Template talk:Map

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Introducing new template[edit]

This template is still under construction and for time being should not be used in large volume of images as the parameters might change. Some things that still need to be done:

See also Commons:Wikimaps/Template. --Jarekt (talk) 13:19, 20 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support for calculating corner coordinates and KML creation based on points with both image and geographical coordinates[edit]

This can be easily done in MATLAB see [[1]], but it would be nice to add this capability to {{Map}} template. That can be done either using javascript or templates (with lua). Javascript can be written that looks for coordinates in image annotations and uses that. There are some pieces that need to be done first:

  1. get URL to the actual full resolution images or image width and height? For this file the URL would be [2] and size 8150 × 6978. It is unclear if this can be done with templates, parser functions of Lua, however at least the image dimensions are accessible to javascripts (search for "dimx" in MediaWiki:Gadget-ImageAnnotator.js)
  2. At the least we would need the ability to solve system of 3 equations with 3 unknowns. Possibly using Cramer's rule and determinants (See {{Determinant3}}). Most likely easiest way to do this would be in Lua.

--Jarekt (talk) 13:37, 20 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Couple more properties[edit]

I am hoping to see the place name of the location, and the date (usually year) that the map depicts. --Susannaanas (talk) 17:59, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I was assuming that those will go into "Description" (or "Title") and "Date" fields of {{Information}}, {{Artwork}}, {{Book}}, etc. But may be specific field for Location and depicted time (in case it is different than creation time) would be useful. --Jarekt (talk) 17:14, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Kml/overlay[edit]

The problem I see with this parameter is that it ties us to a kml layout rather than one of the alternatives, say, GeoJson. Default viewing on Google Maps instead of e.g. OSM is also a choice which is likely to raise eyebrows. /André Costa (WMSE) (talk) 09:03, 24 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The current KML support was developed years ago and AFAIK is still the only map/image overlay system out there. I would love it if OSM started to support KML, GeoJson or similar standards that would allow image overlays. The KML functionality is still not all the way there, I was hoping to write in LUA a code that calculates KML based on 3 geocodded anchor points which can be inserted as image annotations. --Jarekt (talk) 14:37, 24 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Google Maps has stopped showing KML on the maps now (and are dropping it from their My Maps offering). They can still be viewed in Google Earth. I've yet to find a suitable or better browser based KML viewer. Chippyy (talk) 17:15, 30 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

v 2.0[edit]

There is a new proposal for a version of this template at Template_talk:Map/Proposal. The main difference/plan being to make it stand-alone so that it can be used by e.g. the GLAMwiki Toolset. Feedback on missing fields, superfluous fields, compatibility issues etc. would be very welcome. (@Fæ: , you might have an insight on this based on recent NYPL upload?). /André Costa (WMSE) (talk) 13:23, 9 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The proposed verison has now been redone. Please take a look at Template:Map/Proposal and leave any feedback. /André Costa (WMSE) (talk) 08:46, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Map and Media Viewer[edit]

With the activation of Media Viewer I recognized, that suddenly all page descriptions are messed up (or trimmed). The Media Viewer is not capable to display complex description pages. I really like the idea of Template:Map and I like to work on detailled map descriptions. But now I ask myself, whether this work still makes sense at all. So what can we do at this point? --Alexrk2 (talk) 11:16, 25 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks a lot for the feedback! Is there an example to view to see the problem with the Map template? I, too, think that contributing effort to a technology that is going away is a waste of time. But on the other hand, nothing is ever ready and waiting is never a good option. To allow mass map uploads in near future without compromising metadata quality, one might want to stuff the data in the information template perhaps? Maybe the problem can be fixed in the Media viewer? What do you think? --194.151.204.93 15:19, 25 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
As an example compare 1 versus 2.
I think, establishing a special template for maps is the right way. But we also should urge, that this valuable work is also applied in practice. I also think that this topic is something special to maps, because maps (and maybe also other works of art) need a little more metadata and description (maybe also a map legend) than ordinary photos. I'm not into the development of the Media Viewer, and at the moment I have problems understanding the purpose of the Media Viewer. They seem to cut the file descriptions on purpose to make it look more slender (aka the new Flickr style). But anyway, IMO for maps it doesn't makes much sense. I also miss the link to the ZoomViewer functions. --Alexrk2 (talk) 17:51, 25 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Upgrade[edit]

