Forum:Switching to the new parser

Hi all,

There will soon be some important code changes in the software we use at Wikia. There is a new version of the "preprocessor", which converts the text you enter in the edit box into the formatted text on the article page. This has a few differences to the old version, so switching over is likely to cause some pages to show errors - in particular pages with complex templates and formatting, and pages that contain faulty HTML. We can't update the main software until this switch over is done on all wikis, so it is important that we get it done soon.

Most wikis should see very little effect, so the first wikis to be switched will be those that are inactive and those that our tests show are likely to have very few pages affected. After that we will help the more active wikis and those with a lot of problem pages to fix problems before they are switched.

To see which group your wiki is in, you can check the list at Forum:Switching to the new parser/group list. If you are listed there, you are in group 2. Everyone else is in group 1.

The new parser will be switched for group 1 on Tuesday, February 10th. If you see any problems, then the first thing to do is check your pages and templates for bad formatting - especially unclosed HTML tags. If you can't see what to change, then please contact us using the form at Special:Contact and we'll give you a hand.

For group 2, there are lists of pages that might have issues linked from the group list.

The switch will happen for group 2 on February 17th or March 3rd. You may want to look at the list of pages before then and fix any problems. If you need advice, please check the help page or contact us using the Special:Contact form.

Thanks - sannse (talk) 20:25, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

New Parser / Wikipedia templates
Hi Sannse will this new version help solve the mal/non functioning Wikipedia template problems I'v got at Tractor Wiki or will it give me more ?

- BulldozerD11 02:32, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Which template? Most non-simple templates cannot be used here directly from Wikipedia without some recoding. Can you please leave me a link to the template on your wiki (NOT here), I'll take a look at it. --Uberfuzzy 02:35, 6 February 2009 (UTC)


 * OK Put a load of links to various related templates and discussion at Wikipedia with the creator of some of them on your talk page at TW. Thanks for looking into it. I'll check back later today as Im on GMT time  -- BulldozerD11 03:28, 6 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I think these are more likely to be to do with an extension they use (and we don't) called HTMLTidy. Although they are using the new parser, so it could be a factor -- sannse (talk) 10:06, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Images
It seems the wiki code to make an image appear will be a tad different with the new thing. If i use my userpage at fr.guildwars as an exemple, images are currently showing perfectly with a code like this :. But after the change, the image will appear full size and the specified size will be use as the name of the image and popup when we mouse over.

I'm not sure how to correct this. It seems the order of the parameter or the way it handle optional parameter has change. Anyway, this mean that every single image call on the 10 000+ pages of fr.guildwars need to be changed. And this wont be feasible by a bot since we dont have a constant string to search; name of images is changing and the size too. Sometimes it will be easier since a single template edit would do the trick.

So, is it really the way images code is handled that will change or were we doing it wrong from the start ? If something is changing, what is it exactly ? — TulipVorlax 04:08, 6 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Oh ! I think i got it.
 * Only the width of images can be specify and the height is calculated automatically. — TulipVorlax 04:14, 6 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Ok, now i need the way to ask AutoWikiBrowser to find for me all pages with a string like 000px000px but i'm not to good with regex. — TulipVorlax 04:29, 6 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Does AutoWikiBrowser look at page text? For that string, maybe you just need something like "(.*)px(.*)px" Although I don't claim to be good with regex either -- sannse (talk) 10:08, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

class="mw-redirect"
Many pages on thoses lists only show change to link that point to a redirect page wich consist of a new CSS class so they'll be of a different color. Could pages that dont contain any other kind of change be excluded from thoses list as this is not really usefull and not a problem at all. — TulipVorlax 04:21, 6 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Looks like I had the unfiltered data there, which didn't exclude some of these irrelevant differences. The versions there now are filtered, and so should be more manageable! -- sannse (talk) 11:45, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Template loop detected
On fr.guildwars (like on GuildWiki), we have many pages that call a template named exactly the same as the page. On every single of them, with the new parser we will have an error message in red saying there's a template loop. Exemple : Coup de paume

I just tested the same page on GuildWiki, they have no problem so it might be something in the main template Modèle:Compétence. Originally this template was calling another template (Modèle:Compétence m wich would effectively produce a loop) but i just got rid of that and the error message still appear.

Can't see why. Maybe too tired... — TulipVorlax 06:42, 6 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Found an even worst case. — TulipVorlax 07:10, 6 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Some issues with template:lieu transcluding itself, I think I fixed it, did I break any pages? -- Sixorish 12:34, 6 February 2009 (UTC)