Template talk:Graticule

Neighbourhood Links ("Surrounds")

The bottom graticule neighbourhood being automatically a link means that I can't seem to use alternate text for the link. Could you make the names plain text (or otherwise tell me how to use alternate link text), please? -- Marz 00:49, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. What did you need that for? I'd prefer to not have to make users link neighboring graticules manually - ideally, there's some way to make the Right Thing happen on its own. Duskwolf 01:07, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

The graticules surrounding Bristol have very long article names. I'd like to shorten them - for aesthetic reasons. -- Marz 01:09, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Ideally, article names should specify a single key city, not a set of cities - "Birmingham East / Leicester / Coventry, United Kingdom" should probably be renamed to "Birmingham East, United Kingdom", for example. It's still pretty long, but much more manageable. Duskwolf 02:18, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

NB: The Birmingham East graticule is now named simply "Birmingham, United Kingdom" as there is no corresponding Birmingham West graticule. Benjw 17:49, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

I would also wonder how to do this. For example, I'm in the Lincoln, NE graticule. Neighboring me to the north and northeast are the two graticules for Omaha, which is a split city with a single page. Ideally, I'd like it to link to the Omaha page with each, but have West/East in parentheses next to the link within the table. Can this be done? Spike 06:24, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Split cities are a weird issue - they violate the "one graticule = one page" rule. (Note in particular that the Omaha graticule page will get spectacularly broken when something shows up to its north.) I'd be inclined to split the page into Omaha East, Nebraska and Omaha West, Nebraska or similar - Omaha is the problem here, not Lincoln. Duskwolf 08:19, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Is there a way to maybe edit this template (or perhaps make alternate ones) that can be used for the 'split cities' (see again the Pittsburg, PA's page) maybe a EastWestGraticule (that is 4 wide and 3 high) and a NorthSouthGraticule (that is 3 wide and 4 high) and a 2x2Graticule (that is 4 wide and 4 high)? Can you picture what I mean? --KDinCT 12:38, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I know what you're talking about; however, the <map> tag will only display one graticule at a time. Duskwolf 22:19, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

@KDinCT: If you need this functionality, go ahead and steal the code I used on Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to accomplish this manually. --Tim P 15:41, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I think it would look cleaner if the surrounds are above the map (i.e. so users don't have to scroll down to see the neighbors). --KDinCT 02:02, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

That's an excellent idea. So excellent, in fact, that I just implemented it. Duskwolf 02:18, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Beautiful! --KDinCT 02:20, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

It'd probably look better if you left-align the left column entries, and right-align the right ones. And if people would use the state name abbreviations instead of the full names it wouldn't look so squashed. We'd only need to set up a few redirects then. Tyler 02:33, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Done. And some site-wide talk about naming conventions wouldn't be unwise - standardize on what abbreviations should be used and whatnot. Duskwolf 03:32, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

This may be a stretch but is there a way to change the "-" put in the cells that don't have a defined neighbor to output as the coordinate (ex. see how they are manually doing this on Pittsburg, PA's page right now.) I think that it looks very slick and the graticule 'knows' the lat and long of the current page from the map line, right? So it should be as simple as adding or subtracting 1 and outputting the result into the cells without data. Just an idea. --KDinCT 12:35, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, there's actually no way for the template to extract a latitude and longitude from the map parameter. I'd really like to figure out some way to simply specify a lat and long parameter for the template, instead of having to write out the whole <map .../> shebang, but I can't figure out any way to do it. All the obvious approaches, like <map lat="{{{lat}}}" long="{{{long}}}" /> don't work, because extension tags are processed before template expansion. Duskwolf 22:17, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

That is rather unfortunate but I understand the limitations. Thought it was worth asking. At least with the way it is now we can add in non-link text which can serve this purpose, albeit manually. --KDinCT 23:46, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I think that the surrounding areas that don't have pages yet should be linked to in this manner: 41,-89, 41,-88, 41,-87 etc. See Aurora, Illinois for an example of how it looks. It seems like the logical thing to me, because when one of those articles gets written, it's immediately visible on all the neighboring pages because the link color will change. But I guess some people might find it kind of ugly. DavidEGrayson 13:49, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I want to suggest that the behavior of this template remain about the same. While I understand the problem of allowing users to manage their own neighborhood links, it does allow a level of flexibility that is nice. For example users can add placeholders that can one day be expanded into a page and label major metropolitan areas as such. I'd like to believe that the users of this site are fairly trustworthy and will make their best effort to create a functional site. However I know vandalism is going to happen, their is always a few bad apples. But with a strong user base, we should be able to handle some mislabeled links. --Pnutbutr 14:01, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Scrollbars