This is just a heads up that the template will undergo a major overhaul in the very near future as it gets replaced by Template:Map/Proposal. Since it isn't much used at the moment the change should hopefully be unproblematic. /André Costa (WMSE) (talk) 12:20, 30 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The template is now updated and previous usages have been added to the temporary maintenance category Category:Map template needs updating. /André Costa (WMSE) (talk) 09:40, 2 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal talk page[edit]

This entry is here to link in the talk page for the now merged proposal

See Template talk:Map/Proposal for the talk page of the now merged proposal. /André Costa (WMSE) (talk) 09:40, 2 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Wikimaps Warper[edit]

Hi, I want to make a few suggestions to the "Wikimaps Warper":

  1. Can you please upgrade OpenLayers to a newer version which also supports mobile devices (implemented in OpenLayers >2.10)?
  2. Can we set the link from Commons directly to the preview tab, where the user can see the rectified map? I think that's what I would expect under "View the georeferenced map".
  3. Is it possible to have a function on "warper.wmflabs.org" where I can create a new map out from a file on Commons?

... --Alexrk2 (talk) 14:38, 21 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, and thanks for suggestions!
  1. We are planning to upgrade to a new version of OpenLayers or to Leaflet. Whether or not it's on our list right now, I must check.
  2. This is a good enhancement proposal. Currently, the "Help georeference the map" and "View the georeferenced map" are practically doing the same thing. We should be ready to have them behave differently. If you are a Commons-savvy developer, you could help!
  3. Which activity do you mean:
    1. You are viewing a file in Commons and would like to apply the Map template to it or
    2. You are in the Warper, and would like to ask for a specific file from there?
    In (1) we should create a gadget to transfer data from the Information template to the Map template. Again, a Commons-savvy developer could do it. In (2), I presume the functionality exists, but is not visible to users. I think in general, it would not be necessary. If you think it's useful, I think enabling it should not be a big problem.
@Chippyy: for details!
--Susannaanas (talk) 15:19, 21 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
3) I'm on the Warper web site and want to create a new map. So the Warper then should ask me: Please specify a file from Commons (or something like that). As I understand, the only way now to create a new map is to add the "help warp" tag on the Commons file description and then click on the button which links to the Warper.
What means "Commons-savvy developer"? --Alexrk2 (talk) 16:02, 21 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I cannot tell for sure what the situation is with the Warper form to bring in a map from Commons, whether User:Chippyy has changed it while developing.
We would welcome developers who could code things that work in Commons. That means for example gadgets and other piece of software that make changes to Commons pages. Knowing about the depths of templates and uploading practices would benefit development. --Susannaanas (talk) 18:51, 21 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
With respect to 2. I think you are actually supposed to end up in the preview tab (according to the url which e.g. [3] resolves to. This cannot be fixed from the Commons side though (unless there is another urlparameter I'm unaware of). /André Costa (WMSE) (talk) 13:39, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, seems that has to be solved on the side of Wikimaps Warper. --Alexrk2 (talk) 15:03, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The link now redirects to http://warper.wmflabs.org/maps/....#Preview_Map_tab - I guess the correct URL should be http://warper.wmflabs.org/maps/....#Preview_tab instead. --Alexrk2 (talk) 15:57, 13 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Georeferenced maps in Wikimaps Warper[edit]

I added Category:Georeferenced maps in Wikimaps Warper if "warper" is set. I hope this works correctly this way. --Alexrk2 (talk) 16:36, 3 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Alexrk2: : The parameter is about to change. I think the categorization needs to change also. Cheers, Susannaanas (talk) 15:26, 5 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Problem with special characters in file name[edit]

