Template talk:JPL small body

Extra intra-page links
I have (again) removed the extra line of links to individual parts of the target page. The content guideline for external-link templates explicitly says, "All templates except those for WMF 'sister' projects should produce a normal, single-line, text-based external link without any favicons or other unusual formatting." (emphasis mine). This is why we don't see popular templates like IMDb title include separate links to plot summaries, cast lists, production notes, etc. Providing such intra-page links for the JPL SBDB is particularly problematic because the entire page already mostly fits in a single browser screen, so all sections are either immediately visible, or can be reached with minimal scrolling. Hqb (talk) 08:05, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * And the IMDb pages aren't used for referencing half the information on a page. Guideline are just that, guides. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 11:41, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * You have given absolutely no coherent argument for why the SBDB external link template merits an exception to the guidelines, nor what the supposed benefit of having additional links to individual components of a short page would be. In fact, clicking on most of the "extra" links will produce exactly the same result as clicking on the main link, since the page is too short to scroll anyway. Please try harder. Hqb (talk) 11:59, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * We have different definition of coherence then. I've asked for comments on the various astronomy-related projects. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 12:11, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * All links on the second line except "Orbit diagram" go to differently scrolled sections of the main link. So, I think the extra line of links doesn't add enough value to justify its space.  You could add the "Orbit diagram" link in parentheses immediately after the main link if that's an important link to have. Spacepotato (talk) 00:41, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

ID parameter is required for numbered unnamed asteroids
The documentation is misleading in its "99% of the cases" figure, since the PAGENAME for numbered unnamed asteroids, like (3708) 1974 FV1, doesn't work due to the leading "(". Of all the ~23,086 MP pages (including #Rs), ~4,419 of them are numbered & unnamed, or 19%. Of the 3,205 non-#Rs, 262 of them are numbered & unnamed, or 8%.

I had erroneously assumed that only names with diacritics comprised this remaining 1%, not 8-19% of all MPs, since the Usage lead is too firm in its wording & wrong with its %; a mistake others have made, and others will probably make. I don't think this can be handled correctly via a typical template (i.e. to have the "(" removed and the # passed to JPL using typical template abilities). The best way to handle this is probably by having the template converted into a C# module, where text manipulation is much easier. In the meantime, since I don't know how to do either of these things, I'll correct the documentation and add an id to numbered & unnamed MPs missing it. It would be useful if someone made the template able to handle this on its own, though.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  05:39, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Broken
It seems that the pagename is not getting passed correctly to the output, so the links don't work. When I specify the |name= parameter, the four links on the bottom line work, but the first link on the top line still does not. --Lasunncty (talk) 01:29, 17 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Do you have an example of what you're talking about? Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 02:39, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

Add item Ephemeris to template in order to remove redundancies in ELs section of articles
An unspecified number of minor-planet object articles contain partially redundant links in the "External Links" section.

For example the mp-object article contains:
 * Orbital simulation from JPL (Java) / Ephemeris

which is now obsolete and can be removed due to the addition of item "Ephemeris" to the template. Other types of EL-entries, such as in 12 Victoria or 60558 Echeclus, can also be revised. In addition, cometary object articles such as 6P/d'Arrest could now use as well. R fassbind – talk  11:06, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

Italic name output?
Greetings and felicitations. This template renders the name of the database in italics, whereas the database's article is in roman (plain) type throughout. Might we reconcile this? I'm inclined to have the template's output also in plain type. —DocWatson42 (talk) 02:19, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Hide in print
The hide in print template is being deleted. I switched it to a span around the content of the second bullet, but now a blank bullet appears in print. does someone have another solution, or should we just make this appear in print (plenty of other external links appear in print). Frietjes (talk) 17:43, 9 June 2021 (UTC)
 * now, I switched it to use  and  which fixes the phantom bullet and hopefully doesn't introduce any linter errors. Frietjes (talk) 17:51, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Broken
JPL's (27 September 2021) changes to SBDB have broken this template. Fixes need to be made. I made some over at Template:JPL. -- Kheider (talk) 12:03, 28 October 2021 (UTC)