Template talk:Infobox canal

wikilinks
As part of the FAC review for an article containing this infobox, one reviewer has raised confusion over 'maximum length', thinking that the canal was 70 feet long :) I wonder if it would be worth modifying the template to wikilink some of the nautical terms used?  Such as Beam (nautical)? Parrot of Doom (talk) 13:56, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, that one done, feel free to drop me a note of others. Mayalld (talk) 14:41, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

image size
Has something wierd happened to the image size. Look back in the history of Chambly Canal and the template's image has taken over the article.--Alastair Rae (talk) 18:53, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * If there is no caption value, the picture gets huge.  Image size can be modified by variable image_size, which is not documented. GloverEpp ( talk ) 15:09, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Image size problem is now fixed. 77.56.53.183 (talk) 23:34, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Change to this template - needs length of canal field
Could someone add a field that would be the length of the canal? I can't believe it's not here?! Changing templates is "above my paygrade". Perhaps you could point me towards learning the skill as well. thanks GloverEpp ( talk ) 02:13, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
 * len = is the length field. Parrot of Doom 10:04, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Nope, the len field is for the max length of a boat on that canal. See my test page at User:Gloverepp/test_template

Here are some other issues with the template: GloverEpp ( talk ) 15:22, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The image_size field is not shown in the documentation.
 * Without a caption, you get the image across the whole page.
 * There is no length of canal field.
 * Would be nice to have coordinates for start and ending of canal.
 * coordinates would be nice ? expected ? Dave Rave (talk) 23:04, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
 * we have begin_coord and end_coord. Frietjes (talk) 15:47, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Please add three fields to this infobox
'''Disregard this request - I created a new template from scratch...... thanks anyway.''' GloverEpp ( talk ) 20:19, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Please add: thanks much GloverEpp ( talk ) 16:19, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Length of the canal field. The existing field of len is for the length of the boat, not the canal.
 * Coordinates for start of canal.
 * Coordinates for end of canal.
 * we have begin_coord and end_coord Frietjes (talk) 15:48, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Alternate template
Here is an alternative to this template Template:Infobox french canal GloverEpp ( talk ) 16:37, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

inches
o_len_in and o_beam_in ought to be optional. This would require adding a test inside the convert. No time to do a good job now, so just setting them to 0 in the article. But that's really too much precision. --J Clear (talk) 03:02, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Gaps between start & notem end & note
I've just added this infobox to Kennet and Avon Canal & added as many details as I can, however a gap appears between the start point (Bristol) & the note (Floating Harbour) and similar between the end point (Reading) & the note (River Thames). Can anyone who understands the syntax of the infobox point out what I am doing wrong (or edit to fix)?&mdash; Rod talk 20:33, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
 * ✅. I think the note is when there is an "original start" field, if you add the note, then it leaves a line for the o-start. Much easier to fix by putting it all on one line with a html break.  Ron h jones (Talk) 23:46, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks - looks better now.&mdash; Rod talk 07:32, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Depth and mast height
Shouldn't there be info about maximum depth and mast height of boats ? --BIL (talk) 19:15, 7 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Agreed. We have maximum length and beam. Can't understand why maximum draft isn't in there.? Alan LeHun (talk) 09:41, 12 November 2013 (UTC)


 * +1 for me too... --TheAnarcat (talk) 20:46, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Metric units
Would it be possible to have something like 'length_km' to denote length measured in kilometres? Length in the infobox is showing up as 'miles' in countries using the Metric System. Yowanvista (talk) 02:26, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
 * yes, I second this request, and will attempt to add something soon. 174.56.57.138 (talk) 23:38, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
 * okay, we now have metric units in addition to imperial. 174.56.57.138 (talk) 00:12, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

display maps of canals
it would be nice to have a better display of the path the canal takes. we have start and end points, but it would be much better to have the complete trajectory of the canal...

Openstreetmap has interesting relations that show that. For example, here's the path of the Erie Canal. I haven't found a way to show this easily in Wikipedia, short of taking a screenshot. The SVG import is ~30MB and crashes Inkscape.... A PNG export works, but doesn't hilight the relation. It would be nice to shove this in the template directly! Related: WikiProject_Geographical_coordinates/Linear --TheAnarcat (talk) 20:50, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Adding field for maximum draft
There are already fields for maximum length and beam of a passing ship, but not for maximum draft. I request to add this.--RScheiber (talk) 10:06, 6 August 2017 (UTC)
 * There has since 2014 been two parameters called min_boat_draft and  min_boat_air_draft. I assume they refer to the draft and air draft permitted at respective minimum place. They have not been documented until now when I added them and some metric parameters to the documentation. The two parameters have no m/ft/in calculation so one should use something like .--BIL (talk) 18:36, 8 August 2017 (UTC)
 * This is confusing. The relevant criterion for ships should be maximum draft/draught. The minimum does not matter, one can float a canoe in any canal, but not every canal can accommodate a 50,000 ton ship. If you mean to say that there is a minimum depth of x metres throughout the canal, than do not call it "boat draft" (and do not call it "boat depth", which has another meaning entirely).  Do not conflate ship draft with the canal's minimum depth.
 * Example from the Panamax era: the minimum depth of the canal then was 41.2' and the maximum allowable draft was 39.5'.
 * Please change the boat draft field to maximum.  Kablammo (talk) 15:05, 27 March 2019 (UTC)
 * There is max_boat_draft as of Oct 2, 2019 and used already for Panama Canal and a few Canadian canals: Saint Lawrence Seaway, Rideau Canal, Trent–Severn Waterway, Welland Canal. Ninel (talk) 19:57, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Redoing template...
As part of my work converting geobox templates over to using infoboxes I came across this template. I was going to redo a few aspects of it and wanted to make sure there were no objections. Things I'm looking at changing/improving:
 * Better param names: For example, instead of I'm going to implement
 * Add a location section: Either going to add a single or going to implement a more complex, , , etc.
 * Add a map section: This would implement a standard location map with an option to supply an