I had a problem with files with an apostrophe character like in File:Kiessling's_Kleiner_Verkehrsplan_1904.jpg. For such files in Wikimap Warper the rectify tab doesn't show anything. I had to change the file name in Wikimap Warper temporary and after the rectifying change it back to the old file name, cause otherwise the link from Commons won't work anymore. (The latter could also be a problem if someone changes a file name on Commons side.) --Alexrk2 (talk) 21:20, 15 November 2015 (UTC) ps: I added this file to Wikimaps Warper for testing. --Alexrk2 (talk) 21:35, 15 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Chippyy: Is this a known issue? /André Costa (WMSE) (talk) 11:19, 16 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Many thanks. I believe this has been fixed now. We've just deployed a bunch of changes to the warper. One of the things now is that it gets the map via the Commons API using the pageid, instead of using the filename. I just added https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kiessling%27s_Neuer_kleiner_Plan_von_Berlin_1898_B.jpg http://warper.wmflabs.org/maps/280 to it. (However... the display of the apostrophe on the warper looks escaped, so I've filed this as a bug: https://github.com/wikimaps-dev/mapwarper/issues/54) --Chippyy (talk) 13:11, 2 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The rectify tab is still not working for these maps. --Alexrk2 (talk) 19:00, 2 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Chippyy: I don't know if it will help: the call to http://warper.wmflabs.org/maps/209/warp returns "500 Internal Server Error" --Alexrk2 (talk) 15:52, 13 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I added this an a few other bugs to phabricator with @Chippyy: as assignee. Please reassign if this is not OK so. --Alexrk2 (talk) 16:16, 13 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Bug reports are appreciated, we do use Phabricator but just for WMF/Labs stuff. (We are not part of the 'Maps' project in phabricator really and haven't got set up for issues as an individual project). We are using GitHub for bugs and issue tracking: https://github.com/wikimaps-dev/mapwarper/issues/65 I hope to have a fix for this soon. Chippyy (talk) 17:49, 15 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Upcoming change in the template[edit]

There will be a change in the warped and help_warp parameters. They will be merged into 'warper status'. This is how it will change:

Situation Map template 'warper status'  i18n text
The map is not in the warper yes  empty Link 'help_warp'
The map is not in the warper yes random value Link 'help_warp'
The map is not in the warper yes 'skip' Blank
The map is not in the warper yes 'help' Button 'help_warp'
The map is in the warper yes 'unwarped' Button 'help_warp'
The map is in the warper and rectified yes 'warped' Button 'view_warp'

See the template and a use case.

--Susannaanas (talk) 15:28, 5 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong heading[edit]

Heading E gives a wrong arrow symbol. I've looked at the template but couldn't see any error.

  • "E" is wrong
  • "90" is ok

--Alexrk2 (talk) 09:58, 9 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed that was strange the template was relying on {{#iferreor}} parser function which no longer gives an error when you do math on string "E": {{#expr: E+1}} -> "3.718281828459", but {{#expr: W+1}} -> "Expression error: Unrecognized word "w".". Thanks for reporting. --Jarekt (talk) 13:19, 9 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Place of publication[edit]

It would be nice to have a "place of publication" field. Kaldari (talk) 22:59, 4 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

✓[OK] Done. Jheald (talk) 19:44, 23 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Heading does not work as thought[edit]

"N" for regular map works, find, but when the map is skewed somehow, it does not. Or the documentation is not well written.

