Template talk:Infobox trail

Rail Trail Enhancements? (And using infobox for bike trails)

While looking for a rail trail infobox I found this hiking trail infobox and with a little enhancement this infobox could be also be used for rail trails as well. Virtually all rail trails can serve as hiking trails anyway.

Addition optional rail fields could include: Grade (in percent), Surface (grass, stone dust, ballast, etc), Former right of way (railroad, canals, historical trails, etc. DCwom (talk) 17:55, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Any updates on this? This seems to be the only option still. It's inappropriate to use a "hiking trail" infobox for rail trails. Rail trails are multiuse trails. They are typically wide, flat, and smooth. More suited for bicycle traffic than hiking. I propose either a general "trail" infobox, or a separate inbobox for rail trails. —Fluous (talk) 20:25, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

I used the Hiking trail infobox for Farlow Gap trail, which is primarily for mountain biking. Seems to be no problem with this. The parameters are general enough to use with other trail types such as rail trails, bike trails, etc. The only work-around is that one of the sections is called "Hiking details" so the entries have to be written in a way to note that the trail is not primarily for hiking.—LithiumFlash (talk) 04:18, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Connections & networks

Many trails interconnect with others, and many are a part of a larger network. It would make sense to add optional parts to the template for Connecting trails and, for when those connections create a larger named network, Network, or perhaps Networks because you sometimes have multiple groups naming multiple networks of different extents which include the some of the same trails.

Example: The Katy Trail is part of the Great Rivers Greenway network on its eastern end. Near its western end it will connect with the new and significant Rock Island Trail. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts, and this is salient information for the infobox:

Connections Rock Island Trail, Great Rivers Greenway

or

Connections Rock Island Trail

Networks Great Rivers Greenway, Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail, American Discovery Trail

--Kbh3^rdtalk 16:37, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

And since it's high time I learned to make simple template modifications, I'll add these fields soon, absent strenuous objection. Looks right in the sandbox. --Kbh3^rdtalk 17:18, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Map Field

Is there anyway a map field can be incorporated into this? I write articles about trails and have been making WP:ROUTE templates for them; see Beltline Trail. I'd like to be able to nest it into the infobox like you would with {{Infobox rail line}}. --Natural R_X 17:58, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

Nevermind, I think I figured it out. --Natural R_X 18:09, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

@Zyxw: @Hike395: Your edits have produced errors, and I have undone them until they are resolved; I have screenshotted the error for you to work off of. I don't understand the syntax behind it all, my knowledge is limited, but I copied and pasted the map function from {{Infobox rail line}}, which still currently uses what I implemented and is used on almost 5000 wiki pages. --Natural R_X 19:45, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

@Natural RX: My edit (diff) only changed {{PAGENAME}} to {{PAGENAMEBASE}}. That allows an article such as Devil's Path (hiking trail) to display the infobox title as Devil's Path if the infobox's "name" parameter is omitted. It should not have caused any problems which did not already exist. I noticed that your most recent revert (diff) also changed parts of the template which were there before my edit. That would be what fixed the issue. I will try take a closer look at this when I have some more time. Thanks. -- Zyxw (talk) 21:26, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I would agree it wasn't your edit, but the ones previous. I just wanted to ping you so you were aware that your edit was undone too. Thanks for looking into it. --Natural R_X 21:58, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

@Natural RX: I see the problem. For almost all other infoboxes (e.g, {{Infobox mountain}}), a map is a filename of an image, something like File:Pinnacle Peak Trail Map.jpg. You're making routes out of geometry. I was confused by the parameter name.

I tried messing around, but there isn't a robust way to detect whether a parameter is a media file or a route. Can we use two separate parameters? How about if we use |map= for a image-based map of the trail (like File:Pinnacle Peak Trail Map.jpg), and |route= for maps like {{Beltline Trail}} ? —hike395 (talk) 13:33, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

Sure, if that's what's easiest for you. But I think {{Infobox rail line}} already achieves that without being broken up, maybe we could reach out to someone there to help? --Natural R_X 14:35, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

@Natural RX: {{Infobox rail line}} doesn't conform to the other infoboxes -- it only accepts routes, not image maps. In other words, if you set |map=File:Pinnacle Peak Trail Map.jpg, you would get a string File:Pinnacle Peak Trail Map.jpg, not a map. So, there's no help to be gotten there. —hike395 (talk) 16:10, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

The doc subpage shows that if you are to embed it like you would in the body of the article ([[File:Pinnacle Peak Trail Map.jpg|200px]]), it would display. --Natural R_X 16:47, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

That's non-standard. Most editors will expect to fill in a filename, not put in full wikimarkup for an image. That's how all of the other infoboxes work. After a fair amount of mucking around, I got things to work smoothly. I fixed Beltline Trail. —hike395 (talk) 09:37, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Awesome, thanks! --Natural R_X 14:33, 30 November 2016 (UTC)