Obviously all existing implementations of the template will not be broken. So my replacing parameters with better named ones would work as a deprecation to ensure that existing templates aren't broken. If anyone has any strong feelings let me know? Probably going to start on this over the weekend. :-) -- Zack mann  (Talk to me/What I been doing) 21:08, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
 * any thoughts on the above? -- Zack mann  (Talk to me/What I been doing) 02:53, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
 * User:Zackmann08, the most likely reason why location map hasn't been implemented is that canals are typically long, so an image of the entire route is often better. the same could be said for rivers, but there, we use the mouth, because the source is usually less well-defined. it would be great if we could have the mapframe maps like what is in Great Eastern Highway Bypass. Frietjes (talk) 13:15, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
 * That's a good point. Thanks fro the feedback. I'm happy to do it either way. Any thoughts on the other 2 points? -- Zack mann  (Talk to me/What I been doing) 17:55, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
 * User:Zackmann08, the rest seems fine, and supporting a location map is also reasonable (given that infobox street supports location maps). but, having the mapframe image of the entire route is even better (in my opinion).  I find it kind of odd that the geography section comes last, but not a big deal. Frietjes (talk) 19:06, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
 * cool. I'll work on a sandbox redo in the near future. -- Zack mann  (Talk to me/What I been doing) 19:30, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
 * How about a purpose field? There are canals whose purpose is irrigation, not transportation. Rhadow (talk) 18:14, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

Duplicate for Air draft
Quoting the talk page there seem to be two air draft parameters:

| min_air_boat_draft     = | min_boat_air_draft     =

The latter one would fit into the pattern of these parameters:

| max_boat_length        = | max_boat_beam          = | max_boat_draft         = | min_boat_draft         =

Also that latter one seems to be the only one to work (the other doesn't end up in the Infobox).

In addition we seem to have the same confusion here regarding Min/Max as we had initially for draft:

Is now: | max_boat_draft Was: | min_boat_draft

(See discussion above)

My suggestion: --RScheiber (talk) 18:35, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
 * 1) drop the duplicate min_air_boat_draft
 * 2) change min_boat_air_draft to max_boat_air_draft


 * ✅. I've removed min_air_boat_draft and added max_boat_air_draft. I left min_boat_air_draft since perhaps some canals prohibit short boats ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ QuincyMorgan (talk) 22:20, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

Documentation and cleanup needed
Some above points have not been addressed. Many parameters have confusing names and unhelpful labels. At a minimum explain them in the documentaion; in some cases the labels need to change too.

jnestorius(talk) 14:56, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
 * 1) deprecate separate metric and miles/feet parameters. convert covers all.
 * 2) Is "notes" for references or free text?
 * 3) With consolidated metric and miles/feet you can then add references in the same field instead of a separate _notes field
 * 4) Is "Lock length" the total length of all locks or the length of the longest lock or the shortest lock?
 * 5) I suppose "Locks" means "number of locks".
 * 6) Does "len_ft" duplicate "max_boat_length"? If not, what does it mean?
 * 7) Likewise "beam_ft" - "max_boat_beam"
 * 8) And "elev_ft" - "max_elev"
 * 9) And "min_elev_ft" - "min_elev"
 * 10) Most egregiously, "Minimum beam/draft" is used as well as "Maximum beam/draft"; I presume the former really means the minimum depth/width of the channel, which corresponds to the maximum for the boat within the channel. I suppose some canals prohibit boats that are too small, but I don't think the min_ parameters are being used in that sense.
 * 11) There is a min_boat_air_draft and min_air_boat_draft but no max equivalent

Locks vs inclined planes/lifts
It seems the only field in this template to denote lift methods (i.e. any method to traverse terrain) is locks. This works in the vast majority of cases, but if this template is used correctly, it doesn't work for canals such as the Elblag Canal. The Elblag doesn't have any locks, but does have 5 inclined planes. However, it did used to have five locks and four inclines. So whereas in some cases we can use the  field for Elblag (i.e.  ), we can't use the   field in conjunction because we'd end up with text that says Locks 5 inclined planes (originally 5), which makes no sense. I propose a "lift" field be added after ; this field can cater for any sort of lift or plane that isn't easily classifiable as a lock. Thoughts? MIDI (talk) 12:12, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

Original number of locks
There seems to be a problem with this field being duplicated. If you look at the template in use (eg Stroudwater Navigation) it shows
 * Locks: 12 + 1 Stop lock (originally 13 + Stop lock)
 * Original number of locks: 13 + Stop lock

I think it only needs to show the original value once, but I cannot see how to amend the template.


 * On further inspection, the template says that the second entry is suppressed if it has already been used in the first entry, but the code does not appear to be conditional, and I am not sure of the implications of just deleting it.


 * A bit of trial and error shows that there are two fields for the number of locks. One is called Locks, and the other current_num_locks. If you use Locks, the original_num_locks is duplicated, but if you use current_num_locks it is not. All a bit confusing, but there is a solution.


 * If you want lock_note to be displayed, you have to define both locks and current_num_locks. This is really confusing, but I have found that testing for both locks and current_num_locks correctly suppresses the second display of original_num_locks whichever is defined, so have added that to the template. Bob1960evens (talk) 10:25, 13 March 2023 (UTC)