Forum:Mountain Passthrough Template

Forums: Helping Hand > Mountain Passthrough Template

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I want to add a {{Mountain}} template that would apply to mountain ranges, mountain peaks, volcanoes, hills, etc.

I created an example page here: User:Lhynard/Sandbox/Example003

The template is/will be simply a pass-through to {{Location}} with the following differences:

• It has a more limited number of fields befitting mountains/hills.

  I think BatCatMan feels differently, but I'm a big fan of more specific infobox templates—provided they are intelligently set up to use "base" templates. (I love object-oriented coding styles, and I hate duplicated code.) I don't like scrolling through tons of empty fields in the Location template when I'm creating a page that doesn't need such things as government descriptions or population statistics. I also think it is easier for new users to give them a simpler form to fill out more specific to their topic. It also makes it harder for new users to mess things up or forget what sort of information we expect for a particular type of location. And because it's a pass-through, template management is easy.

• It has different colors.

  I am by no means set on these colors! I mainly wanted to be sure I understood how the new infoboxes are working under the hood, so I picked these for now. Changing them from this point on takes all of 10 seconds. I like the idea of colors that make me think of earth and stone. Any help/suggestions here appreciated.

• It auto-generates categories.

  I am a big fan of auto-generating as many categories as possible in an intelligent manner. Here's what the prototype already does:

  • Adds Category:Location.
  • If the type field is…
    • …blank, adds Category:Mountains.
    • …M(m)ountain range, adds Category:Mountains.
    • …M(m)ountain, adds Category:Mountains.
    • …V(v)olcano range, adds Category:Volcanoes and Category:Mountains.
    • …H(i)ll(s), adds Category:Hills.
    • …anything else unexpected, adds nothing else.

It seems to me that this is a very minor addition to the wiki, but I'm running it by you all first before I go and add it to all the mountain articles.

~ Lhynard (talk) 07:20, October 7, 2015 (UTC)

After using the complete {{Location}}, I am now a big fan of cut-back, focused templates. :) So, it sounds like a good idea. I think the black and brown are way too dark. Brown doesn't feel right, all the dirt is at the bottom. Maybe a mid- or dark grey would be more suitable.

— BadCatMan (talk) 07:32, October 7, 2015 (UTC)

Instead of making a whole new template, we could just provide alternate "Usage" boxes for the users to cut and paste from—one for each sub-template. But if you want alternate color schemes, then pass-throughs with a variant parameter looks like what we have to do for now. Black on brown is not contrasty enough to read easily. Make the text color a pale tan or something. Or maybe green on white for snow-capped mountains, or brown and dark green for pine mountains, hehehe.

—Moviesign (talk) 13:00, October 7, 2015 (UTC)