Template talk:Tolkien influences timeline

Too small

Hi, @Chiswick Chap: I do like this table. It helps to make clear the great range of Tolkien's reading and experience that fed into his Legendarium. However, I have a major issue with it.

When I saw this table, I immediately found it too small to read comfortably, and looked for the 'normal' way to enlarge it. But because it is not an image, I can neither click to display it at full size, nor can an editor pass a parameter to make it larger on the original page. Nor does it scale with normal text, so enlarging the default text size does not change this table. I believe that some such alternative is essential to make this table comfortably usable by the normal range of Wikipedia visual readers. (Ironically, visually impaired readers using screen reader tools may have less of a problem with it.) According to MOS:SMALLFONT, 'In no case should the resulting font size of any text drop below 85% of the page's default font size.'

Suggested solutions, ordered by my preference, descending:

1. Make it a normal table in the one article that currently uses it.
2. If you anticipate using it in other articles, make it a template, but of normal table size.
3. Make it an image, with an Image Map of clickable links. Then it can be displayed at whatever size is convenient. (In contrast to eg, {{Tolkien's legendarium}}, the map could be created as part of the image in Commons, and therefore would remain active if the reader called up the enlarged image.) I would be very happy to assist.
4. Enlarge the font sizes and column widths by 50%.

I look forward to seeing this working better. -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 22:42, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. I've allowed the fonts to scale, and they'll never be less than 85%. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:26, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

On usage: I had been thinking of using the timeline in the family of "influences" articles which appear as "Further" links in the various sections of the Influences on... article, Tolkien and the Norse and so forth. It would be nice to have the appropriate section in boldface, somewhat like a navbox. Two things militate against this usage - we don't have an obvious way of applying boldface given that the links named don't appear in the template; and the thing is rather big. Answers on a postcard. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:07, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

That is better. I've just tweaked the title size; I think it might have been calculating 85% of 85% and making it too small again. -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 10:47, 22 January 2024 (UTC)