Cithakan:Geobox title

All Geoboxes in this series have been superseded by Geoboxes 2. These old Geoboxes are still functional but all development has been moved to the new series.

Not much changes for the common user, most field names, logic, functionality are kept. However, the Geoboxes offer more functions and versatility. There are no more specific templates for each feature but just one master template that can handle all type data. Nonetheless, the code is much more efficient and the Geoboxes render much faster (the average pre-expand size is 3-4 times smaller) and thus the switch is highly recommended.

To convert from Geobox 1 to Geobox 2 simply replace the template call, e.g. {{Geobox Settlement becomes {{Geobox|Settlement. Or there is a semi-automatic tool.

This is an infobox template for void. It belongs to the Geobox series of templates, which are designated to be used for various geography related articles. They all use the same layout, internal logic and coherently named fields and provide some automated tasks such as unit conversion and automated located dot placement into a blank map. All templates can have a name on top, picture below, then section on Country, Region etc. followed by fields which are specific for every geographic feature, with a map at the bottom.

General instructions

How to fill out

Copy the appropriate blank template into the edited page and fill in appropriate fields. Do not re-use a template from another page.
Do not erase empty fields, other editors might supply the missing data. The empty fields are not displayed and don't hinder anything.

General field behavior

There exist base fields whose output can be modified or extended by adding additional fields, these always bear the name of the base field plus the name of the additional field starting with an underscore ("_"). The additional fields are not present in the blank templates, their existence is nonetheless marked in the field list of every Geobox. Following additional fields are defined for all base fields:

_type - for redefining the default label, e.g. the default label for the region field is Region, adding region_type it can be changed to display Province, Department …. N.B.: keep the text short, it is always displayed on one line, if it is too long, the left column of the geobox is too wide.

_note - any sort of note which is printed after the field value, it can be even a reference, though the author of Geoboxes discourages from doing so as the implementation of <ref></ref> tags is very poor. The note is printed in a bit different font, currently implemented as 90% italics.

_label : puts the HTML title property on the item (the text displays on hover).

Some fields might contain multiple values, these are not to be put in a single field and separated by commas but using numbered additional fields (e.g. for the country field there also exist country1, country2, country3 …. The additional "indexed" fields are usually not present in the blank templates.

The fields that link to existing articles don't need to be put between [[ and ]] markup, this is added automatically if the page exists. However, the markup can be used when the text of the link is different form the link itself, e.g. [[Amazon|Solimões]].

All figures can be in either metric (default) or imperial (miles, feet etc.) units; the Geoboxes display both, automatically calculating imperial figures from metric or metric from imperial ones. Unformated numbers (i.e. without commas) must be entered, otherwise the auto-conversion produces an error. The output is "nicely" formatted. Following additional fields can be used:
- _imperial - for input in imperial/customary units
- _round - for changing the rounding precision of auto-conversion, it's the position from the decimal point to which the figure is rounded, negative values can be used when the input figure is rounded/approximate, default value is 0
- _unit - for changing the default unit, appropropriate unit abbreviation should be used; the default unit for e.g. area is usually square kilometre (or square mile respectively), this can be changed to ha for hectare, acre for acre etc.

The last two additional fields are defined for every field using any units, if there is a set of similar fields, e.g. for area (area, area_land, area_water etc., the _round and _unit fields of the basic one are applied on all of them if they aren't specifically set)

geobox_width - width of the Geobox in pixels (without px, just the figure), it can be used when there are more Geoboxes or images stacked below each other and the same width is desirable; not in blank templates

Specific fields

Coordinates can be entered in two ways:

using separate _d, _m, _s…fields, _s and _m can be dropped out, the coordinate display template is adjusted accordingly
using just _d field and a decimal number, the hemispehere can be defined by either _NS, _EW fields or by using negative figures for western and southern hemisphere (these two systems mustn't be combined)

For every location type which can be described in coordinates, there exist two additional fields
- _type (named coordinates_type for the main location), which can contain any paramteres that are passed to the mapping service, especially the scale of the map, the possible parameters are described here: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Geographical_coordinates#Parameters.
- _format (named coordinates_format for the main location) to override how the coordinates are displayed, if the input is decimal the output is decimal too, if the input is DMS so is the output, the possible values are self-explanatory dms and dec

Both _type and _format fields can be defined for every location with coordinates separately or by the general coordinates_type and coordinates_format fields

The map field should be used for a location map of the feature, i.e. where it is located within a country. The location map can be of three types:

Self-contained location map. As in e.g. Greater Fatra.
Semi-automated locator dot. The map field contains background map, whereas locator_x and locator_y contain relative coordinates of the locator dot (as a percent of the map width, inserted without the % symbol), this system can be used when the map is not (or cannnot be) calibrated for the automated locator dot.
Fully automated locator dot. If coordinates of the location are defined in the Geobox and a calibrated map exists the locator dot is placed automatically based on the coordinates (map_locator field defines the appropriate map calibration). As in e.g. Ostrá. The same locator calibration can be used for all maps derived form one base map, e.g. Lysá hora and Plasy share the same calibration though the background map is different. The existing calibrations are listed here: Geobox locator.

Help

If anything doesn't work as it should, feel free to contact me, the author of the Geobox system, either on my userpage or here at the talkpage or at the appropriate Geobox talkpage. Caroig 22:40, 2 March 2007 (UTC)