Template talk:Block Varieties Line

I have created this template to give a consistent and hopefully easy way of displaying block varieties. An example can be seen here: Flagstone.

Comments welcome. ping User:Hamhock666 and User:JonPardon.

You have been doing amazing work on the templates, and I think this is a good addition. I am guessing it would be more user friendly to replace the {{#var:fileprefix}} with {{PAGENAME}} on the Flagstone page and in general. I guess ideally there wouldn't be three templates to get the varieties table, but it doesn't seem like there is another way to do so using templates to replace tables in a standardized way.

Another thing I noticed was that there seems to be only an infobox template for items, and no template for blocks. On the Flagstone page the category of the item is set to a block, which to me doesn't make a lot of sense. I feel like there ought to be a distinct template for items vs blocks, as they are separated in the game files, and there are some items like Shopping Basket that have both a block and an item, named the same thing, but one has a block id and one has an item id. It just seems like the Template:Infobox item is overcrowded and maybe it could be simplified if it was split into a block template and an item template.

Nice work

--Hamhock666 (talk) 07:37, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Another useful template, especially with the changes coming up in A16. Thanks for your hard work on the templates!

I do have a question/suggestion though. Can't it be made as one template, which uses the current templates as compartments? Much like how the Infobox template works which also uses templates for header, lines and footer, if I understand it correctly. This would be much more user friendly, if it can be done that is.

I also agree with Hamhock666 about the infobox item/block splitting, although this is not priority imo as it currently works as it is.

--JonPardon (talk) 21:48, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes, the changes to the block system in A16 (or maybe A17) will probably get rid of the differences in the number of different varieties of blocks.

If understand you correctly you both would prefer to use a single template, with separate line items similar to the recipe template? The problem I see with that is I would then have to create a large number of named parameters without any real idea as to how many there will be. I did start off thinking this way, and there is an example here: Template:Block Varieties. I could not think of a nice way of implementing it. I could push it to a single template (with an options for the first and last lines), that would repeat. See updated example. Also if some can replace this entire wiki system with something that makes sense it would be good, I have just spent an hour trying to get rid of automatic paragraphs, with no success.

The {{#var:fileprefix}} is just there so I only have to change it in one place, makes cutting and pasting easier and there is no guarantee that the file prefix will exactly match the page or block name. I have set it to default to <nowiki>{{PAGENAME}} if there is no parameter.

With the block and items, it may make some sense to divide them, but I think the effort involved would to too high at this stage. I did not actually realize that the ids for blocks and items overlap (just did not look). I always thought of blocks as items that can be placed on the ground, a sub-type of item. I am not sure how much would be gained at this point. There are actually two different blocks for a Shopping Basket one of which is a container (can be picked up by disassembly), and one is able to be picked up.

— Tilleen ^(talk) 00:36, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

I am also wondering if the main titles for these groups of blocks should be Steel Blocks or Steel (Blocks). I would get the template to remove post fix before internal use. It just seems strange having a title of Steel or Flagstone.

— Tilleen ^(talk) 01:36, 8 March 2017 (UTC)