Category talk:Geobox

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[edit] Requested geoboxes

I'll have a look at it when I finish the templates I'm now creating. – Caroig 18:39, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
And one for Valley would be good to go along with the existing ones for mountain range and river. I'm thinking for fields: area, primary river(s), population, most populace city, country(ies)/state(s), lowest elevation point, average elevation, climate?, boundary mountains, sub valley(s), parent valley, and some sort of geology type field relating to formation (i.e. some are rift valleys, others are formed by rivers and I'm sure there are other types). Thanks. Aboutmovies 20:43, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
I do not find much time for Wikipedia in summer (mountains are more interesting with a backpack on one's shoulders these days than on a monitor) but I will definitely work on it. Thanks for the list of usable fields. – Caroig (talk) 20:58, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Template:Geobox sea. The infobox (infobox river) was recently removed from the English Channel article on the not unreasonable basis that it is not a river. Replacing it with "Geobox river" clearly doesn't answer the question - how about a "Geobox sea"? Mucky Duck 12:26, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
    There's an ongoing effort to create Geoboxes for most geogrphic features. Rather then having a specific Geobox template for every such features, more general usage templates might be created. – Caroig (talk) 13:34, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Use for SSSIs which also fit another infobox

Would the Geobox system be suitable to replace Template:Infobox SSSI Map & Template:Infobox SSSI particularly where the site is also a cave or lake or something where the Infoboxes Template:Infobox lake etc would also be relevant?— Rod talk 18:43, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

It depends what functionality you would require from the Geobox, I suppose the Template:Geobox Protected Area is in question. Generally it should be, I'm planning to use it for all types of protected areas (or just protected tress, rocks etc.) within the Czech Republic and Slovakia but it is designed so that could accommodate any region or country. I've created it today and haven't had time to create manyt pages that would make use of it. I think it's up to you to test it and see for yourself if it is suitable or not. If you have any specific questions or requirements feel free to put them here or on my user page. – Caroig 19:23, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
Yes it's the the Template:Geobox Protected Area I was looking at. I suppose the main question would be whether we can "import" the maps from English Nature (who register Sites of Special Scientific Interest) in England - see their polygons available at http://www.english-nature.org.uk/pubs/gis/GIS_register.asp — Rod talk 21:17, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure I fully understand what exactly you mean by "import". If you want to have a field in the Geobox pointing at the page from English Nature with the map as it is implemented in the Template:Infobox SSSI you can use the four "free" fields in the Geobox which could contain any type of information. So you could have:
free_type = Location map
free = [http://www.natureonthemap.org.uk/map.aspx?map=sssi&feature=1000310,sssi,HYPERLINK,LABEL ''English Nature'']
As of the solution using the {{location map}} there's no field in the current infoboxes where this could be used. The idea on which {{location map}} is based, that the location dot is put automatically in a blank map based on the coordinates is nice, however it is not easy to use and not very universal and for making it work, you have to supply additional data anyway the location template for every map used map be created and calibrated and can be used on orthogonal projections only. The solution in Geoboxes isn't that automated but fully universal. If you have a map with location marked in it, you just put it in the map field. If you want to use a blank map and the location marked semi-automatically, you use the same map field and just need to provide two more parameters, map_locator_x and map_locator_y which are relative (in percents of the map width) "coordinates" on the map. This way, you can use any type of map (see Ostredok showing the location of the mountain on a map of the range.) – Caroig 22:32, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
Sorry I'm still having problems with this. I've put the protected areas Geobox on Mendip Hills & the map is below it (outside geobox) with the X & Y but if I put it into the box i can't get it to work.— Rod talk 13:32, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
No need to apologize :-) I've just updated the Geobox on Mendip Hills to include the map. You just need to put a blank map in the map field and appropriate map_locator_x and map_locator_y values, which are percents of the map width (thus a location on the right edge of the map will have map_locator_x = 100 assigned). Using the percents you don't depend on the map width when including these relative "coordinates". The GBthumb template uses the gb4dot.svg map, 180px wide. Therefore map_locator_x = 54.44 (i.e. 98/180*100) and map_locator_y = 118.89 (i.e. 214/180*100). The locator dot in the Geobox seems to be located in a bit different place than the one in GBthumb. It is, indeed, located in a different place as in the former the place at which the locator dots points is actually the top right corner of the yellow dot while the latter puts the center of the locator dot in the desired location (I guess this is more logical). I've left the other location template in place so that you could compare them.
I also shortened the displayed text of the website using an advanced wiki syntax, hiding the obvious http:// code.
The template is still rather new and if you have any comments concerning fields it shoud/shouldn't include, how they are to be displayed etc., feel free to tell me. – Caroig 20:44, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
Thanks - I've now moved the red dot to the right position & got rid of GBthumb - I will get hang of it before long. As far as other field go... in the UK an Area of Outstanding National Beauty ramks with national park (but without the same powers) & doesn't work on "IUCN" (which I had to look up). I wasn't sure what to do with location in the geography section as there is no single point? — Rod talk 21:08, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
As of the IUCN category, when I was creating this template I wanted it to allow the inclusion of all fields from the Template: Infobox protected area where the IUCN category is used. But I'm not using it myself as I don't find it that useful, it seems one IUCN category can have very different implementations in various countries and a local category with an appropriate link seems to be more useful. I think it isn't very useful for the UK either.
Concerning the location coordinates it's to be used only when the area is small and a single value is relevant. See e.g. Český les Landscape Protected Area which doesn't make use of it and Pavlova Huť Nature Reserve which does using the Český les Landscape Protected Area as the background map (not that good example as the Landscape Protected Area is very narrow but I haven't used elsewhere, I was too busy). There is quite a lot of fields – you can use just the ones which are relevant (the empty fields don't display, the idea is you can add the template, fill in the basic data and add other later or let other editors with better resources do that). – Caroig 21:27, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
The location is rather a free field (to include some text description of the location) which is of more importance in other templates of the series, here it probably won't be used much. – Caroig 21:34, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Located Map