I have this 1808 map of Breslau (Wrocław) which is turned somewhat clockwise (the Oder river and the streets in the old city center thus run rather horizontal). I could not get a proper direction. At least the map drawer dit place a arrow showing North in the lower right corner of the map. I tried "NNW" for "North-North-West", but that resulted only in a display of "50%" when I remember correctly. A number like "30" did also not yield sensible results. What should I enter in this case? Maybe not "30", but 360 - 30 = 330? BTW, a number of other maps of Breslau have the same or similar skew, up to the map from the 1885 Meyers Konversationslexikon. --L.Willms (talk) 08:02, 14 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Strange - now it works. Has somebody silently corrected the problem? --L.Willms (talk) 08:35, 16 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it shows the "N", but it looks like rather 45° instead of the 26° which I entered. What gives? --L.Willms (talk) 07:53, 17 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
File:BSicon numN000.svg set of icons created by User:Tuvalkin changes in 45 degree increments. If someone could upload more files at smaller intervals I could fix the template to show them. --Jarekt (talk) 11:33, 17 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Files are now available in increments of 5°: I made an edit request at Template talk:Compass rose file. Enhancing999 (talk) 15:39, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What does the "Warper" do in the first place?[edit]

Is there an introduction or document on the purpose of that software anywhere? I could not find any. --L.Willms (talk) 08:04, 14 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Preparing for an upload -- some questions[edit]

Main gallery: Commons:British Library/Mechanical Curator collection/georeferencing campaign/next steps.
Main gallery: Category:MC map migration test set.

Hi everybody, as some of you may remember at the end of 2014 a Wiki-led project identified just over 50,000 maps from a sample of 19th-century books that had been digitised for the British Library.

About 30,000 of those mapshave now been georeferenced (progress page -- add about 3,000 that had already been georeferenced in an earlier phase). There's also a preliminary geographical breakdown, with some tentative identifications (work-in-progress) at Category:MC map identification-in-progress -- the UK page is the most advanced. There are also about 3,000 maps that have already been uploaded (analysis).

I hope to really soon start systematically uploading some of the remaining maps, in batches, starting with various thematic batches for the UK, and then on to elsewhere in the world. (See "next steps" project page -- which may be the best place for general feedback about the project and map categorisation/identification).

I'd particularly like to use the {{Map}} template for the uploads; and also to migrate existing maps over to it.

So I've migrated a small test set of files to it (Category:MC_map_migration_test_set). But before I start rolling it out full-scale, I'd appreciate some feedback on whether I am using the template properly; whether there are things I'm missing or that could be better done differently; and whether there are some tweaks that could be made to make it more suitable for maps taken from general books, rather than stand-alone maps or maps taken from specific sets of maps.

It's probably easiest to work down the parameters in order.

