Template talk:Chart

How It Works

When I started with templates Chart seemed like magic. Now that I have experience I analyzed it and made some notes that I'll move to the Docs page or a sub-page later. If anything below is confusing please edit it.

Some of the template could be re-written but it works well and would be a waste of time to rewrite for only 6 unique charts.

This is one of the more difficult templates to understand on this site. Here are some notes on how it works internally.

Summary

{{Chart/start}} and {{Chart/end}} are HTML table tags. Each {{Chart}} is a table row. Each parameter to Chart is one of three things:

1. a cell for connecting lines or spaces- unnamed parameter which must be (a single letter) or (a single letter and any number of non-characters like 'a315')
2. a box for information- unnamed parameter which must be the name of a named parameter, referred to as 'box name' from now on
3. a named parameter- names must contain at least one more letter somewhere after the first like 'MyName' or 'a3b15'

Each box is a 6 x 2 table and each cell is a 2 x 2 table with borders drawn where needed for that box or cell. Boxes are drawn all in the top template, cells use a sub-template for top and one for bottom. A cross using {{Chart/start}}{{Chart|+}}{{Chart/end}} would look like this when expanded:

        Chart/start: <table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" style="">
Chart (before cell): <tr align="center">
       Chart/cell+t: <td style="border-right: 1px solid black; border-bottom: 1px solid black;"><div style="width: 1em; height: 1em;"></div></td><td style="border-bottom: 1px solid black;"><div style="width: 1em; height: 1em;"></div></td>
   Chart (mid cell): </tr><tr align="center">
       Chart/cell+b: <td style="border-right: 1px solid black;"><div style="width: 1em; height: 1em;"></div></td><td><div style="width: 1em; height: 1em;"></div></td>
 Chart (after cell): </tr>
          Chart/end: </table>

Each parameter to Chart is turned into a call to {{Chart/cellxx|namedvalue|border|boxstyle|rowspan|colspan}} or {{Chart/box|namedvalue|border|boxstyle|rowspan|colspan}}. For Chart/cell the parameters are unused.

Breaking it down into component parts:

Check Unnamed Parameter Type

{{#ifeq:{{ucfirst:{{lc:{{{1}}}}}}}|{{uc:{{{1}}}}}
  |chart/cell{{{1|x}}}t or |chart/cell{{{1|x}}}b
  |chart/box            or |x0
}}

If the unnamed parameter is the same when all upper-case as it is when only the first letter is upper-case then it's a cell and is called with Chart/cell(the letter used or x if blank)t to draw the top half or Chart/cell(the letter used or x if blank)b for the bottom half. If not then call {{Chart/box}} or {{X0}}. The Chart/box code draws the entire box so the 'bottom half' makes a call to a null template to do nothing. This is necessary because this is being constructed inside {{ }} so an existing template must be used.

This only evaluates unnamed parameters. Named parameters are handled indirectly.

Indirect Named Value

|{{{{{{1}}}}}}

Pass the value of the named parameter given by the box name. Confused?

If {{{1}}} = GrMa then pass the value of {{{GrMa}}}. You must have used | GrMa = Grandma later in the Chart call.

Indirect Named Box Parameters

|{{{border_{{{1}}}|{{{border|2}}}}}}
|{{{boxstyle_{{{1}}}|{{{boxstyle|}}}}}}
|{{{colspan_{{{1}}}|{{{colspan|6}}}}}}
|{{{rowspan_{{{1}}}|{{{rowspan|2}}}}}}

These four parameters follow the same pattern. If the parameter name is specified and ends in the box name then use that. If not then check for a general parameter without the name and if that's also missing use the default value.

Example: If {{{1}}} = GrMa then check for a border_GrMa named parameter or a border named parameter or use a default of 2.

Remember for colspan and rowspan that boxes are 6 x 2 tables so the default colspan is 6 and the default rowspan is 2.

‒ Joram↝Talk 01:38, 28 January 2010 (UTC)