I'm getting scroll bars both left-right and up-down on the map for every graticule page that I go to. I'm pretty sure that it's not my monitor, because I've tried the monitor both horizontally and vertically - is this something that can be fixed? AshleyMorton 12:03, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

The map looks fine in Firefox, but in IE 7.0 and Opera 9.27 there are scrollbars on the iframe that allow you to scroll way out into whitespace. This can be solved for both without breaking firefox by adding scrolling="no" to the iframe tag generated by the map tag, but I don't know how to edit the effect of the map tag. 131.111.202.214 13:31, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Broken for -0 long (problem solved)

The map tag does not accept -0 for the longitude. Either I'm doing something wrong or it's impossible to make on display a map for any graticule immediately West of the Greenwich Meridian. --138.250.25.32 12:40, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

This seems to be true for the Geohashing Tool in general, so I'm assume it needs to be fixed there, not here. -- Marz 17:37, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

After following this up, it has been shown that the fault is in fact not with the Geohashing Tool, as it can be fixed with the "abs" parameter. However, this Wiki's <map> tag does not allow "abs" to be set; and thus cannot be referenced using this Wiki. Hopefully this will be fixed? -- Marz 21:42, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

A workaround for the map tag : indestead of date='2008-04-24' lat='51' lon='-1' abs='1' use date='2008-04-25' lat='51' lon='-360' (see /-0 long workaround in action) --Gissehel 17:08, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

The map accepts now -0 as input, which close the -0 Issue --Gissehel 21:59, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Wrong graticule shown (problem solved)

The Graticule on Curitiba, Brazil is being shown on the wrong place. The calculator shows it in the right place for lat=-26,long=-50, but on the wiki it is being shown to the southwest of the right graticule (using the same lat/long values used in the calculator URL). --Eduardo Habkost 16:24, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

It looks like it is just because the map.html permalink is confusing: Curitiba's Graticule actually is -25 -49, but "link to this page" has -26 and -40 on the URL. --Eduardo Habkost 20:42, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Strange behavior

I've just started to notice [ [ and ] ] showing up on the compass navigation links. --Pnutbutr 21:24, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Good, I'm not the only one - I'm going to change it back. AshleyMorton 21:27, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

That's due to the repeated edits and restorations of Neighbourhood Linking (see above). We need to come to a decision on this, as we seem to keep switching between automatic links and non-automatic. Now, I believe that as automatic links stop people from doing certain things, they are naturally a bad idea, whether or not they make it slightly easier to utilize the template for one use. Furthermore, it is not a good idea to keep with a flawed template simply because more pages are broken - we need to move towards creating a good Wiki; not holding back because of a little more work being required - it will be beneficial in the long run. As such, I suggest that we keep the template without automatic links, from edit 3413 by AshleyMorton. Any disputes about this should be posted here, without rushing into swapping the template back and forth - that creates a lot more work for all of us. -- Marz 21:35, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Yep, I'm on the same page - this is clearly the most-used template of the whole shebang, so we should get it right. I see two major sides of the issue. First (against my action, in favour of including brackets to the template), is the usage where people get to screw with the linking - link to two different "west" pages, or use a name for a place that's not actually it's real name. Those usages are things I don't like. The argument I like in the other direction is the one that has been used to fill in inactive directions with informative "placeholders" - some people have used the simple latitude and longitude co-ordinates, while I threw the words "Norwegian Sea" into my home graticule. I like that, because it doesn't break the system, but doesn't look stupid, either. I hope others have thoughts on this, too!AshleyMorton 21:42, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Marz, discussion needs to take place on the surrounding neighborhood links. However, the "strange" behavior I witnessed yesterday has been located and fixed. Therefore I suggested this sub-block no longer be edited and discussion should take place in another block. --Pnutbutr 13:50, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Restore "this" parameter?