  • Title/Description - I'm assuming that "Title" should only reflect the words actually used on the page? Or on the other hand, is something like '[Map of Lancaster]', or some other short name that's been created for the map by georeferencing volunteers also acceptable, sometimes with square brackets indicating that this is not what the map calls itself? It will be hard to determine, pre-upload, what is a created title and what is an actual title. Does this matter? Should title-like things be moved to "description" if they what appears on the page (or in the contents at the front)? Is it okay if by default whatever georeferencers have called the map gets put into the title-field by default? How much of a priority is it to check this and chase it up post-upload?
Update: the second column of the pages in Category:MC upload prep pages (nb: pages still evolving) shows the current names/titles for maps that have been input via the BL Georeferencer, to give an idea of what is now there to import. (Any filling in of some of the blanks by people would be very welcome). This is what I would propose to import into the "Title" field. So my question is really, is that acceptable, to leave like that? Or are some of these not acceptable for the title field?
  • Legend - There won't be anything to import by way of "Legend" by default, but if people come back to edit the map post-upload, what sorts of things are worth adding? For e.g. the map of Wales, should the full text be typed in as "Title"; or is a shortened version okay (as currently), in which case should the rest of the name be recorded somewhere? (I see that MARC allows several lines to be given for a title, making it possible to extract just the first part, or the full thing).
  • Author - I presume this means the actual cartographer. In many/most cases for these book illustrations, there may be no way of knowing this. Even where there is a credit, it is often just the publisher (very occasionally an external company might be credited). Sometimes a note thanking an illustrator can be found in the full text of the book (eg in the contents or the introduction) but it's rare. Where this is the case, is it worth putting them in? I've put in the publisher as 'author' for the maps of Manchester, Cumberland, and Lancaster, where there was an on-page credit. But this wouldn't be information I would have at upload, so by default I'll be leaving the field empty. Is this okay?
On the other hand, what I do have is the author given for the main text of the book, and sometimes also named collaborators. But there doesn't seem to be a field for this. Would it be appropriate to add new fields to the template in the Bibliography section, for book-author and book-collaborator
  • Date - I am assuming that this should normally be the publication date for the book? But there is also a field "year of publication" in the Bibliographic Data section. When should that be used? If it is known that the same plate had previously appeared in a previous book, or is that too convoluted? Unless somebody can come up with a good case example to the contrary, it seems to me that "year of publication" should be used for the main date pretty much always. Or is this intended to cover the case where we have a book reproduction of a much earlier map -- eg we have lots of extracts from the 16th-century "copperplate map" for various bits of London. I have also seen the date field used to give a recent "access date" for archive maps. But I take it that that is not correct?
Having thought some more about this, there are a number of books that include maps from a few years earlier, indicated on the map. By default I'm going to be setting 'date' to the same as 'year of publication', and including both; then if on manual examination someone sees the map has a slightly earlier date (eg from an earlier edition), they can change this field to the earlier date, without loss of information as to publication date.
On the question of redrawn/copied maps, eg File:FLEURY (1891) p.629 - Map of Lancaster.jpg, at the moment I propose to give the date as 1610 / 1891, but I'm open to further thought. Jheald (talk) 18:51, 23 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Source - The text I've used for the test examples is quite discursive, and matches the text created via an ingestion template for about half the Mechanical Curator images uploaded so far. It includes a template with link-backs to various BL pages -- ie the georeferencer, Flickr (x2), and the book main catalogue. Is this appropriate? Or is it too much, and too hard to interpret into Structured Data? Is this sentence-form presentation okay, that tries to summarise everything; or should elements be removed (eg some of the book information), if they are covered elsewhere. My preference would be to keep something like this for flexibility, even if often it will be belt-and-braces for some elements of the information.
  • Map date - I'm assuming (per the template wikitext) that this is for date depicted -- so eg 1610 for the Speed map of Lancaster, c.1645 for the Civil War map of Hereford. And not to put it in if it is the same as the main date above (eg for the Victorian maps). But it would be useful to change the template output to date depicted to make this explicitly clear -- for example the Lancaster map does reproduce a map originally published in 1610; but the Hereford map is 19th-century, looking back to how the town formerly was. Both of these cases, I think, get a 17th-century "map date". On the other hand, should they be distinguished in any other way, to be able to separate the two cases?
✓[OK] English label at Template:I18n/map changed to "date depicted" to clarify this, now in line with existing German, French, and Swedish text -- and with the template instructions. Translations in other languages still correspond to "map date". Jheald (talk) 21:14, 22 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Map location - A couple of issues here: (i) when we have a single page of a larger map -- eg the page here from the "District map of London", should this field identify the location for the page (ie Shepherd's Bush), or the whole map (ie London), or both? (If both, which to choose for the Wikidata item?) (ii) If the map covers a particular feature -- eg the drainage basin of a river, should that be given as its location (and wikidata-location, though it may not have a specific item); or should it the region(s) that the basin may mostly be in that should be given? (iii) if the map depicts an aspect of a feature, eg fortifications of the city of Hereford, and we had a separate Wikidata item for that, should that be given, or just the city as a whole? (iv) if a map covers just a part of a feature -- eg a segment of a road (or river), without showing the whole river (or road) or the whole region, is the containing region what should be given? Should the fact that the map shows only the area close to the river (or road) be indicated? (v) should we be trying to distinguish maps that are merely located in part of a thing, so that that is the best that we can give for their location, from we maps that present the whole of an entity (eg the maps for Wales, Cumberland, Lancaster, Dudley Castle), so that the map is "of" this thing, from maps where the entity depicted might be within a region -- eg the difference between Category:Old county maps of Hampshire and Category:Old maps of Hampshire ?
I am also concerned about the wikidata field being separate from the text field. Usually at most I can only get a rough identification from the georeferencing -- there is going to be a fair amount of manual checking and refinement required. If the wikidata reference is a separate field (rather than eg using a template to show the wikidata label for the text), is there a danger than people may update one without the other, and so for the two get out of sync?
