Template talk:Dr

Value of this template
What's the value of this template? It can't be economy of typing or thinking: 460s BC is rather easier to type than and requires no thought. —Largo Plazo (talk) 11:59, 4 March 2014 (UTC)


 * It's heavily used by templates such as Year nav which auto-generate a table of dates based on a single input date. For example creates the table on the right:
 * It makes all that from the single input number "1946" by making multiple calls to dr.
 * This template isn't intended to be used by ordinary editors; it's for template editors to use in templates. – wbm1058 (talk) 02:08, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

How does it do that?
How does this template create links? AChildOfGod (talk) 16:30, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
 * It uses Template:Dr-make to make links, of course! Dr-make uses Template:Drep. Even I, a template editor would need some time to study it to understand the details of how it works. If you look at the template code, it's barely human-readable ;) Hey, it's a black box, and if it works, don't worry about it. wbm1058 (talk) 02:39, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I missed Dr-make when I was looking at the code for those templates. AChildOfGod (talk) 13:59, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

Confusing name
What does "dr" stand for? "Date render" or something? Templates should be intuitively named, so I'd suggest moving this and related pages to something more logical, even if the shortcuts are kept. Or at least define the name in the documentation. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 01:35, 15 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Would like to know the answer too for the purposes of localization. --Renessaince (talk) 17:28, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Seems like retired in 2012, so we may never know. If anyone wants to rename the group, feel free. &#123;{u&#124;  Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 18:28, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
 * From Template:Drep/doc and Template:Dr-make/doc, I'm guessing "date representation". Largoplazo (talk) 19:29, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Wait, what's the difference between this and drep? Should they be merged?
 * Good find on the name. If others support, I can move this to Template:Date representation and note Dr in the doc as a shortcut. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 19:49, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Looking at the call sequence and the respective call syntax of all three, it appears that dr is two levels of API abstraction above drep, with dr-make in between them. Nothing more than that.
 * Is there a way to list only pages that transclude a template directly? When I click "What links here" for drep, I still get every article that transcludes year nav, which transcludes dr, which transcludes dr-make, which transcludes drep. Largoplazo (talk) 20:48, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Perhaps update the first sentence of the documentation to read "Provides a consistent means of generating a representation for a year, decade, century or millennium for use in an infobox or navbox." Largoplazo (talk) 19:34, 6 December 2021 (UTC)