Template talk:RouteBox

Merge?

I've brought this up on my talk page in response to Andree's notifier about RINT, but it's way more useful to bring this up here as well:

At this time, we have Template:Routebox (Old Routebox, used in Go Next sections to show routes crossing through a region) and Template:RouteBox (New Routebox, used for displaying logos and icons of routes), which from how I see it, can easily be mixed up. Also, we have Template:Routebox entry (which ironically is incompatible with Old Routebox) which does virtually the same as this template (it does not have a parameter for linking, which can instead be done by setting parameter "1" to [[line]] instead of line). I know that Andree has the intentions of automating edits from Template:Rail-interchange on Wikipedia, where these templates have come from, to here, but I don't think that that is necessary. If we end up needing a line added, then we can do so ourselves. I'd just like to point this out, as well as start a discussion on how we think we should use these templates.

As for my solution to this issue: Converting all instances of New Routebox to Routebox entry can be done rather quickly through a simple text editor like MS Word or Notepad++, and by sorting this out now, we will avoid a lot of hassle in the future, when these templates (RINT, Template:Station and other templates that directly or indirectly use New Routebox or Routebox entry) may be widely used in our articles. Using the name "Routebox" for two templates is confusing and unnecessary. Besides, there are way more descriptive names to name a template that pastes in an icon or symbol for a specified line.
-- Wauteurz (talk) 21:50, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Also, as a sidenote, importing edits from Wikipedia means that local edits to the template here get overwritten, and means that we have to adopt single-purpose templates such as LACMTA link logo, LACMTA icon and Lyon Metro color, which will realistically only be called from a single place, namely Template:Rail-interchange and instances where RINT gets called.
-- Wauteurz (talk) 21:56, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

I completely forgot about this - I just wanted to quickly try to bootstrap a few countries, and... Anyway, I'd say the main argument here is that very few people can+will maintain or even use these. So I'd vote to keep local modifications at bare minimum and use WP stuff wherever possible (which simplifies maintenance, with future additions of metro lines and such). We won't be here forever, so we should find a way anyone can maintain it (even manually), so I'd be probably inclined to keep both Routebox and RouteBox as is, even though it is a bit confusing (we can document it though)...

But if someone else (you? :) ) finds the time to do it instead of me (import rint and sub-templates completely), I'll happily just use the results. :) Andree.sk (talk) 07:39, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Done @Andree.sk: You've probably seen the edits roll by already, but it's done. User:Wauteurz/RINT is a fully converted version of Template:Rint. I'll write documentation soon, which will be necessary for testing whether all colour combinations for the Routebox entries look OK. Either way, I've done away with the links to wikipedia as half of the hundred or so I tested did not link to an existing page on enWP. Also, removing links, as well as replacing RouteBox with Routebox entry made the template lose 37% of its size (168½K → 106K) which allows people with at least a mediocre PC or laptop to edit the template without their browser becoming slower as an effect. Aside from that, I re-ordered some things that were added in the wrong place, et cetera. All entries are ordered the same way (two spaces per depth added, closing brackets always on a standalone row, et cetera), which adds a somewhat improved overview. Third parameters have been removed completely aside from |size= and |de|s-bahn|[x]:

Currently, |de|s-bahn requires a third parameter, which can be any number, allowing for as many S-Bahn lines to be added as desired:  S1   S135  (Presets are also available for most cities).

Either way, feel free to use the template if you want to. Like I said, it needs some testing to find the things I've missed and/or gave annoying colour combinations. Documentation will come soon as well. And while I'm at it, let me know if you'd like to see support for borders on the outputs (  Example  ).
-- Wauteurz (talk) 20:08, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi, on the first look it looks very good, you seem to have moved/generic-ized quite a lot of repeating stuff, which probably took lot of work... Technical-wise, I like that more than WP template (because of WP template limitations) :) But I have a few notes/questions, if you plan to go this way:

• Are you going to finish it completely by yourself? I see you inlined all the subtemplates (like berlin), and left-out other (innsbruck, ace). I doubt there will be many people here willing to work on this apart from you and me (even I would probably do only the stuff) :) Do you have some tests to check that you didn't introduce some bugs?
• I'm asking, because for me - even recursive copy of the templates from WP to WV would be easier, then trying to adapt it or do from scratch. Esp. because I likely won't learn about all the described 200 travel networks... I expect WP is 99.5% correct on this, and we can only worsen the situation :) This also goes for 'Routebox entry' vs 'RouteBox'
• On a quick look, I like the London stuff more than the tiny icons, but I'm not sure which is more useful for a traveller...
• E.g. prague|esko is missing. I expect there'll be more.
• Some(=all) shapes (like paris) have changed from circles to boxes... While this helps visual consistency of WV, I'd guess we should rather keep up with local symbols (e.g. new york uses circles and diamonds - perhaps there are some metro systems where they don't even use latin/arabic numbers?).
• I'd be inclined to keep the wikipedia links. I still plan to try to invent that link-removing template, which could convert current Template:rint to link-less stuff. We might decide to include some metro maps in 42 years, then it would be easier to have some "handles" to base the links on... However, the 'alt=' stuff I'd keep for sure, as this would be quite useful e.g. in image-less (=pure text, or perhaps blind-oriented?) versions of WV?
• ...and so on :) In the end, as long as the cities so far remain working, I guess it's up to you and plunge forward. I just really don't want to reinvent stuff :) In the end, everybody has agenda and if you try to satisfy everyone, you'll do nothing :) Andree.sk (talk) 19:51, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