  • Map projection, scale and heading. I hope to add these in later, based on the georeferencing points. Can anyone identify code to estimate projection, scale and heading, based on georeferencing control points? Does the warper have routines for this, that could be run in a standalone way? It would be useful to be able to indicate whether information had been derived from such estimates, or had been read from a source. Also, from the multitude of projections that can be found eg listed in the appropriate numeric of the MARC documentation, can anyone suggest sources as to which ones software should consider most common for the period and prefer, in the absence of stronger evidence for one over another? If we can extract projections in this way, should we try to record their parameters too -- eg the reference longitude for transverse mercator, the reference parallels for a conic projection?
In respect of scale, one piece of information I do have is that all these book pages were scanned at an effective 200 dpi -- it would be good to have a scan resolution field to be able to record that in, because it is also quite a crucial bit of information about the digital map as presented.
The scan resolution could be placed immediately below scale by using Other fields 2 and an appropriately filled-out {{Information}} template. But is this a quantity with such universal potential applicability, that it should have its own *standardised* field? Jheald (talk) 21:38, 22 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
✓[OK] scan resolution field added, placed in the "Archival data" section, as relating to a particular digitisation of a particualar copy. Jheald (talk) 19:01, 23 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Bounding box. I have used the lat / lat plus lon / lon format to record the bounding boxes, as returned from the georeferencing. But I am a bit disappointed that it doesn't seem possible to present these anywhere. In particular they are not being picked up by the {{Geogroup}} template at the top of the category page. What I don't want is pins presented at the corners of the bounding boxes, because it rapidly becomes impossible to assess what's connected to what. But what would be very useful would be to be able to present them as eg a red outline box to indicate the bounding box of each map. Does anyone know if there is any template that can achieve this, or whether it would be possible to make one?
  • Georeferencing. All the maps I propose to upload have georeferencing on the BL georeferencer site. At the moment, this is indicated with a rather subtle link in the "source" field, that most people will probably miss. It would be good to have a link that was more obvious. Would anyone object to a button in the BL's red colour here, similar to the existing blue georeferencing button, that would open the map in the BL's georeferencer?
✓[OK] New option warp status = external added, with new optional field warp url. Internationalisations of button text needed at Template:I18n/map, under external_warp Jheald (talk) 20:51, 22 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Bibliographic data The fields here seem to be much more geared to stand-alone maps, or map series, rather than maps from general books. In particular, the labels "Map set/atlas" and "Sheet" seems awkward for books, especially ones which may not be either map sets or atlases. I think it would be valuable to be able to instead choose the fields book-title, volume, and page for maps from general books. As somebody has noted above, it would also be useful to have a field publication-place -- this is valuable information for old maps, and may be known even if the name of the actual publisher or printer themselves is not recorded. In some cases it might be relevant to use both "Book title" and "Set" -- for example, in the case of the page that forms a tile of the District Map of London -- is it worth indicating "Set" = "Large map of London", and then a sequence-number within that set?
A further issue, with the BL mechanical curator maps, is that the "page" is actually the scan-number or page in the pdf, rather than the original page number on the page of the book (which would be hard to retrieve, other than manually). Should this be indicated in some way, eg "(of pdf)", or would that confuse attempts to mine the information?
✓[OK] Fields book title, volume, page and publication place now all added, along with wikidata book and wikidata set to record wikidata links.
'Page' (for the MC maps) will be the scan page in the digital copy. Jheald (talk) 19:05, 23 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Type. I'm not sure I'd know at all what to put down for this. The map of Cumberland could be classed a county map; but what would one particularly identify the others as? And is there a standard controlled vocabulary to be used?
  • Accession number. I have given the shelfmark for the book. Is this potentially confusing, because it is an identifier for the book, rather than an individual map? Also, as well as the shelfmark from the 19th century, the BL also now gives items a UIN (? = Universal Identification Number). If this can be easily extracted (and I'm not sure it can, other than manually), should this also be given?
  • Dimensions. It would be good to distinguish the dimensions of the book from the dimensions of the map, which may be quite a lot smaller. Should the two be given in the same field in different lines, or would it be better to create an additional new field? The dimensions of the book I may be able to get from the catalogue. The dimensions of the map I'd propose to get from the size of the image, and knowing it was photographed at 200dpi. One issue is that the images may subsequently be cropped -- eg someone may come along and remove the extraneous text from the top of the map of Hereford. Should I worry that if I calculate dimensions (in this case 6 in. x 6.575 in.), then they probably won't update that if the image is cropped? Is this something I just need to check for with a bot from time to time?
Standard cataloguing practice for cartographic materials is to give the dimensions of the 'neat line' (wikt:en:neatline) around the map, augmented as necessary if cartographic details extend further. That information is available from the georeferencing, but will need a page scrape to acquire. If possible I'll try and give the dimensions of the book as well. Jheald (talk)
  • Further information. One further parameter I have found very useful in organising the maps is to give them a zoom-level -- essentially, one greater than the OSM scale you would need to request to fit the map into a the single OSM tile. So a map with a bounding box that is just smaller than a world map is given zoom-level 1; one with a bounding box that is the whole world is zoom-level 0; see here for some further steps, going down to zoom level 20 for some churches, or even a couple of steps further for smaller buildings. Some might object that the zoom-level is something that can be calculated from the boundary box; or that a map-range directly in metres might be intuitive and more exact. But I find the zoom-level gives a useful set of buckets for roughly grouping together maps of similar-scale features, that is valuable. Also, while there is a formula to calculate it from the bounding-box, the formula is easy to get wrong, quite involved, and involves logarithmic and trigonometric functions which some languages eg SPARQL do not possess. So I think zoom-level would be a useful standard parameter to add in the template, eg between "Heading" and "Bounding box".
✓[OK] Field zoom added, below "scale". Jheald (talk) 19:33, 23 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks in advance for any thoughts on any of the above, Jheald (talk) 19:30, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Can this template pull info from Wikidata?[edit]

