for both versions of the template, cover & issue-based) is that, during the periods where LSH v4 & Legionnaires basically functioned as one title (End of an Era [+Valor], #0s-Team 20/30 split, LSH100/Lgs57-LSH109/Lgs66, Legion of the Damned & Widening Rifts - which tot up to about half of Legionnaires), I want to be able to link to the previous & next issues of both series, as with the LSH124 example above (which I've now subst:ed to preserve it for future reference - a "live" version is below) without needing to write a separate template just for those periods. - Reboot (SoM) talk page 15:13, 5 December 2007 (PST)

Doesn't the continuity portion of the issue template cover that? One can see either the previous issue of the series or the previous issue in the Legionnaires/LSH continuity. For covers, I find it much less compelling that we need it. For individual storylines, such as "Legion of the Damned", we could add a gallery displaying all of the covers in that metastory, thus giving links to both LSH and Legionnaires. Even half of the entire Legionnaires run coupled with the corresponding LSH issues is only about 80 issues - compared to the other 1450 in the LPH, to me it doesn't warrant making a special exception for the template when a cover gallery can accomodate it more fully. -- Gopher 16:02, 5 December 2007 (PST)

« Previous  Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #124  Next »
By publication By series   By series By publication Legionnaires #80 Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #123 Legion of Super-Heroes v4 #125 Legionnaires #81