Bulbapedia talk:Project Routes

Maps

Okay, so, Route 28: yes K-J map. Route 27: no. And I've had an idea: a combo map for the list, showing all of the areas in one big map. We could combine it canonically, since there's that one map floating around here... Maybe. I'll ask Zhen Lin about the animation later if you haven't already. Tom Temprotran 21:35, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I've been a bit busy lately, so if you could ask Zhen Lin, that'd be great. The large map idea for the list sounds like a plan as well, as that would really give added detail to the list page. Also, the main reason that I wanted to move this discussion here was that, believe it or not, this page was the #1 wanted article on Bulbapedia because of all the links created from the article footer template. =) --TMF ^{T - C} 04:36, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

All right. I shall do so. And as for the combined map: [1]. Should I fill in the empty spot to the west with some abrupt end to the continent? And to the south of Kanto and Johto, the Orange Islands? Or a giant AREA UNKNOWN sticker over ocean? And what about those cheesy region labels? Keep 'em, or out with them?

And... wow. Oops? How many is that, 40, 50 links? Ah well. I sent off an email message, so hopefully I'll get a reply today. Tom Temprotran 03:07, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Animation is fine, provided:

1. The first frame is sufficiently informative - some people disable animated GIFs, so for them they will only see the first frame.
2. If the animation loops, then the animation must not become irritating - so a slow strobe would work, but blinking is not good.
3. Try not to exceed 200KB per image. - 振霖_T 03:44, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

That works. TMF, what's your appraisal of this [2]? I've already added Route 1's to its article and modified the template, but we'll have to get cracking with the other regions fast. I should finish them all for Kanto by tomorrow night. Tom Temprotran 06:29, 25 August 2006 (UTC) (Modified 07:08, 25 August 2006 (UTC).)

That looks great. These'll be excellent additions to the articles. --TMF ^{T - C} 08:26, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

All right. I'll get to the Hoenn ones for the articles we have right now, then go back and start creating the articles we don't have yet in Johto and Sevii to implement the maps. Tom Temprotran 08:05, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I changed the infobox to use "(Region) Route(Number) Map.gif" as the default map, so that should make the regionmap entry redundant for all of the numbered routes. For the named routes, the regionmap entry is still available so that the correct map can be shown. --TMF ^{T - C} 21:57, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

All right. That works, makes it a whole lot easier, then. All I gotta do is save the files to the right name. Tom Temprotran 01:07, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Infobox

Hey, Route people - how attached are you guys to the current style of the infobox? Because to be honest, the style bothers me each time I see the infobox, and more than once I've been tempted to edit it. Can something at least be done about the seemingly random background colors of the infobox's sections? --Pie 08:54, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

What do you suggest for it? For the colors, maybe having them differ depending on whether it's a majority-land, majority-sea, or majority-cave would break up the monotony, with it being shades of green for land, shades of blue for sea, and shades of light brown or grey for cave. It'd certainly make it easier for a person to tell at a glance which one it was, if the route doesn't yet have an in-game map of it available.

Just so long as it still incorporates all of the stuff we have in it now, I'm fine with changes. Especially the regional overview map that indicates its location, as I haven't yet had a chance to add that in on every route article made so far. Tom Temprotran 17:53, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I guess, and again that wouldn't be too hard to incorporate. I'd really rather just see a colorscheme that's less random than green, lightgreen, gray, gray, cyan.

And I don't see any problem with the content of the infobox. It's just the appearance that bothers me. --Pie 19:53, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, the new version looks awesome. Much more colorful. And leaving the type part out of Route 219 makes it just plain white. So that works out perfect, since we don't know if it's all water, or if it's more like 118, where you have to surf across a teeny strech of water to arrive at the rest of the route. And now to help add the type to all of the rest of the routes... Tom Temprotran 22:01, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Glad you like it. I think it also helps to combine some things into the same rows - such as having the alternate name with the normal name, so there's no empty 1px white line if there's no alternate name. I personally think it's a better fix than turning off rules entirely. --Pie 03:51, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

The revamped infobox looks real nice. To be honest, the old formatting and background colors were based on wp:Template:Infobox road, so I wasn't attached to the old formatting in the least bit. Again, Pie, great job with the new infobox coding!