Hello, I've been reading about (and testing out) the Artwork template's use of the Wikidata module to populate fields, and I was wondering if anyone is working on that for this template, or if there are any plans to? Thanks, --Librarian lena (talk) 20:51, 5 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I have not contributed to this project for a long time, but I completely support your suggestion! There is the underlying question whether or not to store maps data in Wikidata, which I also am strongly in favour of. I wonder if @SandraF (WMF): or others more actively working on this topic could advise what the latest discussion on this has concluded. Cheers, Susanna Ånäs (Susannaanas) (talk) 07:14, 6 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
There is work done on the properties for maps in Wikidata, see Historical_map_properties – Susanna Ånäs (Susannaanas) (talk) 07:48, 6 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
So currently we have two approaches of pulling data from Wikidata:
  1. templates {{Artwork}}, {{Book}}, {{Photograph}} and {{Art photo}} use Module:Artwork and several helper modules, like Module:Wikidata art to do everything from Lua, without generic Wikidata access modules like Module:WikidataIB. Module:Information uses similar approach and is a code behind {{Information}} template, which is capable of pulling metadata from SDC.
  2. Another approach is used by User:Mike Peel for {{Wikidata Infobox}} template widely used in Category namespace. That approach mostly uses traditional templates and Module:WikidataIB for wikidata access from templates.
The first approach was mostly possible because there was a huge overlap between {{Artwork}}, {{Book}}, {{Photograph}} and {{Art photo}} templates. {{Map}} template also has a lot of fields in common with those templates but it has so much more. I do not think I have time at the moment to take on this project, but I can advice if someone else would like to. --Jarekt (talk) 02:28, 7 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I could be interested to work on this. I would definitely want to have it in the Artwork family. I cannot work on Lua modules from scratch, but I have modified some. More people welcome! – Susanna Ånäs (Susannaanas) (talk) 06:54, 7 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Susanna in such a case I would propose to do it in stages. Stage 1 would be to recreate the curent template in lua without any wikidata lookup. You could look at build_html function in Module:Artwork, Module:Information, Module:Creator or Module:Institution modules. If any of the code is not clear I can explain. --Jarekt (talk) 13:15, 7 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Susanna, Jarekt, thank you for following up on this! I will propose it as a Hackathon Phabricator task for this weekend, in case there are other Lua-proficient attendees who would be interested in helping. Whether or not it gets traction over the weekend, I don't know how to do this but I would love to learn and am willing to put time into it. --Librarian lena (talk) 23:20, 8 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Switching to Module:Map back-end[edit]