I didn't set a stopwatch or anything, but I guess that roughly 8 hours of the sixty-one hours in between those posts sounds like a fair representation of the time I invested. Let me reply point by point:

• I wouldn't mind finishing this myself. Surely in the many years that we hope to continue someone will tag along. I've made the template as straight-forward as I could, so that should not be an issue. At this time I'm working on User:Wauteurz/RINT/doc, where I'm listing all entries in the new RINT to check that they look visually appealing, are readable and that they do indeed work. I think I've already fixed the biggest bug that was in there earlier today ^[1]. For now, everything that was in enWP's RINT has been updated. I will most likely expand the coverage of the template as demand increases (I take it that that's what you mean, seen as how Innsbruck isn't in the template).
• I made sure to include all proposed lines that are known for the networks currently in the template. Furthermore, the advantage of Wikivoyage is that anyone from anywhere can edit. If someone comes along from place X with a metro system, and claims that a new line has been dug and put in service, then they or we can easily update it. New lines are generally quite expensive as well, so I don't think that there will be that much work. Furthermore, I could check the updates done to the enWP template every so often and add on what has been added there.
• At the moment there are several lines that have quite a long name. I'll see if I can abbreviate them and get a mouse-over text going (I tried using abbr but the template did not like that. The small icons are much more space efficient, but I can add a <small>-tag for everything longer than three or four symbols that cannot be abbreviated.
• Like I said, I copied what was in the template (though some may have been lost in the process without me noticing that). Prague may be an example of that? Either way, like I said: I'll update the template as time progresses. I currently want to iron out any mistakes or bugs in the template, and after that we'll see what's next. What ever comes next may be adding important networks not yet covered, compacting the template like I did for |de|s| (German S-Bahn), adding functionality to it or Routebox entry (rounded corners/circles, customisable border, et cetera) or just pushing it to mainspace and integrating it. This mostly depends on how the rest of enWV likes it.
• As per above, I am thinking of adding roundovers on the template making circles (or at least a fully rounded over corner) possible. For example:  7  and  7bis . I would, however, limit this to where there is choice for either no round over, slight round-over, or full round-over. Diamonds aren't possible using HTML or CSS tags, sadly (or rather, I don't know a way to do so). A uniform look is what I aimed for, which has been achieved. I'd limit the options (aside from colour and text, of course) to give Wikivoyage's route listings a go-to look.
• The links can still be added when writing in the template. An Amtrak service, for example:  California Zephyr . This does give the blue link colour though, I need to see if I can fix that. I've been told in the past to not make as many external links, so hence I removed the links. I could add them back, but I think it's much easier to add links to our articles like Rail travel in the United States and the like.

I went with a somewhat destructive approach to many of the entries, so some things in enWP's RINT may not be in mine. So long as the links get added to some articles in Germany, England and the Netherlands, I can make do with that and adjust where necessary. I can also add alternate inputs (for example, I could accept Hoeksche Lijn, Metro B, Lijn B, B as valid inputs for Rotterdam's  B ). My plan for now is to complete the full documentation on the new RINT, after which I will pitch the idea and discourage people from adding lines for every article until we've sorted out which template to go with. With a bit of effort put in, I think I can be done by Sunday _{Please take that with a grain of salt. I thought making the new RINT would take me three hours at most.}
-- Wauteurz (talk) 07:00, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

In the end, I agree with the above and thanks for the work, obviously :) Diamonds should be possible (a quick hack from [2]: 5) - but the rounded things are probably good enough approximations for circles :) I think we should make the template as simple as possible, if we are going to maintain private version of it, so I'd avoid alternate inputs.

PS: And I'm thinking to make station able to instantiate rint directly (perhaps 'station|XYZ|city=paris|1|2|5' (and perhaps make city= optional, if it can be determined from the page name automagically - like in the case of london, paris, prague...), because it appears the listing editor cannot/won't handle nested templates... But that is a orthogonal problem to your work, so... :) Andree.sk (talk) 09:17, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Those diamonds do indeed work, but having checked them on my phone, the shape and text is not properly aligned. Even by adjusting my browser window by putting the window on the left half of my screen the diamond moves off-center. Thus far I've only seen the NYC Subway use them, but I might be forgetting another one or two. I don't think it's really worth it to add diamonds for NYC simply because they want to stand out.

