Template talk:Cite New South Wales transport timetables

Request for possible change.

Frietjes Again thank you creating this. Only creating the information within the reference has proved helpful in that I have also been able to use it in an external link. It has been suggested that an option be provided for the calling article to override the title as specified within the template. It would be required at this point in time for timetable b525 where someone wants to display "Route 526 timetable" instead of the specified "Routes 525 and 526 timetable". If timetable specific coding is required it is suggested it only be added to this timetable. I could add it to others if required at a later date.Fleet Lists (talk) 05:31, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

In addition I do not see the need to have the accessdate as a passable parameter as it will be the same for all articles and not just the one calling this template. On that basis I have coded the date direct into bm52 which is the first one I have used this in. I have omitted the accessdate parameter for the new timetables I have added today and plan to remove it from all others except bm52 where a specific date is coded.Fleet Lists (talk) 05:08, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Fleet Lists, added |title=. will remove accessdate shortly. Frietjes (talk) 14:20, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Progress

Frietjes This template has been of great help just in the past week as NSW TrainLink has been making software changes to interface with a major change in the Transport Info Line website. Twice in the last five days they have changed the URL's of their timetables which was overcome by one change to the template today and three a few days ago as I had not realised at first that more than one URL had changed on that occasion, instead of having to change about 100 stations/locations on each occasion. I am doing it slowly, adding five bus/ferry timetables every day rather than do it all at once and risk making a mess of it. Today someone else picked up the new URL's before me and reverted Broken Hill railway station to the previous format link but I reverted that after updating the template, with advice to the editor concerned.Fleet Lists (talk) 06:50, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Fleet Lists, yes, that's one of the features of using the template. I am sure you are familiar with Special:LinkSearch, which can be used like this and this to see that all the old have been converted to the new. Frietjes (talk) 12:44, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Frietjes And the timetable URL which had not changed yesterday, was changed today. Also I lodged a complaint on the weekend that some of their new timetable dates appeared to be incorrect - they were fixed this afternoon but in such a way that the dates in our template also needed updating. So again it was very handy. And today I included references to this template inTemplate:Strathfield platform box as Strathfield was one station which did not show train timetable references. If this is OK I will go ahead and do the other five such templates as well.Fleet Lists (talk) 09:04, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Fleet Lists, yes, looks good. thanks for taking the time to keep everything updated. Frietjes (talk) 12:43, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Frietjes The search above has been of a lot use during conversion and even now checking whether some old type links have been added by users. But now when a route is deleted, or I find one which looks dead in the template, I can not find all locations which may use it, Is it possible to do a search for say to see what locations it is being used at. It would make maintenance a lot easier. One that I have assumed has died and I have deleted, is but it would be nice to be able to confirm it and that I have found all locations at which it was being used. Can also be useful when route details have changed as they have this week for to ensue all locations are covered.Fleet Lists (talk) 08:33, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

okay, if you have already removed it from the switch, I have added Category:Pages using Cite New South Wales transport timetables with an unknown line to find any that are throwing errors. if you haven't already removed it you can (1) you can use the Special:LinkSearch to look for pages using that particular URL, (2) you can add [[Category:Pages using Cite New South Wales transport timetables with an unknown line|B502]] right after the {{cite web}} in the template, or (3) do an insource search link this. Frietjes (talk) 13:42, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

FrietjesWhere it has been deleted it worked fine and picked up a cite reference which should have been changed when a different route now serves the location concerned and the previous route no longer exists. But with the others I am am having problems - option 1 works with URL's but does not seem to work with cite references - option 3 keeps timing out on me after about 30 seconds with some results but certainly not all - that leaves option 2 where I can not find where to put it in the template - could you put it in the right place? If so once it is there I should be able to manipulate it to codes I want to look for.Fleet Lists (talk) 08:08, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Fleet Lists, tell me which one you want to track and I will give you an example for option 2. Frietjes (talk) 13:21, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

FrietjesCould you try please. Thank You.Fleet Lists (talk) 22:38, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Fleet Lists, okay, I added tracking for that one, should be sorted under "B" in Category:Pages using Cite New South Wales transport timetables with an unknown line. Frietjes (talk) 23:03, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

References

November 2017 timetables

In the new timnetables the only PDF's which are available are those generated within Transport Info itself where the URL contains a date. One such timetable was added lat week for the Manly ferry where the date in the URL has already changed and hence the link does not work. I am trying to get it to work with the more dynamic link which currently for the Manly ferry timetable there are 5 options and this version of the link is not date dependent. However so far I have not been able to get this to work.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Fleet Lists (talk • contribs) 05:36, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

