Template talk:Infobox New Zealand suburbs

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[edit] Template width

Section copied over from Wikipedia:New Zealand Wikipedians' notice boardstarts here:

Hello all - I have created a new Template:Infobox New Zealand suburbs. Started out as an Auckland project, but I changed it so it can be easily used on various cities all over NZ. Has a lot of (optional) fields beyond what the previous Auckland tables used. I am also still tweaking it a little, but I think its pretty good. Things still to do (likely tomorrow):

  • Add support for wards (even if all they seem to be used in is elections)
  • Try to find a way to pipe links (so that Devonport, New Zealand can be piped to Devonport within the infobox
  • Try to find a way to allow brackets around non-suburb 'surrounded by's - for this and the previous change I may end up having to undo the auto-wikilinking for these fields. Changes done.

So far, I have only used the template on a very few test cases (Auckland CBD, Onehunga, New Zealand for example). Once the above is fixed, I will over the coming days update all the other Auckland suburbs and then maybe other cities in NZ as well. Any comments, suggestions, before I start to do so? Cheers Ingolfson (talk) 14:48, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

At first glance it looks good - it'll well replace the "temporary" infobox I added to suburb articles over two years ago! Grutness...wha? 20:34, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. I have also now fixed the above things. Ingolfson (talk) 21:41, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
Could the template be made narrower? I hate pages where wide content on the right reduces the lead to one word per line. dramatic (talk) 09:10, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Umm, one word? Surely you are exaggerating? If I narrowed it, content wrapping into more than one line would be common for some fields, making the template look a bit cluttered in my opinion. Also, the template is currently 300px, with the old table being around 295px, so its not exactly a massive change. New Zealand railway stations template is also the same width as the new suburb template. As you can see, I'm hesitant to change the width... Ingolfson (talk) 10:15, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
I kid you not. I have inserted linebreaks exactly as they occur for me.

Onehunga
is a suburb
of Auckland
City, New
Zealand,
and also
the
location of
the Port of
Onehunga,
the city's
small port
on the
Manukau
Harbour. It
(and so on until Maungakiekie doesn't fit so there is a long gap before the text can continue with that beneath the infobox.

Note that my browser is cset to open pages at a width which gives optimum sentence lengths on most websites. I can drag the frame wider, but it is a nuisance to have to do so. My font size is enlarged slighly in my WP user stylesheet, but I won't be alone in that. dramatic (talk) 10:56, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Uhm, dramatic, I still feel that since the page displays readably at a window sized only ~ 640 px wide (just checked - and most computers have much higher resolutions today), and due to the fact that many, many other templates on Wikipedia are similar width (such as the mountain template, which is even wider) the problem is more on your side - maybe reduce text size or set a larger window size? Again, I note the existing suburb tables at 295px width. I may check how a 280px width would work for the template, but please give me a day or two. BTW: How do K2 and Onehunga Branch display for you? Ingolfson (talk) 11:13, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Also, how does say Shire of Chiltern look? (That's an Australian one using a similarish template). Orderinchaos 13:13, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
All the examples people asked me to compare are narrower than the NZ suburbs template on Onehunga:

(all measurements taken with Iconico Screen Calipers) If the left and right margins of the photographs were eliminated - so the side of the photo aligns with the blue header bars - it would be much better. Note that not all templates exhibit the difference between browsers. Since this discussion is getting long, should we move it to the template's talk page? (I don't know how to transfer it properly). dramatic (talk) 08:41, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Then either your browser or the template syntax has a problem, because the template clearly displays as 300px wide on my IE (V6, admittedly, but still). I was never intending to have it at more than 300px width. Therefore, I doubt that a simple "width" change on the template side will change anything (though in fact, that's a good thing in a way, because it means that we may be able to solve this eventually without me having to shrink the template in my view...) Ingolfson (talk) 08:54, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Section copied over stops here. ok, I have two further data points (from Onehunga):

  • Firefox 2.0.0.12 on 1280x1024: 300px - looks as you probably intended it with the photo almost full width of the template.
  • Firefox 2.0.0.12 on 1600x1200: 412px!

I get these figures regardless of browser window being maximised or narrower. Note that I am not logged in in any browser other than Opera, so my stylesheet mods are not affecting anything. It looks as though the infobox width is specified in ems. Both my computers have 19" monitors, hence the one with the CRT@1600x1200 is running a much higher dpi. Nevertheless the text in firefox appears roughly the same size on each browser.dramatic (talk) 10:24, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi dramatic - the template uses EMs (not that I even know what they are, honestly, I copied this template from another one, and learned via trial by error, because I am too impatient to read guidelines). It is set at 27em - the issue seems to stem from the fact that this is interpretetd differently by each browser (as visible by the fact you get it at a different width than I do). Maybe we could fix it via settings in your browser, or potentially switch it to a px-based fixed width. Ingolfson (talk) 07:55, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
In CSS terms an em is a measure of the height of the font being used. Wikipedia, being accessibility-friendly, does not nail down the default font size, so it depends on the user's individual settings. (In my case tweaked by my user stylesheet). Em-based layouts are considered excellent. Unfortunately, other parts of the page do not use ems. (the left column is set in px, I think). Because the sidebar contains images, they will tend to affect its width requirements, and images cannot be sized in ems without unwelcome (and often unsightly) in-browser scaling. I think that in this case px might serve better. I'll look at all the styles to determine what will suit best. dramatic (talk) 08:36, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
Your change seems alright from my side. Did it fix yours? Ingolfson (talk) 07:18, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I set it to 310px, which should allow for a 300px image. Not quite as "accessible", but I'd consider the infobox to be secondary to the actual article prose anyhow.dramatic (talk) 07:59, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
Fine, good to have that solved. As for the article prose - you are welcome to work on them, many of the Auckland suburb articles are barely worth keeping at their current quality - except that they obviously talk about a notable thing. I'm doing some on-the-go fixes here and there to get them better, but with so many in Auckland alone, even rolling out the template over the whole of the category will take me weeks. Ingolfson (talk) 10:40, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Schools

Local schools (ie actually within the suburb) seems like an obvious thing to include here. Also, in terms of 'local' airports, hospitals etc, does this mean actually in the suburb or just the nearest one? --Helenalex (talk) 11:34, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm a bit hesitant about schools, but I guess only very few suburbs would have more than a handful (though some could conceivably have a dozen+, which makes me wonder if that wouldn't then overload the box). The airport hospital etc... all only mean within the suburb. Ingolfson (talk) 11:38, 16 May 2008 (UTC)