The old "surrounds" template included a "this" parameter, which allows you to override the "current" graticule name. It would be nice if that were added back to the new template. For example, Omaha, Nebraska is neatly divided down the middle, and it looks like the locals decided to use the same name for both graticules. I tried to help by specifying "this=Omaha (West)" and "this=Omaha (East)" for the name in the center, but it was ignored. Of course, by the time the issue is addressed, the folks from Omaha may have reverted my changes, asking "What is this guy from Texas doing on our page?" --RobertB 22:19, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Just found another reason to add "this" back. I want to put my home graticule on my user page, but it looks kinda weird with "RobertB" at the center. Cool, but weird. --RobertB 22:25, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I currently represent 50% of Omaha, so I'll go ahead and say that we don't mind. :-P I'd like that feature too. I worked on some code for a bit, but then I noticed that this template already has a "name" parameter which functions the same as "this" does. So just replace |this= with |name=. Tyler 23:09, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

w00t! Works great, less filling, thanks! --RobertB 23:22, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Link to today's meetup?

Wouldn't it be nice if there were a link at the bottom that went to today's meetup location for that graticule? This is something that would seem to be not too difficult to do, but I'm not really experienced enough with wiki templates to do it myself. - Histumness 13:03, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Since when does this template show the map for today's hash? Shouldn't that not happen, as when in a grat page, it's more useful to show then entire area the grat covers than what today's happens to be? Zigdon 19:15, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Whoops, that was me changing something on the backend. Fixed. Zigdon 19:25, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't really understand either of your responses. I wasn't saying the template shows the map for today's hash, nor that it should. All I was suggesting was that at the bottom of the template there could be a link that takes you to the "official" implementation's URL for that day's hash in that graticule. I don't know what you're referring to that you fixed either so I think I'm probably missing something... -Histumness 20:09, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

If you want to see something really neat check out the box that automatically details upcoming hashpoints on the Canberra, Australia page. It automatically updates when the new co-ordinates come out and can handle multiple days in advance (to cater for weekends etc). I can't claim credit for the work behind this box, but think it's a great idea. --CJ 13:00, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Additionally, I just worked out the silly {{#tag:}} function, so if you wanted to, you could specify something like: {{Graticule|map={{#tag:map||lat=...|lon=...|date={{#time:Y-m-d}}}}|...}} Note the double-bar after #tag:map||. --Matty 00:56, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I've added lat and lon parameters to this template, so you can specify lat and long for the peeron and google links. Maybe add a date param too, so it links to the current day's page? But then it's taking over what quicklinks does. --joannac 02:32, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Great! I think it's time to replace Template:Graticule with the code from Template:Graticule2. It looks better, uses less space, and uses the lat and lon parameters anyway. I would love to discuss the change with a greater public, but I will (often enough) be insanely busy during the next days. That also means that ReletBot would/could change all graticule templates to use the lat/lon parameter instead of the <map> tag, and burst your inbox once again. -- relet 14:23, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

PROPOSAL

Some of this has been proposed in the last paragraph. I'll try to put it in a clear format:

I would like to propose:

To introduce lat/lon parameters as they are used in Template:Graticule2
To add "Todays location" links to the graticule template, pointing to peeron, google and OSM.
To replace the use of the map tag with the mapimg tag.

What will change?

You will be able to use the parameters lat= and lon= instead of using map = <map ...>. The old syntax will still work. No template code must be updated.
The map will show up with a lighter border, looking more integrated to the page.
Links to todays hash will appear at the bottom of the template, just as joannac has implemented. They will use the lat/lon parameters.

Before:

After:

 {{graticule
 | map = <map lat="123" lon="-45"/>
 | nw = [[Smalltown, USA|Smalltown]]
 | s = [[Hayfields, USA|Hayfields]]
 }}

 {{graticule
 | lat=123
 | lon=-45
 | nw = [[Smalltown, USA|Smalltown]]
 | s = [[Hayfields, USA|Hayfields]]
 }}

[[Category:Meetup in {{{lat}}} {{{lon}}}| ]]

In a second step, I would also suggest to have ReletBot add the lat and lon parameters for all unmaintained graticules. You may comment on this, but it is not part of this proposal.

Thank you for your attention. ;) -- relet 14:41, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Votes

support, oppose, or needswork here. Short comments allowed.

Support (ftr) -- relet 14:57, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
Support The new format looks much cleaner and more trimmed down than the old. --aperfectring 14:49, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
Support -- Though you'll have to be careful about removing links that are non-standard. -- Wmcduff 15:04, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
Support -- I especially like the backwards compatibility. -Robyn 17:52, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
Support -- Makes things easy. --Meghan 17:54, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
Support -- with an extra dose of Support --mykaDragonBlue [- i have no sig -] 23:53, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Since I haven't had any negative comments yet, I plan to replace the template with Template:Graticule/Update on Wednesday, 24th of June (UTC). Split city templates will follow.

