Talk:List of National Historic Landmarks in Iowa

Rate this as an ARTICLE not as merely a List
Despite the word "List" in the title, this is far more than a mere category list now, so should be rated as an article on scale Stub / Start / B, and then it can go for Featured List class. See discussion at Talk page of WP:NRHP for criteria for each level. I am self-rating this article as "Start" because the list of NHLS is complete, there is at least a stub article for each NHL that it covers, and the article otherwise meets proposed criteria for Start. doncram 01:12, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Widened over-tall table for portrait display
15-March-2009: To allow the table to better display in portrait-sized windows, rather than as landscape width, I am narrowing some columns to allow the description-column to wrap more than 3-words-per-line:
 * increased total width from 98% to 101%;
 * reduced width of name from 18% to 13%;
 * used small-font dates to release 2-characters of width;
 * used small-font "Pottawattamie" to release 4-characters of width;
 * shortened images that were much taller than descriptions.

The table basically had been designed, with 7 wide columns, to fit on a spread-out landscape page, rather than the portrait-style display of most books. As you might know, standards are being discussed to emphasize the 800x600-pixel, portrait-style window size, as the recommended page layout for articles. Spreadsheet tables or large maps would be obvious exceptions to using portrait-style. Smaller sizes, such as "cell-phone size" are considered excessive, because obviously, most books are not printed at such techno-limited sizes. (When technology improves, phones should cleverly "unfold" or plug into larger (fabric?) screens, just as the fold-out keyboard was re-discovered, despite decades of text-haters PDA-penpricking the world to death because they refused the keyboard simplicity). Anyway, for full-screen pages, the list-style tables could be condensed, via several techniques to fit comfortably within regular portrait-style pages. See topic below: . -Wikid77 (talk) 06:34, 15 March 2009

Condensing table for portrait display
15-March-2009: There are several ways to condense a table of 7 wide columns, as in the list of Iowa NHLs, to better fit in a portrait-style page, such as 800x600 width. Some options are as follows: Although landscape-style windows might seem to support lazy-man typesetting, the landscape displays often acquire embarrassing, HUGE text-gaps when a new image is inserted at sparse text, because often the text alongside is too limited to auto-wrap-fill the entire wide spacing beside the image. So, portrait style is much easier to adjust when placing new images. Typically, the lazy-man's image typesetting would be all images spread across gallery-rows, splitting the text sections on wide landscape pages. The net result is that images tend to drift very far from the related text, and remain tiny postage-stamps. No wonder newspapers were typeset for decades using all-narrow columns: narrow columns weren't easier to read, they just avoided most text gaps because every phrase & picture was pre-shrunk to fit an endless series of such columns, like pouring goo into tall molds. On balance, use of portrait-style pages is easier to typeset, while also being readable, and having nearby images. However, 7-column tables must be carefully redesigned, to some extent, to fit within the whole typesetting scheme. See topic below: . -Wikid77 (talk) 06:34, 15 March 2009
 * Perhaps the easiest option is to use width=110% (or such) to allow a wide table to scroll (slightly) left/right on a narrowed window.
 * Remove unnecessary columns (this is a harsh decision, because all columns are typically included as being notable).
 * Combine 2 wide columns, such as location + county (however, sorting by each might require separation; combining date+image would allow date-sorting, but purists might fight the combination).
 * Abbreviate column contents, such as using numeric date-formats.
 * Shrink column contents, such as small-font or hyphenated words allowing 30% more-narrowed columns.
 * Separate columns into multiple tables (consider if all columns are really needed side-by-side in a single table).

Example combining county/description
15-March-2009: A very powerful solution to condensing the NHL tables is to include the county as the intro to the description text, in the manner of AP newsreports stating city (see proposed Alabama NHL table below). The logical precedent has been used, for years, to introduce a news story with the location, such as "New York - The Dow closed higher again, showing continued recovery from the depression". For the NHL tables, the combined County/Description would read like: "Mobile County - The battleship USS Alabama was commissioned in 1942...." Because Mobile County is named, at the start of the text, the column can be sorted by county. Also, because the county is a location, the combined text reads like an AP newsreport, prefaced with the location under discussion.

The net result, combining county+text, is that the extra spacing from the wide county field widens the description text-wrapping by another 2-words-per-line, expanding from perhaps 5 to become 7-words-per-line, very readable in portrait display. -Wikid77 (talk) 06:34, 15 March 2009


 * Please bring any discussion back to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places, rather than here. Thanks dm (talk) 06:55, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Other discussion pages
16-March-2009: (subtopic) Discussions of all NHL-lists, for all 50 states, have specific pages:
 * wp:NHL progress - a to-do list for improving all 50;
 * Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/TableDisplayTestCases - discussion about format-changes affecting various NHL lists.

Specifics for the Iowa NHL-list can continue below. -Wikid77 (talk) 08:11, 16 March 2009