Template talk:GeoTemplate/Archive 6

Co-ordinates for polar locations

 *  Copied from Template talk:Coord by Carcharoth 13:56, 25 July 2007 (UTC) 

I recently tried to look up Concordia Station by following the co-ord link and selecting Google Maps. Unfortunately, Google Maps uses a cylindrical projection and Antarctica and the polar regions are horribly distorted (as seen here and here). Is there any way to fix this, either at Google Maps/Google Earth's end (ie. display the polar regions as seen in these images: Antarctica and Arctic), to to fix the co-ord template to take the reader to a different map if the latitude value is above or below a certain value? Carcharoth 12:57, 25 July 2007 (UTC)


 * That'd be a question for Google, but the answer would probably be no. In our end it should be treated as any other location that isn't well covered in the global services, by finding a local one that serves the area better, and then create a section for it in Template:GeoTemplate. So the real question is if anyone knows a map service for Antarctica where a location can be linked directly in the URL. --Para 13:14, 25 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Once a section appears at that template, would the co-ord link currently at Concordia Station get changed to point directly to that section, or do we rely on the reader to find it themselves. Most readers will try the Google Maps link, then give up. Carcharoth 13:19, 25 July 2007 (UTC)


 * At the moment, no, unfortunately. You will have to click on the table of contents to get to the links. Work is however in progress to have GeoHack place the global section and relevant local section first on the page, depending on which area the requested coordinates are in. That should make it easy enough to find a recommended service for the location. --Para 13:32, 25 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm not clear what this - and the following issue - have to do with coord; you may find a better solution by asking elsewhere: perhaps Template talk:GeoTemplate Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 13:28, 25 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Co-ord is the most visible use of geographical templates. It is the link many people click on, so I thought I'd find the quickest answers here. And I did. At the moment, the issue is that the co-ord link at Concordia Station is useless, and I thought that the people working on this template would like to be aware of the issues. Does that answer your question? I will also raise this at Template talk:GeoTemplate, but if you really want to channel talk from here to there, why not put a notice at the top of this page? Carcharoth 13:39, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
 *  (end copied discussion) 


 * I;ve just replied to your latter post at the original location. Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 14:18, 25 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Is this the right location for the discussion? Any ideas on what should be done about linking to maps of polar regions? Carcharoth 13:56, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Co-ordinates for boundaries

 *  Copied from Template talk:Coord by Carcharoth 13:56, 25 July 2007 (UTC) 

Template:Coor d Antarctic - used in Antarctic territorial claims and Antarctica, and is absolutely useless there. If you click the links and look them up on maps, you learn very little. What is informative is the the maps showing the boundaries of the territories. Using co-ord to pinpoint a single location works well, but using co-ord to indicate boundaries is a bad idea, or at least needs to be improved. You want a function where a set of co-ords takes you to a mapping site like Google Earth and draws the boundaries on a map for you. Is this possible? This could be very exciting for drawing maps of old countries, or showing where those countries were in relation to modern countries. Carcharoth 13:08, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
 *  (end copied discussion) 


 * Is this the right location for the discussion? Any ideas on whether drawing boundaries using co-ords is feasible or even desirable? Carcharoth 13:56, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Someone may be able to write a mapplet for it, but that would only support 1 service (Google or whichever service he uses). --Voidvector 08:15, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

What happened to direct Google Earth link?
I don't think the Geody link is really a good substitute -- Google Earth is so prominent that it should really be called out by name. That doesn't mean the Geody link shouldn't also be there -- I don't think a little minor redundancy here is a problem. --Trovatore 20:31, 1 August 2007 (UTC)


 * There's two of them just a few rows below the Geody one. Did you miss it because it was too far down, or because it wasn't in the first section? If you have ideas on how to improve the page in general and not for any single service only, there's a redesign topic just above. --Para 20:42, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Useless for me
Apparently the page have changed. When I went to the page http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/geo/geohack.php?params=50_49_2.05_N_4_37_32.35_E_scale:6000 I got a page with texts overlayed which is useless for me. I use Safari on Macintosh. A partial screendump is on http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Geopage_does_not_work.jpg. What to do? --Wouterhagens 20:54, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm getting the same thing, also on Safari, Apple. It's probably going to change when we start using the redesign. --Steinninn 21:59, 3 August 2007 (UTC)


 * This is an old "bug" that has reemerged. See here for previous discussion and a hack that patched it: The root of the problem appears to be caused by different CSS stylesheets being used at wikimedia.de and wikipedia.org. If we are to re-apply the hack, we may as well add a do-not-remove sign within comment tags. —Tokek 17:39, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * It's almost fixed, but the TOC limit doesn't work, I tried it on Firefox, and it's the same story there. It's on the right, but very long. How does it look on IE? --Steinninn 18:25, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I created a template TOCgeohack based on the flat list TOC that is still commented out in the template. I'll insert it now. --Steinninn 18:36, 10 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Looks good. I would put it where the language menu is; move the language menu to the footer, and mention the language options in the TOC. Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 18:55, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't agree, and anyway, soon there's going to be a new interwiki section on the left side that everyone should be happy about. --Steinninn 10:24, 11 August 2007 (UTC)


 * The TOClimit problems stems from geohack importing only base monobook skin and nothing else. If you viewed using my version it'll look more like how it looks at WP, since I've import more style sheets.  I also can only presume that the apple users were using safari 2.x since on the windows 3.x these problems did not occur.  Also as a side note for those hacking on the language bar in this version, It should be possible to using CSS position the a pseudo-language bar on the left.  —Dispenser 16:55, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Off topic: Since we are putting the language bar on the left, can we also have the "[ Discuss ] [ Usage ] [ Edit ]" at the top?
 * Well the Special pages don't have that. Probably the easiest way is to use a CSS hack.  —Dispenser 23:05, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Do you know how do use the CSS hack. I sure as hack don't. --Steinninn 01:41, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Passing decimal values
Links to Magnus' tool use coordinates with Northings and Westings, thus:


 * http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/geo/geohack.php?params=52.548_N_1.932_W_region:GB_type:city

Is it possible to construct a similar link, but with decimal values, like:


 * http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/geo/geohack.php?params=52.548_-1.932_region:GB_type:city

(which doesn't work); perhaps by adding an extra parameter? Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 19:01, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
 * So you asking if we could get ride the direction indicator or that we could use 52.548 N -1.932 E? —Dispenser 16:55, 11 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm asking only whether there is a way to pass the parameters in decimal format, as in my second example. Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 17:01, 11 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Can the direction indicator be eliminated? (SEWilco 16:14, 16 August 2007 (UTC))
 * I found the function which parse the coordinate (get_coor ), there a comment near the top stating that semi-colons can seperate the two values. e.g. 52.548;-1.932_region:GB_type:city.  —Dispenser 23:05, 16 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Splendid. Thank you. Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 00:06, 17 August 2007 (UTC)