I'm trying as much as possible to limit alternate inputs to include a line number or colour, or if the line only has a name, the full name with no spaces and an abbreviated. For instance, I'll shorten London's Underground and Overground to things like HS&C instead of Hammersmith and City Line.

On that note, I have managed to create a mouse-over text. . This way we can make sure that the mouse-over text remains where there once was an image with a caption. This way we can keep text-to-speech browser extensions supported (I believe it was TT! who brought it up), as well as use somewhat less obvious abbreviations. As for merging {tl|station}} and RINT, I already see a problem in third parameters, which are used for 'automation' of templates:  S55  {{User:Wauteurz/RINT|de|s|55}}

I'll be adding the ability to specify the border's colour next. I do not yet see another modification that can be done to RbE. As for RINT, I'll be expanding the documentation and modifying some things here and there to look better. By the time I'm done with that, I hope to have gotten some answers to my query in the Pub.
-- Wauteurz (talk) 17:38, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

So I've "invented" Template:Station/sandbox (used in Prague for a test)- this would play nicely with your RINT, since you only plan to have 1 parameter in most cases... So stuff like {{station|Main train station|A|B|L3}}}} can be used - which is probably better WV folks (than rint+station). But we'll have to rework it later anyhow, for the listings (though if we have unified format everywhere, it'll be much faster/easier than if everybody invents their "manual version of {{station}}, IMO.). What do you think? Or should I ditch {{station}} completely? Andree.sk (talk) 10:50, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

I'd be in favor of merging the two templates together. There's just one thing I wonder: Your template as is calls the pagename, which in itself is not wrong, but does this call the entire pagename? I wonder if, for instance, entering the template in Amsterdam/Binnenstad will make the template want to enter {{rint|amsterdam/binnenstad|[line]}} rather than {{rint|amsterdam|[line]}}. I'm pretty sure that we can both figure out ways to solve this if this is an issue. I for one could add all subdivisions of cities to RINT, but if you could add text to automagically remove the "/[district]" suffix, then that would save space in RINT (given the above is an actual issue, of course). I would, by the way, want to see the ability to make Station the colour of station name signs. This would make Amsterdam Centraal display as  Amsterdam Centraal  51  52  53  54 . On the other hand, I can imagine that this could be distracting from the article itself.

As for progress on my side, User:Wauteurz/RINT/box (enhanced version of {{Routebox entry}}) is virtually done for now. I am able to add borders, specify border colours, radius and mouse-over texts/tooltips using the template. Default values are also enabled, which allows RINT to require less input to output something usable. The only required parameter is {{{1}}}, the name of the line. The lines for Paris best demonstrate these features:  3bis   P   3b   B . As for requiring less input: User:Wauteurz/RINT/box {{User:Wauteurz/RINT/box|T1}}. I assume but cannot confirm that the mouse-over text is machine-readable. I've also submitted a query in the Pub asking for support to plunge forward with the changes, as well as requests for preferred features, but have yet to have heard back from someone. Aside from that, I realised that RINT can also be used for regular highways and routes, and made a little proof of concept for that.
—The preceding comment was added by Wauteurz (talk • contribs)

{{station/sandbox}} Can show the station name + 1-10 RINT icons. The name of city is either added by parameter, or auto-detected from first component of the pagename (#titleparts). I'm not sure if it makes sense to put all this into RINT - but if you want to go that way, I don't really mind (though it will probably surprise some wikipedians :) ). Regarding station colors - as you said, it'd probably distract the readers. We should find a compromise between highlighting and making the article flow naturally - so this is probably too far (in other words - I like the current solution using {{station}} :D). Congrats to finishing the circles (like RER) etc.! I also like the highway stuff - though in the age of navigation apps, I think it'd be hardly used in real life... Andree.sk (talk) 16:54, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

I would only have added all the districts to RINT if there was a problem with identifying the city in {{station}}, which there isn't. I did not realise that Prague has subdivisions and that Station is working perfectly fine there. As for its appearance, I have nothing against how it looks right now. I just thought that different styles would be something to consider. Furthermore, how about making five or so non-distracting station styles, which can be used depending on the continent/country/state? Again, I'm just pitching an idea. My thoughts here are that the pagebanners have slight variations by continent, so why not stations? The route icons are not so much for Get In and Get Around sections as they are for {{Routebox}}, which {{Routebox entry}} was initially meant for. I think it's only fair to reconsider adding that functionality after five years of non-usage. I don't expect to be editing too much in the upcoming week while I wait for replies to come in in the Pub. I'll update the message there with functionalities added over the past few days. If no-one ends up replying by next weekend, I'll at least update {{Routebox entry}} and abbreviate it to {{RbE}} to make RINT way lighter to load in the same way that Template:rint and Template:Rail-interchange are identical.
-- Wauteurz (talk) 18:04, 11 March 2018 (UTC)