Module talk:Location map/data/Kingdom of Hungary

Choice of underlying map image

Do you really want to use File:Kingdom of Hungary counties-2.svg as a location map? The marker wouldn't be visible in such a colourful image. --Obersachse (talk) 10:05, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

(Added a little later): In case you did not know it, I created that map, from the original one-colour SVG at File:Kingdom of Hungary counties.svg, and separated it out into layers and made it a four-colour map.

I do not necessarily want to use this map as it is. However, my aim is for it to act as kinda the "master map" whereby others can be created. As such, for example, for this four colour map, the four colours are specified as styles and so changing the colours (e.g. to something far more subtle, or to all the same colour) is simply a case of changing the four styles. (Practically it is a five-colour map because Lake Balaton is in another style, but theoretically it is a four-colour map because it could be put in the blueish colour of the four colours if someone was that anal.)

Of course, one can choose different symbols for the markers anyway (personally I prefer the green ones used on Hungarian), but that of course is not your point.

My main hurdle at the moment is tweaking the coordinates to get it right (or as right as can be). I have tried taking coordinates of well-known places, such as Polica at the north and Fiume at the west, but it is still not quite right, and the south and east are not so easy since they are not well populated. There was a very nice old ethnographic map (in German) from which I could take acccurate measures, but it still needs tweaking; it's arduous to do this because one can only see the changes once the template is saved, of course, so "preview" is of no use and of course this leads to numerous edits. I have no problem with this except if it seems that the template was just not ready to be deployed to template space, as I see no other way to do it, considering the implementation details of {{Location map}} that the specific location map info etc kinda includes its parent template, so as far as I can see it cannot be done in my user space. If you have any hints on how to make this edit-debug cycle less onerous, I should be glad to hear them. At the moment I have chosen four fairly separated places so will be reasonably satisfied when they are in about the right place.

Once that is done, I also have to make the text on the map come out right at all sizes-- again, applying the appropriate styles should sort this out, I just haven't got round to that yet.

So, have no fear, it will be easy to put in any other map that is based on this SVG (or derivative of it), and it has aroused a little interest to be able to use it in that regard. Unfortunately I got a bit distracted into editing other articles, and frankly needed a little break from Hungarian articles of which I have done too too many over the last couple of months, but I hope will get this sorted soon.

So, thanks for your interest, and any help/advice you could give me, I would much appreciate it.

Si Trew (talk) 10:29, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Are there any historical borders, which are the same in our times (districts or counties)? AFAIK Google Earth shows modern borders. So it would be easy to get some more coordinates of well-known places and this way refine the template's borders. --Obersachse (talk) 19:45, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I've tried that approach. The difficulty when they split up the Kingdom of Hungary into modern-day Hungary (well, Austria-Hungary intervening) was that the counties were not always just allocated to one or other state, but sometimes split between two.

Modrus-Fiume on the west, for example, I have a Croatian correspondent who pointed me in the right direction for Fiume being the westernmost point, but it is still not quite right. Close, but not quite. The east is harder because it is mountains with no features that I have so far found a bearing on both the old and new maps (e.g. a mountain peak), but this may be just because the names have changed e.g. from Hungarian to Romanian on more modern maps. The German map I mentioned above is here: File:Hungary-ethnic_groups.jpg. This nicely has lat and long to a quite nice resolution that I can interpolate with quite good enough accuracy for this location map, unfortunately it still needs tweaking a bit. I have a feeling that the longitudes are perhaps not east of Greenwich (e.g. east of Paris? Berlin?) but also seem squashed a bit so perhaps are not 360 to the circle, though that seems less likely. So, as you can see I have tried to do my homework but am struggling to get it quite right.

For that reason I have not "publicised" that this map is available, and so have no problem with your suggestion that the colours etc are not suitable. Well, I would have no trouble with that suggestion anyway, but I mean it is great to have it before it is used anywhere than after. In case it sounds like it, of course I don't own this template (or anything else), but obviously I am the author and until now the sole editor, and I see no harm in admitting that.

I have slotted in other maps into it to try to help tweaking it. At the moment it IS very much a case of tweaking, and a few more times around the loop I think I should be able to get it right. I appreciate in a way this is unsatisfactory but I don't know what projection this original map was drawn in, only that it was a few years ago and is used not just on EN:WP but several other Wikipedias, so am taking my time to get it right before doing e.g. the Hungarian version as essentially a copy. I emphasise I only need it to be good enough as a location map at e.g. 1024x768, and most location maps for countries seem only to be specified to two decimal points of a degree, so I appreciate there is no need for overprecision here. At the moment, north-south seems about right but there is something wrong with east-west, and I am not quite sure at the moment if it is just one of them or both.

Thanks for your suggestions. I will continue in my plodding fashion until it looks right. I appreciate in one sense this is unsatisfactory, but Cambridge library has no resources I have found to look for this – or at least I have not found them on the shelves or in the catalogue – so basically I have done the best I can including appealing for help! So, thanks for your reply to my appeal!

Best wishes Si Trew (talk) 23:09, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Obersachse asked me for a comment. I'm busy producing location maps of modern countries. This is definitely no Mercator or any cylindric projection, it's probably something conic. I opened it in Google Earth. Best results are N=49.63, S=44.13, W=14.28 and E=26.457 but to the edges the map pointers won't fit well. This template will give just a vague idea where a place is located and should only be used in small thumb size where it doesn't matter (<300px).

You better use a less colourful map (like said before, File:Kingdom of Hungary counties.svg would be better) and one without text if you want to display a name next to the marker. The German map btw has longitudes east of Paris, you can see it at the bottom of the map. Best regards, NNW (talk) 09:54, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Goran tek-en was kind to create a new map. I don't know whether anybody could fix eventually the coordinates (the only thing I saw that yesterday SimonTrew was blocked indefinitely). Drkazmer ^{Just tell me...} 11:30, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

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