Template talk:National football squad start/sandbox

Example
Below you now find examples of all the most commonly used "National football squad" template versions, that are available (or proposed to soon become available), for showing a current/seasonal/tournament related national team. Please check and try out all 4 examples, and then post your opinion if we should crown only one of them as a future common standard for all Wikipedia articles, at this discussion page: National football squad start

Example 2: England World Cup Team -shown by the sortable version
This version is an exact duplication of Example 1, except that it now include sortable coloumns.

Note: The template:birth date and age doesnt feature a hidden sortkey, to allow a possible arrange of the listed birth dates according to year-month-day. Thus, this coloumn remain unsorted in the squad table above. TheBigJagielka (talk) 14:01, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Example 3: England World Cup Team -shown by the unsortable version
This version include a hidden note for all editors (shown as a part of the written command in the template code, the moment they click the EDIT link), that they have the task to always pre-sort the squad list in the order of: 1=Position (GK-DF-MF-FW), 2=Caps (descending), 3=Last name (ascending). Finally the version also differ from the previous two versions with the additional Goals coloumn, and by adding a thin blue indicative line between the four group of positions (to help both editors and readers to comply and understand with the concept of a pre-sorted table).

! colspan="9" bgcolor="#B0D3FB" align="left" |
 * - bgcolor="#DFEDFD"

! colspan="9" bgcolor="#B0D3FB" align="left" |
 * - bgcolor="#DFEDFD"

! colspan="9" bgcolor="#B0D3FB" align="left" |
 * - bgcolor="#DFEDFD"

Note: The fact that the squad table is pre-sorted by the editors according to position+caps, mean that it will appear to most readers, as already being listed in a structured and well sorted way, which the majority would find no need to further sort. Danish Expert (talk) 04:12, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Example 4: England World Cup Team -shown by the sortable version with a new age layout
This version is an exact duplication of Example 3. Except that it now also feature a sort option for most of the coloumns, and include a changed data format with "Age" listed by year (instead of Birth date+Age). 

! colspan="1" bgcolor="#B0D3FB" align="left"| ! colspan="2" bgcolor="#B0D3FB" align="left"| 2 ! colspan="1" bgcolor="#B0D3FB" align="left"| ! colspan="1" bgcolor="#B0D3FB" align="left"| -1 ! colspan="1" bgcolor="#B0D3FB" align="left"| -1 ! colspan="1" bgcolor="#B0D3FB" align="left"| -1

! colspan="1" bgcolor="#B0D3FB" align="left"| ! colspan="2" bgcolor="#B0D3FB" align="left"| 4 ! colspan="1" bgcolor="#B0D3FB" align="left"| ! colspan="1" bgcolor="#B0D3FB" align="left"| -1 ! colspan="1" bgcolor="#B0D3FB" align="left"| -1 ! colspan="1" bgcolor="#B0D3FB" align="left"| -1

! colspan="1" bgcolor="#B0D3FB" align="left"| ! colspan="2" bgcolor="#B0D3FB" align="left"| 6 ! colspan="1" bgcolor="#B0D3FB" align="left"| ! colspan="1" bgcolor="#B0D3FB" align="left"| -1 ! colspan="1" bgcolor="#B0D3FB" align="left"| -1 ! colspan="1" bgcolor="#B0D3FB" align="left"| -1

Note: The sort option indeed add some extra value to the squad table. But if a reader decide to use one of the provided sort options in the squad table above, the blue thin lines from the pre-sorted table will suddenly start also to become sorted, with a computed value of 0. However, this appear to be the only drawback of providing the additional sort option to the reader. This minor "layout problem" can of course easily be avoided, in case we decide not to add any blue thin lines in the pre-sorted table; but on the other hand, these lines also tend to serve a purpose of improving the "layout value" of the pre-sorted table (which most readers anyway will stick with, during their read of the table). So for now, the blue thin lines remain as a visible part of the squad table listed above. Danish Expert (talk) 04:12, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Update: I just implemented a smart little workaround to the layout of the squad table, so that the blue thin lines no longer jump around in a random way, but now are getting sorted in a logical way by each coloumn. This mean that they now follow the correct position order, when sorted by that coloumn. Otherwise the 3 lines now posses a value of -1 for the other coloumns, so that those coloumns now always will sort them with the lowest value in the table. Danish Expert (talk) 13:42, 25 November 2010 (UTC)