An idea closely related to location maps, but which I can't find expressed anywhere, is being tested out in: Template:Located map. A "location" map is one that draws a point somewhere on a map by pixel position. If you then include the GPS coordinates of this point in realspace, your map is now nailed down to the right spot. All you need to add is data about the scale and the north vector and you've made something that can be overlayed onto any mapping system. That's what I call a "Located Map". Here's one I've prepared earlier of a couple of caves in China: http://seagrass.goatchurch.org.uk/~mjg/cgi-bin/map.py?lat=29.594281990235878&lng=107.99277305603027&zoom=14&maptype=Cave%20Survey%20Hybrid How any of this fits into the grand scheme is not obvious, but it's something I hope that can be considered.Goatchurch 00:47, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for replying that late. This would be possible and probably not that difficult to implement but the locator system in this series of templates is designed for indicating the location of the place on a country map. A detailed map of the cave system can be someplace within the article body, but I'm not sure where it would go in a Geobox.
As of the request for the Geobox template for caves, I'd try to create it but I would first need some information on what fields it should contain, at least for a start. I've created Geoboxes for features I write about, which is not the case of caves and as there's no cave infobox there's no place to look for some help.
The locator dot system has been recently upgraded so that it can place the locator dot based on coordinates only, thus no need to fill in the locator dot position (but it is still possible), see various mountains in the Greater Fatra Range. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Caroig (talk • contribs) 23:43, 19 February 2007 (UTC).
I don't know if it a result of this change but the locater dot system in the Geobox (Protected areas) on Mendip Hills has recently stated displaying the dot in the wrong place although no one has changed the X & Y coordinates - any help of explanation would be greatfuly received.— Rod talk 15:36, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
I think I've solved my own problem - because it had cocordinates for highest point but not under the general geography section it didn't sort the locator dot.— Rod talk 15:50, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Template duplication

These templates appear to duplicate other templates - Geobox building duplicates infobox building, for example The existing templates generally have, or can have, a coordinates field, making use of {{coord}} for coordinates. Please discuss such work, on the talk page of the existing template. Thank you. Andy Mabbett 12:10, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Automatic linking

Hello. I do not like automatic linking, I mean that thing that happens at Ostrava article in the part of geobox concerning municipal parts. How it can be delinked? Both links point to wrong articles. - Darwinek 10:00, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, in most situations it's rather useful as it's saves the editor the need to wikiformat the data. Besides, the Geobox is easier to read/edit. If there exists an appropriate article, you can use the normal wikilink, i.e. [[Ostrava-Poruba|Poruba]]. I would say such name as Poruba will be more common and every place should have somehow differentiated artcile headword, not just Poruba, which should be left for a disambiguation page. If you don't want to put the correct wikilink, you might add   to the place name. – Caroig (talk) 08:33, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox vs. Geobox

I don't understand the difference between Infobox City and Geobox Settlement. I see there's been conversation of the two competing. Why would I choose to use one or the other? Skeetidot 06:12, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

The Infobox is the current template. The Geobox was created as part of the overall Geobox series (Settlement, Region, River, Mountain, etc) to create a consistant look across all the geographic realted areas, a common logic to parameter names. Additionally, the Geobox improves on some other areas. It has auto unit conversion from imperial to metric and vice versa, its highly customizable including the ability to easily change the text of the left column, it has a built in locator map which prevents the need for individual "Dot maps" (maps with a red dot showing the location of a settlement) for each settlement, but instead a common map with a pushpin. The Geobox is being widely used in Illinois (Wiki Project Illinois has made the Geobox their standard) and Louisiana and I've been implementing it Delaware and some counties in both southeast and northeast PA. So, articles with no box, I'd suggest using the Geobox because of the advantages and features I mentioned above. If the Infobox is already in use, as it is for Pittsburgh, you should discuss it before making any change. VerruckteDan 22:39, 30 June 2007 (UTC)