I don't think the alternate name should be in the same row as the road name, though. After all, the name of Route 16 is not "Route 16 - Cycling Road", it is "Route 16". --TMF ^{T - C} 08:32, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, I tried it both ways - the problem is that if there is no alternate name, as is the case with many routes, the slot for the alternate names shows up anyway. It was invisible with no rules, but with rules, it's an annoying little strip between the title and the rest of the table. I think people can figure out that it's just an alternate name by the content of the article. --Pie 08:35, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

I would agree with you if I was able to see that white strip that you mention. I use Firefox 1.5, so the infobox renders as designed (no strip, alternate name or not). --TMF ^{T - C} 08:40, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Huh. Maybe it's just my version of Firefox, then. But if you can't see the dividing rules, why does it bother you, then? I mean, if we gave it a separate cell with a different background color, then you'd just have the problem I have when there's no alternate name - you'd see a 1px strip of the background color for no apparent reason. If we gave the separate cell the same background color, then it would look the same to you either way - but make the strip visible to me. I don't see how putting the alternate name in a separate cell could possibly help anything. --Pie 08:47, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

BTW - upgraded to 1.5, and the table still appears the same. --Pie 08:54, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

(back to the left) I have no idea why that would be the case, but that's interesting. Gotta love technology. =) In all seriousness, I made a tweak to the infobox coding so that the alternate name entry is optional. I removed the empty entry on Route 15, so check it out to see if making the entry optional fixes the bug. --TMF ^{T - C} 08:59, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

No, no, no, that's not the problem. See, the thing is that if there was no alternate name, it would do just as it was told - put no name. But it would still make an empty two-column cell in the table, between the title and the rest of the infobox information, 1px wide. The only way to fix this is to have an actual infobox on-off switch, so that the code does not include a "|-" in the line before where the alternate title would go - or, the easy way, to just include the alternate name in the same cell as the main name, and do away with that separator completely. Do you understand, or do I need to switch it temporarily to demonstrate the problem to you? --Pie 09:03, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I just found an easy way to show - check the infobox for Wave Guiding Bomb, which has a blank entry for its battle description and contest description. Note that the cell is still made - that's what happens if there's no alternate name and the alternate name has a separate cell. (Or can you not see the rules on that infobox, either?) --Pie 09:17, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Looking at the current coding of the infobox, the alternate name is already in the same cell as the main name of the road on a lower line, which I have no problems with.

(This just dawned on me) However, if you mean that the previous version of the infobox that gave the alt. name its own cell was the glitchy one, then please accept my apologies for misunderstanding. (It is 5 AM EST, so that explains my lack of clear thinking) --TMF ^{T - C} 09:20, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that was what I was talking about - and what I thought you were talking about. I had a feeling there was some sort of miscommunication. Glad we got it cleared up. ^^o (And it's the same ridiculous hour here - hi, Mr. NYer, I'm from RI. But I'm a little more used to operating at this hour, I guess...) --Pie 09:26, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

(Post-edit conflict): Yes, I can see the little 3px "blank cell" between the two sections. So that confirms you were referring to the previous version of the infobox. Sorry for the misunderstanding on a ton of levels (I'll go to bed before I come off as an ever bigger moron by making more stupid assumptions...) --TMF ^{T - C} 09:27, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Hey, it's all right. It's an understandable mistake - being a moron would require you to restore a page after I reverted it to a redirect four times with explanation, warning, and all. (But on another note, sleep isn't a bad idea, considering the sun's just starting to come up here...) --Pie 09:35, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Appearance percentages

One issue done, and onto another - since the Pokémon species articles have enough needing to be added without having a "game locations" table fifty pages long for the common species, but the locations table will link to the routes and locations they're found in anyway, perhaps on the route articles the exact appearance percentages and levels of Pokémon on each route could be added? Not immediately - though given how quickly you guys seem to be working, I wouldn't be surprised if it could be done sooner than it'll take to fully flesh out and organize the first fifty species articles... --Pie 03:51, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

That's a good idea. I've seen it on a few of the route pages so far, I figure we could do it for them all eventually. The levels would be a nice addition, too. If we used a table, maybe we could use little color boxes that'd represent the eleven versions, showing which ones they appear in, so the table doesn't strech. They could be labeled, like, a red one colored FF0000 have an R, a blue one colored 0000FF with a B, a yellow with FFFF00 with a Y... Then for similar-colored ones, like Ruby and Red, Ruby could have a darker or lighter color, I think. Maybe Groudon-red, which seems a bit darker than FF-red. Likewise, Sapphire could have a darker blue, like the one called sapphire in the list of colors on Wikipedia. And Emerald could have a darker green than LeafGreen. Heck, I'd think we should go by cartrige color, having the FR box be more orange than the R box, and the LG box being closer to 00FF00 green than the G one, which would be closer to the 008000 one, like (I assume) the cartrige. And maybe they could have links to each version, like R and B would link to Red and Blue, in case someone's still confused about it.

