Template talk:H2G2

Formatting and overlinking

One problem I notice with this template is that it does not italicize titles properly. That is:

...the novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy...

should actually be displayed as:

the novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Another problem is use of this template encourages overlinking -- that is, every reference to each work will be linked, which is not always desirable. Not sure what can be done about this, other than perhaps providing a "nl" option or similar.

(A third problem is that the source to an article using this template is pretty obtuse, but a quick whap on the Show Preview button takes care of that. I would think a fourth problem would be having to know which numbers correspond to which works...)--NapoliRoma (talk) 05:53, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

The movie and computer game titles also need to be in italics (and The Quintessential Phase, if it is added), but not "fit the first", etc. HairyWombat (talk) 02:44, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Later. Done. HairyWombat (talk) 01:37, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Nice work!--NapoliRoma (talk) 05:56, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

The Quintessential Phase

There is a need for templates of the form {{H2G2|phase|5}} to link to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Tertiary to Quintessential Phases#The Quintessential Phase. This would help reduce the wordage in the article. The set needed is:

{{H2G2|phase|1}} to {{H2G2|phase|5}} link to the radio series. For example:

• the radio series The Primary Phase
• the radio series The Secondary Phase
• the radio series The Tertiary Phase
• the radio series The Quandary Phase
• the radio series The Quintessential Phase

I am not very familiar with writing templates, so it would probably be better if somebody else did this. HairyWombat (talk) 02:26, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Later. Added to template, but article(s) not yet modified to use them. HairyWombat (talk) 03:43, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Some improvements

I have been digging into template design a little bit. This has given rise to a some suggestions for how to improve this template:

1. Addition of a "doc" page using the template {{documentation}}. This would also provide a sandbox to play in (and an opportunity to have testcases)..
2. Addition of italics, as described above.
3. Inclusion of {{H2G2|phase|1 to 5}}, as described above.
4. Conversion of {{H2G2|movie|1}} to the form "the 2005 movie The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". This may break existing articles, which will need to be corrected.
5. Conversion of {{H2G2|game|1 and 2}} to the form "the computer game Starship Titanic". This may break existing articles, which will need to be corrected.
6. Conversion from "#ifeq:" statements to "#switch:" statements. This should not only improve execution speed but will also allow for the inclusion of error messages.
7. Add test for blank parameters (and do nothing) to remove annoying error from Template page. (Needed because there are now error messages.)

I have never written a template before, but am happy to pursue these changes. HairyWombat (talk) 01:41, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Later. All done. HairyWombat (talk) 01:13, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Community review for deletion, and overlinking

The template survived its recent Community Review for deletion with a result of no consensus. During the community review (here), User:Thumperward suggested that the template encourages overlinking. This had previously been pointed out by User:NapoliRoma on this Talk page. However, User:Thumperward went further and kindly modified the template to add a "link=yes/no" option which can be deployed to solve this problem of overlinking. (User:Thumperward's modification is currently sitting in the sandbox.) I suggest this modification be deployed in the following manner:

1. Update the testcases to test the modification. (I have already done this.)
2. Modify the articles in which the template is used to change all uses of the template to include either "|link=no" or "|link=yes". (User:Thumperward kindly made a start on this, but it needs completing.) Changing all uses will allow an error message to be added later to force the use of the linking option.
3. Move the modified template from the sandbox to the main (live) template.
4. Update the doc page to match.
5. Update the template so that omission of the linking option produces an error message. That is to say, there will no longer be a default case and the "option" will not be optional. to include more error processing (19:47, 9 July 2010 (UTC)).

In this way, the deployment should not cause any unnecessary disruption. HairyWombat (talk) 03:34, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Later. Done items 1 through 4. The last item, which just improves the error processing, can wait a little while. HairyWombat (talk) 18:39, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

I've already done #2, and there's no reason to error out if the link parameter is omitted; just default to "no". Erroring out should only be used where there's no sensible default. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:56, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Welcome back; I thought you had lost interest. Your reasoning makes sense. When I improve the error processing, I will leave in a default for the link parameter. HairyWombat (talk) 15:59, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Okay; in that case I think we should proceed with switching to the sandboxed code. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:29, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Don't understand. The sandbox still contains your code which was deployed on July 1, 2010. (This is item 3 above, and I wrote on that date that I had done items 1 through 4.) I have not yet had time to improve the error processing (which is a revised item 5). HairyWombat (talk) 19:04, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Aha. Yes, my bad; I missed that you'd already synced it. Cheers! Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:21, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Radio episodes should be titled "Fit the First" (etc.) with uppercase

As I noted at Talk:List of minor The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy characters#Fit the…", the episode titles in the radio series are consistently capitalised as "Fit the First" (etc.) at The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Primary and Secondary Phases for example. Although "fit" is used as a synonym for "episode", these are effectively the titles of each episode and should be capitalised as such (per MOS:CT). Can (and shouldn't) this template be updated accordingly? —sroc 💬 09:14, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

 Done —sroc 💬 12:36, 10 November 2013 (UTC)