User talk:Acps110/Archives/2007/December

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December 2007

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Adopt me

Hello! I see you're looking for a more experienced editor to adopt you. I hereby offer to adopt you. I have some experience editing templates. For example, I modified the Simple English Wiktionary verb template to allow the user to give, for example, "hurr|y" as arguments and it will print out "hurry hurries hurried hurried hurrying". I hope that in helping you I will also learn more about templates myself. Please reply here or at my talk page to let me know whether you accept my offer. --Coppertwig (talk) 16:20, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I accept your offer! Thanks! Take a look at my contributions at some of the NYC Subway related templates. (IRT Flushing Line(template), BMT Astoria Line(template), BMT Jamaica Line(template), BMT Brighton Line(template), Chrystie Street Connection(template), etc.) When editing these templates, I'm getting some unexpected link sizes and placement because of extra or not enough pipes in each line. If you could give me some guidence on that behavior, I would really appreciate it! Thanks! Acps110 (talk) 01:52, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi! Happy to try to help. I'm not sure if I can or not! What do you mean by link sizes? Could you be more specific: perhaps mention one or two specific versions of a template and which part of the template is a problem? Could you perhaps give an example of a version that looks wrong, so I can try to see what you mean? You might want to create a sandbox to play around with them, e.g. create a page with a name like User:Acps110/Testing NYCT templates or whatever. To make it easier to show me the wrong behaviour of the templates. --Coppertwig (talk) 03:25, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi, I've added the User:Acps110/Testing NYCT templates to my userspace, so you can see the incorrect placement. I couldn't figure out how to get each template into a different section, either. If you could help me figure out what's going on with these pipes in these templates, and these markup issues I'm having with the sections, I'd appreciate it! Thanks, Matthew aka Acps110 (talk) 00:57, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, you're going to have to be more specific. Just saying something is wrong somewhere on the page doesn't tell me what to look for. Where exactly did you add or remove pipes? What do you see different in the display? Is it that the words have moved to the right various distances?

Note that you're not only using templates, you're also using tables. I suspect the pipes are for the table syntax. Basically, adding or removing pipes will move an item one column to the right or left in a table.

The table syntax begins with {| , which I see right after the defaultsort template. The next line of table syntax is something like |- and this syntax is comtained within the B53 template I think (or maybe the LUECKE template).

example table
item in column 1 | item in column 2 | item in solumn 3
	item in column 3 only
item in column 1|item in column 2 |item in solumn 3
| | item in column 3 only
	item in solumn 3

Actually, that's strange! The columns in this example table aren't coming out the way I expect. I'll look into this more later and see if I can figure out what's happening.? --Coppertwig (talk) 02:10, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

more table examples

OK, I looked at the "help" page Help:Table and it says among other things "If you use single bars, then what you think the first cell is in fact a format modifier applied to the cell, and the the rest of your "cells" are merged into one". So maybe now I get it.

header 1	header 2	header 3
row 1, cell 1	row 1, cell 2	row 1, cell 3
row 2, cell 1	row 2, cell 2	row 2, cell 3
first column	second column	third column
		third column only
right
second
third
right	second	third
second | third
align=right	second	third

OK, so I think what you're using in that template is a table using couble-pipe syntax, and with some cells empty. Each row is like this: | first item || second item || third item In other words, a single pipe at the left, and double pipes separating each of the other elements. But if you remove one pipe from the double pipes, maybe it changes it to a different interpretation.

header 1	header 2	header 3
cell 1	cell 2	cell 3
		cell 3, after others cells are empty
	oops, left one pipe out by mistake

In the above table, when I left out one pipe, I guess it was expecting double pipes, so it didn't interpret the one pipe as a delimiter. It seems to have just ignored it.

When the cell info is on different lines, you only need one pipe for each, but when more than one cell is on the same link I think you need a double pipe to separate two cells.

Well, anyway, I've learned something here. I hope it helps you. ==Coppertwig (talk) 15:07, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Cool!!!! That helps a-lot. I looked at the Tables page and discovered how to turn the borders on which helps me for editing purposes. I added the borders on the test page, so now you can see more clearly. Each line that has <<<< on it is an incorrect placement item missing or added pipes, with the item in the middle of those with the correct placement.

Now I can turn borders on when I'm editing, and see more clearly where I've left out or added (un)necessary pipes. :-) I was assuming that only a single pipe separated cells, but now I can see that it's two pipes to separate cells. Thanks! Acps110 (talk) 20:55, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I took the liberty of editing your userpage to indicate that I'm adopting you. You can terminate the adoption relationship at any time. Just let me know. I could still give you help even if not in an adopter/adoptee relationship. I'm glad the stuff about tables was helpful. I found that confusing at first: the instructions about templates don't really tell you about either tables or parserfunctions, which are very often used within templates. I'll have another look at your templates later when I have time. --Coppertwig (talk) 22:58, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

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December 2007

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