Template talk:Aircontent

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Templates for deletion This template was considered for deletion on 2007 October 21. The result of the discussion was Keep per WP:SNOW. 
==See also==
{{aircontent
<!-- other related articles that have not already linked: -->
|see also=

<!-- designs which were developed into or from this aircraft: -->
|related=

<!-- aircraft that are of similar role, era, and capability this design: -->
|similar aircraft=

<!-- relevant lists that this aircraft appears in: -->
|lists=

<!-- See [[WP:Air/PC]] for more explanation of these fields. -->
}}

make sure to include ==See also==, as this allows editors to directly edit the parameters. also, feel free to remove the <!-- --> sections when you're done editing. -eric ✈ 00:47, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Sample use:

[edit] See also

  • this one
  • or this

Related development

  • Mk. 4

Comparable aircraft

  • [add one!]

Related lists

  • item one
  • item two

[edit] bulleted lists

I think that the bulleted lists are less clean (in most cases) than the linear ones utilised in the black box. (See Convair B-36#Related content) for an example. Ingoolemo talk 05:20, 2005 August 2 (UTC)

That's not set in the template, it's up to the editor. To be honest, I think that while they might look cleaner in a linear design, it's more difficult to read. It's easier to read a linear sequence, but when there's other information there - like manufacturers or model nicknames - it gets difficult. That's why I personally prefer the lists. Either way, that's not something we can run with the template. -eric ✈ 05:41, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] List and see also fields

I have added list and see also fields to the template. I will fix the problems these new fields have created. Kudos to Eric or whoever thought up the scheme to toggle the fields on and off.

The toggling is causing some problems with the display, by inserting extra linebreaks when a field is switched off; I will try to fix them, but may not succeed. Ingoolemo talk 17:53, 2005 August 2 (UTC)

If you fix the existing articles (I'll do this too) then I can fix the line breaks. Since we're revising, I'm going to add "has related development" as well. :) -eric ✈ 17:57, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
update: I seem to have gotten almost all the line breaking fixed. The only one I cannot is when relations are turned off, then there's a gap. I'm sure we'll sort something out, though. everything's working as it should! :) -eric ✈ 18:22, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Reservations

I have reservations about this template.

It interests me because I also would like variant record structure for a template or two; the most straightforward way of building a template fails, since unsupplied parameters display as the parameter placeholder. But the approach taken here seems intolerably clunky. The effect is to restrict use to a small group who thoroughly understand how the template works.

I'm not sure I see the value of the template, since all the substantial information is supplied when it is used. That is, it does not supply content; and the form it supplies is so very straightforward. Why cannot the content just be entered inline? If some sort of subsection framework is desired, would not a solution similar to {{doctl}} (see talk) be sufficient?

I'd like to discuss these issues with those editors involved. Thank You! — Xiong熊talk* 15:55, 2005 August 17 (UTC)

[edit] Latest?

Hi all. I received a message from eric, who suggested that I reformat my Hawker Tornado article to use this template. However there seems to be some doubt as to whether everyone is going firm on this set-up, so should I go ahead and make changes or wait and see what else comes along? Thanks guys!--Xiphon 18:23, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Problems with this template

This template has a number of problems that I'm not convinced can be solved easily.

  1. The main problem is that it uses a "template within a template" scheme which is harmful on the servers.
  2. It places content which should be in the article itself, into a template which is hard for new editors to understand, and probably very easy to foul up.
  3. The headings, particularly the standard "See also" and "External links" ones, do not show up in the table of contents. See Lockheed SR-71 for example.

All in all, I don't consider this a very appropriate use for a template. This text should be part of the main article body. Are there any compelling reasons for using this that I'm not aware of? -- Netoholic @ 08:06, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

While I agree that this template is better substed in the first place (which would solve the first two problems), I think most of your other concerns can be adressed by simply renaming "related content" to "see also", reordering the sections so that the former "see also" links comes before the fake sections and making "external links" a true header. Circeus 19:58, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
If you agree, then I'd like to make changes to this template so that it can be subst:d into the articles, and so that it will leave the proper level of headings. -- Netoholic @ 20:13, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
oppose. The original WP:Air related content was (and in many cases is) in a table, with no standardized headings at all. I've made See also and External links into H2s, as requested, but the 'template within a template' is using QIF - the entire purpose of that template. This makes conversion of hundreds of articles at once to a new standard (for instance, the change from bold to header text I just made) much more practical, something which I feel justifies slightly higher server strain. ericg ✈ 20:15, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
Qif is being deprecated, per WP:AUM which is how I found this template. Also, templates are not supposed to "masquerade" as article content, because that confuses new editors. Templates are fine to use to provide a "skeleton" for an article, for use with subst:, but should not be used to hold the entirety of the articles formatting. I don't want to force the issue, but we must remove the Qif template, per policy and the developers' request to do, and we need to also follow the guideline that templates aren't use to only format large sections of article text. I'm confident that if I were to take this to WP:TFD, that the result (which I've seen before) will be either to delete or keep, but only use with subst. -- Netoholic @ 20:28, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
While I do not always agree with netoholic, hedoes have a strongpoint about templates not masquerading for content. Besides, a "newbie" is unlikelyto not be a member of WP:Air and still use this template. Circeus 01:39, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

