Template talk:National parks of the United States map

=Topics from 2007=

positions not correct
hey guys, I just corrected the positions of the NPs in the PacNW on the German wikipedia article about the national parks. Now I came across this template so now I know where they copied the mistakes from;-) Since simple copy & paste is not possible please correct it yourself. --X-Weinzar 23:46, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
 * btw, Redwood NP is especially messed up but I'm going to go to bed so I haven't changed it yet in the German wikipedia but I guess there are a couple more that need to be fixed. Just get a good map and go through it again... --X-Weinzar 23:48, 6 July 2007 (UTC)


 * 24-April-2008: (9 months later) see "Check shifted dots" below. -Wikid77 (talk) 16:08, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

=Topics from 2008=

Updated to force double-line links
24-April-2008: I had to add line-breaks "&lt;br>" into the nbsp/blank link-text over each park-dot ("&amp;nbsp;&lt;br>&amp;nbsp;"). The added line-breaks ensure that the double-line links will appear at each park-dot, even when the map is transcluded into a "no-wrap" display, rather than appear as an unwrapped long line at each park-dot. In the Template:National parks of the United States, the link-text had been an unwrapped long line at each park-dot, but now splits as double-line links (with the cursor showing 2 short lines now under each park-dot). Formerly, the link-text had been just 2 nbsp-blanks ("&amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp;") and had relied on auto-wrapping to appear as 2 short lines; however, during no-wrap displays, the link appeared as one long line until adding "&lt;br>" to force 2 short lines to appear at each park-dot. -Wikid77 (talk) 09:55, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Added internal template comments
24-April-2008: I have added internal HTML comment sections for NOTES, as footnotes about coding, and a HISTORY section to list major changes to the template. Comment lines are processed very quickly and removed from the template during Wikipedia (MediaWiki) page formatting, so HTML comments are not transmitted to a reader's browser during article display. The Wikipedia servers can process thousands of HTML comments, within a small fraction of a second, when formatting an article. -Wikid77 (talk) 09:55, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Check shifted dots
24-April-2008: Finally, 9 months later, I have shifted some park-dots further north, especially Redwood Natl Park which had been marked way south of the area, along with: Yellow Stone & Grand Teton moved to upper right of Wyoming, then Glacier, Mount-Rainier, Olympic, plus North-Cascades shifted north, and Badlands moved east. I also edited the German article, re-shifting some dots south (einige südlich) on the top map, but shifting is needed also for each park-map in the German article:
 * German article: de:Nationalparks in den Vereinigten Staaten

I linked that article as German interwiki from the Wikipedia map. Other parks dots might need shifting as well. -Wikid77 (talk) 16:08, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Added dot for Virgin Islands
24-April-2008: I have added a park-dot at bottom right to link to the Virgin Islands National Park, but used a green-dot to help indicate the location is off-map. Perhaps an arrow, pointing southeast, would better indicate "off-map" for the Virgin Islands. -Wikid77 (talk) 16:23, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Trim wordy template coding
24-April-2008: I suspect the overly wordy template coding could be trimmed by removing unneeded style property parameters, especially for the span-tags of the double-line link text: perhaps just "font-size:7x" would be enough to specify the link text, then omit properties "height:7px; width:7x; line-height:7px;" and such. -Wikid77 (talk) 16:23, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
 * 25-April-2008: Trying to omit properties caused the red-dot to link the dot-image (Red_Dot.svg), rather than a park name, so all the parameters seem necessary to tie a park-dot to a park name.

Shifted dots lower for Firefox
25-April-2008: I have shifted some park-dots 2px lower to keep them within the same U.S. states when displayed by the Firefox browser, which possibly shifts dots 4px higher than on MS Internet Explorer: There might be other park-dots that need shifting 2px lower, so that they remain near locations, if Firefox shifts the dots 4px higher north. -Wikid77 (talk) 07:10, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Olympic, Mount-Rainier, North-Cascades & Glacier were lowered 2px;
 * Redwood National Park was lowered to stay in California;
 * Yellowstone & Grand-Teton were lowered to stay in Wyoming;
 * Guadalupe Mountains Natl Park was lowered to remain in Texas;
 * Hot Springs was raised to stay near central Arkansas.

Wikipedia shifting transparent dots
25-April-2008: For the past 2 days, the Wikipedia wiki-servers were displaying transparent edges of locator park-dots as white borders, now those same dots are re-rendered in MSIE without the borders but lowered 3px south on the map. The latest total shifting of dots displayed between the different browsers (Firefox & MS Internet Explorer) now totals to a 7- or 8-pixel shift, causing some park-dots to shift into other states.

In typical configuration management of computer software, this is a nightmare situation: the underlying MediaWiki software (version "1.13alpha" today) is being changed and hacked, without warning, or stated purpose, or any professional planning, in no longer the trivial "lets-surprise-them-with-a-new-screen-button" mode, but instead "lets-shift-the-way-dots-are-displayed-on-maps" mode. And the changes can come any hour of any day, but at least some users aware of the rampant changes can offer feedback to friends who are developers, and who are of course, more important than most people (read what the wiki-policy docs say about the holy developers).

I had wondered what the problem was with massive PNG files being so slow (thumbnailed as hi-res data), then with quick JPEG or GIF files forced into PNG format, then PNG images no longer able to right-click link the full-images, then PNG files demanding continual download when a page display was stopped. Now, the rendering of overlaid map-locator dots shifts position to new locations each day. It's all fun and exciting as live experiments changing the MediaWiki software used by 6 million registered WP users, but of course, pathetic and trashy from a professional management standpoint.

I think, at this point, the National-Parks map is close enough for hack work, where the park-dot locations might shift 30 or 50 miles any given day, depending on how the wiki-developers change the software from day to day. The Wikipedia project remains a wee-kidopedia sand-box effort, on so many levels, fostering the slow-response and hacking that sustains the weakipedia hollow content of articles, as part of the overall Wackopedia. I realize numerous people have quit this project, and I don't blame them a bit. I have recommended that people abandon use of the ever-changing PNG image files and return to using GIF images which had been more reliable, and now, perhaps using GIF map-dots might stop the shifting of locator-dots in either PNG or SVG format.

Meanwhile, I've learned that the bulk of Wikipedia is like washing cars in the rain: most of the effort doesn't last. However, now, I'm tired of trying to "straighten the deck chairs on the Titanic" with not knowing how badly hacked the future Wikipedia software will become:
 * Wikipedia is using MediaWiki version (live result): "".

It is time to re-think what benefit will come from this effort. -Wikid77 (talk) 08:13, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Transparent dot edges
25-April-2008: I have changed the red-dots to be GIF format images with transparent edges that show the background reliably. During 2007-2008, the display of SVG or PNG images on Wikipedia pages changed from day-to-day, often failing to render transparent areas to show the background. The rendering of GIF images remained unchanged all during 2007, and transparent areas of GIF images have shown the background reliably for more than a full year. I have spent hundreds of hours modifying and comparing various image results to determine the reliability of GIF-images as very dependable (Google logos are GIF images); however, when extensive color variation is needed, then PNG or JPEG images must be used. -Wikid77 (talk) 15:08, 25 April 2008 (UTC)