I dunno. Mine might not be a workable or even smart idea, I think it'd look cool, though, not that that's the important thing. Tom Temprotran 08:03, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

It's a good thought - but if I'm picturing this design correctly, I think the main problem would be that it might be even more difficult than it is currently to note the differences between the versions, including levels and appearance rates. Though if it were still split up by generation (which is never a bad idea anyway), it would be similar to the current design, but quicker and easier to understand with the visual aid. (In fact... hang on, I think I'm going to try semi-incorporating that idea into the Route 1 article.) --Pie 08:13, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Pie, that table looks excellent. The only question I have is where would I find the appearance rates? For the levels, I can get those for Gen. II easily, but I'd have to do some guesswork for Gen. I and III. --TMF ^{T - C} 21:36, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I looked around - the only website I've found that has appearance rates is Psypoke, and it's difficult to convert that information - they have the percentage a Pokémon appears on a route for each version, but they don't have any pages with the whole route's appearance percentages. Other websites don't mention the appearance percentages at all, and I haven't found one yet that says the levels. If we can get that information - which we may have to do by playing our games a lot and checking published strategy guides instead of online ones - we'd probably be the best source out there for wild Pokémon encounters. --Pie 00:12, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Also, what colors should be used for Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald? --TMF ^{T - C} 23:12, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I've mostly been using the ones I use in my user profile - and for Ruby and Emerald, I use fee and efe. However, those are really pastel on their own, and there's nothing wrong with reusing fcc, ccf and cfc - first off, RSE doesn't share any routes with RBY or FRLG, and if you notice both R and FR have fcc as their color anyway and it looks fine. --Pie 00:12, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Widening the scope?

This project already covers all numbered routes and major non-numbered routes and paths. Should we widen the scope to virtually anything that isn't in a town/city (which would widen our scope to include areas like Cerulean Cave, Viridian Forest, Rock Tunnel, Union Cave, etc.)? --TMF ^{T - C} 21:39, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't know - they don't really seem to fit, just by the fact that they're not Routes in any sense. Maybe you need to start a new project - or create an umbrella project for this, Project Cities and Towns, and all other locations - Project World or something. --Pie 00:23, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, some of the caves could count as routes, like Union Cave and Rock Tunnel, since they have two separate ends and need to be passed through to get to the next destination. Cerulean Cave wouldn't, though, since it's one-way, and doesn't connect two places, but instead serves more as an optional dungeon-- which everyone takes anyway. Or else we could move the caves and such to a Project Caves or Project Dungeons, leave the underground connector routes to here... We'd have to be careful about naming it, though, Ilex and Viridian Forests, and Petalburg Woods aren't really dungeons or caves. Tom Temprotran 01:18, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Point taken. I agree with you whole heartedly. In retrospect, I wouldn't consider Viridian Forest (which is completely encompassed by Route 2) or Cerulean Cave (which has only one way in and one way out) routes either. On the other hand, Union Cave, which links the Ruins of Alph, Route 32 and Azalea Town via Route 33, may fit in the same way that Diglett's Cave does.

As for the umbrella project, here's an idea for a hierarchy:

Parent	Descendant	Sub-Descendant
Project World	Project Locations	Project Cities and Towns
		Project Routes

Here's my reasoning for the World/Locations parentage. Let's say someone wants to start a project for PokéMarts (including the three department stores). Instead of being an orphan project, it would fall under the realm of Project World. Also, similar to Wikipedia's U.S. Roads project, which encompasses all states that don't have their own project, Project Locations would cover all areas not covered by Cities/Towns or Routes. Thoughts? --TMF ^{T - C} 01:25, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Summary of infobox changes

Here's a brief summary of the changes I made to the infobox today:

• For numbered routes, the region map now appears automatically. For named routes, parameter "regionmap" must still be set.
• The region name in the "region" parameter no longer needs to be wikified upon entry into the box as it is now wikified by the template - in fact, by wikifying it, it disables the automatic map retrieval.
• Region_special has been implemented for routes that span two regions (currently, this is limited to only Route 28).
• The "junction" parameter can be omitted for routes that have no junctions. In its place, the word "None" will be displayed for junctions. --TMF ^{T - C} 22:17, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

And another that was made a couple of days ago:

• The "alternate name" parameter is now optional.

A lot of routes need to be tweaked to match the new coding, specifically the region name needs to be delinked, the alternate name parameter can be omitted where it is not used and, for numbered routes, the regionmap entry can be removed. Comments and questions are welcome. --TMF ^{T - C} 22:09, 28 August 2006 (UTC)