This is the point I made on the WP:Air talk page. Since the only requirement for editing Wikipedia is an internet connection, maintaining high quality and consistent style is dependent on a dedicated group of editors. I leave references to Wikipedia:WikiProject_Aircraft/page_content whenever I reformat a page in the hopes of educating the author. The major convenience of templates is the ability to change formatting on all pages using it without having to manually edit 2,000+ entries. I wish there was a PHP-like way to generate layout around contents on Wikipedia. - Emt147 Burninate! 02:06, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I have reinstated {{qif}}, because it is very useful for this particular template. If the issue is that this particular template is masquerading as content, then {{aircontent}} should be deprecated, not {{qif}}. Also, qif is not being completely deprecated; see Template talk:Qif and [1]. Ingoolemo talk 06:48, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Do not use this template!

The layout provided by this template is wrong. Per Wikipedia:WikiProject_Aircraft/page_content External Links are a separate section preceding Related content. Because Related content is hard-written into each page, there is no way to make this template generate the correct output. - Emt147 Burninate! 05:39, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

The template has now been fixed. Please be sure to place external links in the standard location. Ingoolemo talk 07:10, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Similar-looking aircraft

I have a couple of copies of Jane's Aircraft Recognition Guides. In it, for each aircraft's entry, they list the aircraft that it might be reasonably confused with. For instance, the F/A-18 would be easily confused with the Fulcrum or even the Foxbat, while the Tu-154 and 727 were lopped together. Is this a field that we might want to add to this template? I realize this might be subjective; we could use Jane's as the source as it is fairly impartial. —Joseph/N328KF (Talk) 07:08, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Template in conflict with regular section order

Hi, wikipedia has a regular order of section, among them, these order for sections towards the end:

  • See also
  • References
  • External links
  • Navboxes
  • Categories
  • Language interwiki-links

I tried fixing Boeing Pelican in this manner, but couldn't, which is why I arrived here. This template seems to move "Related content" and the Navboxes together, making it impossible to add "References" and "External links" sections properly. Could somebody please disentangle this template to allow articles that are similar to the other 100k articles that use that order? Thanks :-)

PS: This talk page also suggest renaming "See also" into "Related content", which is a nice idea in principle, but doesn't work well with the prevalent word usage inside wikipedia. Peter S. 16:20, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I have reverted your changes on Pelican, but also made other improvements to further wikify the article. This template falls under the purview of WP:AIR. and its use on the Boeing Pelican page is consistent with Wikipedia:WikiProject Aircraft/page content guidelines. These are somewhat different than the Wiki-wide guidelines in order to fit the preferred presentation of information within the Aircraft Project. If you disagree with the guidelines, you may take up the issue on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aircraft. But be aware that the Wiki "regular section order" is just a set of guideliens, and that Wikipedia projects can and do develop their own guidelines to suit their needs. - BillCJ 16:35, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
Ok, thanks. Peter S. 16:40, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] My recent reverts

I have come to the conclusion that these changes have been causing false "edit" buttons to appear in the template on articles. I know absolutely nothing about coding these templates, so I can't help fix the problem beyond reverting. Evidently closing the <h3> tags causes the problem to occur, at least on WinXP running IE6. We probably need to verify that the problem occurs with other browsers too. - BillCJ (talk) 05:47, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I think the problem is the same in all browsers. The 'edit' links for each section are generated by the MediaWiki software when the page is served, and is thus browser independent. Still, thank you for noting the problem. Karl Dickman talk 19:58, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Blank lines

This template is showing several blank lines after it in Boeing 747 for example. Not sure where that comes from in the code. But I am wondering if the double blank lines (<br><br>) are really needed after each field? Seems like 1 is enough, unless I'm missing something. Thanks. -Fnlayson (talk) 21:37, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

  • Nevermind on the double blank lines (<br><br>). That should only cause 1 blank line the way they are used. -Fnlayson (talk) 21:06, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

With the recent parser preprocessor changes, the spacing got messed up it seems. I removed some extra <br> and that seems to have fixed it. -Fnlayson (talk) 05:09, 30 January 2008 (UTC)