Comments

comment, rant or elaborate here.

Would the new method fix the graticule display for more northern graticules? See Fairbanks, Alaska for an example of the brokenness I am referring to. Not all of the graticule is able to be displayed in the template. --aperfectring 14:47, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately not. I have just tried. It's a matter of how much pixels are reserved for the map. It would be nice to have parameters for that in the map tag itself. A required size estimate could easily be calculated based on the lat tag, if it were so. -- relet 14:54, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

It seems to me that the image uses the width of the graticule to determine the zoom, which changes with lat. I don't know how the back end is implemented, but if it used the height of the graticule to determine zoom, we wouldn't have all the vagueness and tomfoolery. It doesn't really affect me, so I don't care all that much, but if I lived in those latitudes where it does come into play, I imagine I would be quite annoyed by it. --aperfectring 15:13, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Note the mysterious appearance of Poole on the second map. It seems to use a different API version, too. -- relet 14:54, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I think we should notify Robyn of this, and have her add this discussion to Template:New_on_the_wiki. --aperfectring 15:25, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Relet promoting the discussion on the template is good. Everyone may use that template. Too bad about the width/height issue. I've been complaining about that for a while. It's my only problem with the current template. I like having the links and the daily location shown. I like the more strongly demarcated borders better then the faint one, but that isn't enough of an issue to affect my support. Also, as the bot replace will change all neighbour link names from non-maintained pages, please write a simple user-friendly page explaining that this will happen to unmaintained pages, and how to use the maintained template and change to the new template yourself. Then make an "Your graticule page will be CHANGED unless ..." kind of attention-getting announcement on Template:New on the wiki, to give people fair warming, and avoid unhappy people. -Robyn 17:45, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Someone mentioned to me that the QuickLinks template makes grat pages take longer to load. 1. is this true? 2. will the same affect happen with the links at the bottom of the new template? --joannac 23:46, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes it's definitely true, but the links on the new template won't slow things down because they aren't downloading any data until you click them. -Robyn 04:14, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I wasn't aware of that yet. But since Template:Meetup links is used on all expedition pages (via Template:meetup graticule) it can't be that bad, can it? Do Template:Meetup links and Template:QuickLinks behave differently? -- relet 07:24, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

How to

please ask for any other option I may have missed

Switch to the new template:

The lazy way: Do nothing.
The eager way: Replace the map parameter with a pair of lat and lon parameters, as in the example above.
- If you do not do this yourself, ReletBot will take care of it eventually. Only if you do not wish to switch at all, read the following paragraph.
- You must however follow the eager way, if your graticule page is manually maintained already.

Keep the old template:

Make sure that your template inclusion uses the map parameter, and not the lat and lon parameters.
Add the Template:Maintained somewhere to the page of the graticule. This will prevent that reletBot comes along and changes your parameters to the lat and lon pair. Please note that this means that you (yes you) will have to maintain the graticule template on this page manually. You won't have quicklinks in the template either. And make sure that the others in your graticule share your preferences.

Have split city templates look like the new template:

We have yet to change these accordingly. That should happen quickly. If you absolutely can't wait, you might experiment with the following.

Replace any "map" tags with "mapimg" tags. This will change the look of the map, but not yet add any quicklinks.
You may even include the meetup quicklinks in the page by appending the following code to the (last) map parameter: {{meetup links||lat={{{lat}}}|lon={{{lon}}}}}

New Template Problems

Currently the google earth, peeron, and OSM links don't work. They all link to the correct date, but to (50,-1) for (latitude,longitude). I'd fix it myself, but unfortunately I don't know much about wiki templates.

To be more specific, I mean the three external links under the picture. Where it says "Today's location:". -Srs0 18:53, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Never mind, being discussed on Relet's talk page already. -Srs0 19:02, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

But thanks for notifying me anyway. Should be fixed now. :) -- relet 19:03, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

The page for http://wiki.xkcd.com/geohashing/2009-07-07_49_-123 has a set of co-ordinates at the top of it, but the market data isn't out yet, so it can't be right. Seems confusing. Jiml 15:11, 3 July 2009 (UTC)