Template talk:Infobox Australian Road

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 Infobox Australian Road is within the scope of WikiProject Australia, which aims to improve Wikipedia's coverage of Australia and Australia-related topics. If you would like to participate, visit the project page.
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Midlands Highway
General direction North-South
From Launceston, Tasmania
Major settlements Perth, Epping Forest, Campbell Town, Ross, Oatlands, Bagdad, Brighton, Bridgewater
To Granton, Tasmania
Major Junctions Esk Highway, Lake Highway
Davey Street
General direction northeast-southwest
From Hobart
To South Hobart
Monash Freeway
General direction Northwest-Southeast
From Kooyong
Major suburbs Chadstone, Mulgrave, Doveton, Narre Warren North
To Berwick, Melbourne
Major Junctions Toorak Road, Warrigal Road, Springvale Road, Stud Road, South Gippsland Freeway, Princes Highway
Wanneroo Road
Length 75 km
General direction South-North
From Joondanna
Major suburbs Tuart Hill, Wanneroo, Yanchep & Guilderton
To Woodridge
Allocation Part of State Route 60
Major Junctions Morley Drive, Reid Highway, Ocean Reef Road, Joondalup Drive, Yanchep Beach Road

I have copied this across to replace the various WA road templates. It will need to be expanded/fixed to handle the rest of Australia but there's nothing WA-specific in here, so that should not be a problem. I was surprised to note no other state has such a template, and seem to be doing it manually - I like Bruce Highway and I'd like to see what we can do to incorporate some of their ideas. Orderinchaos 10:51, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Just today I looked at Bruce Highway and found Template:QLDRoad... and thought "Those guys who started the Infobox Australian Place box would do a good job on something like this!" So I checked to see if Template:Infobox Australian Road existed and here I am! IMO the Australian Place one is great and this one should follow a similar style. I presume the scope covers any notable car/truck transport route? - ie. freeways, highways, major roads and city streets? -- Chuq 06:15, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
It hasn't really been discussed, but I'd assume so! The status as such is more that it replaces the WA ones, so there'll be stuff that can be improved all over the place. I actually liked the Bruce Highway one as it contained some stuff this one didn't (like titles on the route images and so on). BTW don't worry about the "route" field too much - it's been kept for backward compatibility only. Orderinchaos 07:33, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
This has an Infobox Australian Place feel. what is being done replaced? --TheJosh 11:50, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Could you rephrase that last sentence? :P Yes, it does have an IAP feel, because I thought the IAP template looked so great the style would suit other Australian geographical articles :) If you are asking what templates are being replaced - well, haven't got a list, but I guess any Australian highway/road/street templates. -- Chuq 12:56, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
We had four WA ones, all of which have now been superseded (see Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/2006_November_26#Australian_road_templates_consolidation) by this one. Most of the country is using manual boxes, while Vic freeways have entirely their own and someone dug up a QLD Road one. I'm sure as we look further we'll find even more, especially for smaller entities like city streets. Orderinchaos 14:00, 3 December 2006 (UTC)


Contents

[edit] Testing

Just playing about here! Ideas:

  • Set the "through" field automatically use smaller text (font-size:90%)
  • Include distances (like dist# and location# in Place template)
  • Have a set definition on which end is the "start" and which is the "finish" :)
  • Auto generate the correct shield image from a variable, so no need to know the image names
  • Have a different colour background in the 'header' depending on if it is highway, street, etc. like the Place template.