I've switched the template (diff) to use the Lua Module:Map back-end, which should provide more flexibility for future development.

I have made a cut-and-paste copy of the previous wikitext version at Template:Map.old, so it's possible to easily switch between and compare the two for any given map. (Note that it may be necessary to purge a map page, or make a null edit, to update it to see it with the current template).

Please indicate here if there any issues this has caused, that need to be investigated and resolved. Jheald (talk) 12:18, 23 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Files with unrecognised parameters should start showing up in Category:Pages using Map template with incorrect parameter (though it may take time for the pages to react to the new version of this template).

Parameters for Image generation[edit]

Today I realized that somehow the parameter |image= got lost; now it is re-activated again, and allows the use of all the different possibilities of specification (see the docu). Moreover, also the use of the deprecated parameter |imgen= will be honored.
Because the (deprecated) parameter |help warp= caused troubles, I set it inactive (ignored and no error when specified). -- sarang♥사랑 11:21, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Parameter "map date": no output[edit]

The parameter does not produce any output at this time. Is this a bug or the desired behavior? ΟΥΤΙΣ (talk) 12:30, 25 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@ΟΥΤΙΣ: It was a bug, now fixed. Kanguole (talk) 15:11, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Standard parallel(s)[edit]

It would be useful to have a parameter for standard parallel(s) of the map. This could hold one latitude value for cylindrical projections like mercator or equirectangular, or two latitude values for conic projections like albers or (equidistant?) conic. Kanguole (talk) 23:07, 25 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Vertical aerial imagery[edit]

I added {{Map}} to the above image, with |type=aerial photograph. It would be good if |type=aerial photograph caused the word "map" to be changed to "photograph", in the template's labels and its categories. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:20, 17 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Button for wikimaps warper import[edit]

This used to show up when the template is used, it no longer does, has there been a change? Shyamal L. 05:40, 10 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Found the cause - someone had commented out code - https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Module%3AMap&diff=760344605&oldid=698030611 Shyamal L. 16:34, 11 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What to do after crop[edit]

Enhancing999 (talk) 10:49, 15 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Neighboring tiles[edit]

What's the preferred way to add neighboring tiles (map sheets bordering east or west, and, more complicated, north or south)? Maybe somewhere in "Bibliographic data"? Enhancing999 (talk) 09:38, 26 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

For now I went with "other fields". Ex: at File:Swisstopo Dufourkarte BLATT VII. PORRENTRUY SOLOTHURN LT TK 007 1845.tiff : 

|Other fields =
{{Information field |name=Adjacent sheets |value={{Neighboring sheets Swisstopo Dufourkarte|7}} }}

See Template:Neighboring sheets Swisstopo Dufourkarte for more details. Enhancing999 (talk) 16:57, 26 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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