Not that I'm making requests or demands, I was just wondering which of these people thought were more important! (Or not a good idea to start with!) -- Chuq 08:04, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

You will notice the result of more of my testing on the right. Setting type=highway makes it green, type=street makes it red. Haven't done anything else fancy (such as making variables optional based on the type) yet! -- Chuq 10:02, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

All good ideas. I think we must always keep two objectives in mind:
* Ease of use for the editor employing the template (eg automating manual tasks, reducing effort required to update/adjust)
* Ease of reading for the casual reader (not to mention usefulness) - if it misleads in any way (unintentionally), not good.
Seems your ideas try to address both of these, which is excellent. Another I'd like to see is something which can handle roads which are broken up into multiple sections (Calder Freeway is a good example of where this would be necessary). As an aside, I've made "through" optional so it can be used better for city streets Orderinchaos 14:33, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bot

Hey, If you want to use my bot for this project, i can set it up for you. Just ask. --TheJosh 12:56, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks heaps - appreciated! Orderinchaos 14:23, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Road Types

As Chuq mentioned above, the template now colours the road name based on the setting of type. I've added another type, "road" for use in arterial road articles. So the possible values for type are:

  • Highway - for use with highways - colour = green
  • Road - for use with arterial roads within cities (roads between suburbs) - colour = yellow
  • Street - for use with main streets in cities (streets just in the city centre) - colour = red

There is probably a lot of logic that can be built into this template based on the value of the type setting. I've noticed that many of the articles that don't use this infobox yet use "Suburbs along road" or "Towns along highway" instead of "via". I think it would be good if the template worked out which text to use based on the value of type.GK1 14:57, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Not a bad idea! A lot is still in its infancy - the "via" is a legacy of its origins and can definitely be changed if a better version can be come upon. I like your idea of the template selecting it - now we've just got to figure out how to tell the template whether it's urban or rural, so it would be "x along y" basically. Orderinchaos 15:21, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Done. It now says "Towns along highway" for highways, "Suburbs along road" for roads and "Location" for streets. It still says "via" if the type parameter isn't specified. I've also changed the template it's based on to "infobox geography". GK1 19:11, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
I hope you don't mind, but I have changed the "infobox geography" back to "infobox" - so that it matches the look and feel of Template:Infobox Australian Place, which this was based on. Other changes are great though! -- Chuq 03:21, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Ah, yes. I forgot it was based on that template. I've now made the background on the left column the same blue colour as the Australian place template, so it should look very similar now. GK1 08:38, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Additional road types

I notice Monash Freeway uses this infobox, but without a 'type' as none of the current ones are suitable. At the moment we have:

  • Highway (green)
  • City highway (green)
  • Road (yellow)
  • Street (red)

I'll attempt to add a fifth category, "Freeway", which would be blue - and test it on that page. -- Chuq 01:23, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Order of fields

I think it looked better when the "To" field was directly after the "From" field. "From A, via B, to C" looks strange compared to "From A, to C, via B". Thought I'd better see what other people thought before changing it back though. GK1 14:28, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Yep, good point - I agree with that! Though it kinda makes sense both ways though.. "A via B to C" is the order in which the towns (etc) are on the physical highway! hmm... -- Chuq 12:32, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Text size

I just converted Brooker Highway to use this template, I can't help but think that the font size on the previous version looks better than the new version. Does anyone else agree? -- Chuq 01:47, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Couldn't help myself. I'm (1) impatient (2) bold! -- Chuq 02:06, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
Looks fantastic! :) Good work. Orderinchaos 04:10, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Auto categorisation

I was about to copy the auto-categorisation features of WP:IAP but then I realised that highways often cross state borders. (One of things you don't really think about when you live in Tasmania!) The fact that there isn't an existing state parameter doesn't help either. Is this worth doing or would it not be used for most other states? -- Chuq 05:27, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox Australian Station?

There is a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Adelaide#Station Infoboxes that participants here may be interested in, with a suggestion to develop a standard infobox along the lines of this and {{Infobox Australian Place}} for railway stations.--cj | talk 15:08, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Length Required field?

Is it possible to make length a non-required field? In some circumstances the article may not yet be filled in with this information, yet an infobox would still be appropriate? Muzzamo 15:15, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Done - thanks for raising this issue. Orderinchaos 17:35, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
No worries - thanks for fixing so promptly :-) Muzzamo 00:45, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
 :) If you have any other suggestions we're always open to them, the template started off as just a Good Idea(tm) and the right thing to do, and most development has really proceeded based on what users think is needed (or not needed). Orderinchaos 02:58, 23 September 2007 (UTC)