I have now solved the problem - I have also removed the access dates from the ferry timetables and will do others as I get a chance. The access date is now meaningless as the page in Transport Info linked to, dynamically changes dates as timetables change so what is accessed today may not be the same accessed tomorrow without any changes to this template.Fleet Lists (talk) 10:12, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Dates

Frietjes Long time since I have been in contact. There have been a lot of changes recently where many bus operators no longer display pdf timetables of their own on their website and rely on the timetables shown on the NSW Transport Info website to which their website link. These are dynamic timetables where the date and URL can change on a daily basis so to keep that maintained within this template would be impossible hence we need to change the URL to the level above which tends to stay the same eg where links are provided from there to a current and a future timetable. So in field where have been putting the dates, would it be possible to allow the "Current" to be entered to show that it a link to current timetables or even if the field is empty to insert the word Current as default? The ferry timetable linked to is another dynamic timetable where this is now the only version available. Initially there was a problem in that their URL's contained a hash which wiki did not like but that has now been removed - see previous item. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Fleet Lists (talk) 03:05, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Fleet Lists, it would be better to just omit the date if it's being continuously updated. if you try to use "current" in the date parameter for {{cite web}} you get an error directing you to Help:CS1 errors#bad date which explains the valid date formats. more appropriate would probably to have |accessdate= to indicate when you last checked the timetable. Frietjes (talk) 12:44, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Frietjes Thank you that is much as I thought. I had already discounted the last accessed options as that would also get out of date and not reflect the current situation and also would be a big maintenance load with so many timetables. Another option is to show the word Current in front of the title which I have updated by change in the reference used yesterday but would include in the actual template if we decide to go that way.Fleet Lists (talk) 23:42, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

References

Title Format

Instead of including the word "timetable" in the title for each reference for a link to the Transport for NSW website, as from today I have changed to using "Operator name route xxx" which is more meaningful. In fact the link is not to timetable but to an information page in Transport for NSW website which in turn then links to the timetable. is an example. Eastwood railway station has had all references done. I hope to progressively change them all.Fleet Lists (talk) 05:50, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

References

Possible sub template

Frietjes With so many routes having the same operator and 90% of routes being published by Transport for NSW, would it be possible in say | b418 = {{cite web|url=https://transportnsw.info/routes/details/sydney-buses-network/418/25418|title={{{title|State Transit route 418}}}|publisher=Transport for NSW|}} to replace the title={{{title|State Transit route 418}}}|publisher=Transport for NSW by {{busroute|R6|418}} (or similar template name) where the first parameter is the region number in which the route operates and would expand into the operator name in the title, in this case State Transit, and the second parameter is the route number which would transfer direct into the title created by the new template. The new template would always create the publisher using Transport for NSW - if this ever changes it would then be a simple change to change the name in the one place. Any routes which would not fit this new template would continue to use the current method of defining the title and publisher. I am suggesting R6 first up as in two weeks time 61 routes in that region will change from State Transit to Transit Systems. Other regions would be R1 Busways, R2 Interline Bus Service, R3 Transit Systems, R4 Hillsbus - any more hopefully I would be able to add once the template has been created.Fleet Lists (talk) 08:12, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Fleet Lists, if there is a pattern for the URL and title, then you can merge them, but you still need to include them in the switch, and the have to follow the exact same pattern. for example, you can replace

| b410 = {{cite web|url=https://transportnsw.info/routes/details/sydney-buses-network/410/31410|title={{{title|State Transit route 410}}}|publisher=Transport for NSW|}}

with

| b410 = {{cite web|url=https://transportnsw.info/routes/details/sydney-buses-network/{{str right|{{{1}}}|1}}/31{{str right|{{{1}}}|1}}|title={{{title|State Transit route {{str right|{{{1}}}|1}}}}}|publisher=Transport for NSW|}}

the {{str right|{{{1}}}|1}} chops the b from the front of the b410 and returns 410. of course, you wouldn't want to do this for just one entry, but if you have more than one you can replace

| b308 = {{cite web|url=https://transportnsw.info/routes/details/sydney-buses-network/308/31308|title={{{title|State Transit route 308}}}|publisher=Transport for NSW|}}
| b309 = {{cite web|url=https://transportnsw.info/routes/details/sydney-buses-network/309/31309|title={{{title|State Transit route 309}}}|publisher=Transport for NSW|}}
| b310 = {{cite web|url=https://transportnsw.info/routes/details/sydney-buses-network/310/31310|title={{{title|State Transit route 310}}}|publisher=Transport for NSW|}}
| b311 = {{cite web|url=https://transportnsw.info/routes/details/sydney-buses-network/311/31311|title={{{title|State Transit route 311}}}|publisher=Transport for NSW|}}

with

| b308 | b309 | b310 | b311 = {{cite web|url=https://transportnsw.info/routes/details/sydney-buses-network/{{str right|{{{1}}}|1}}/31{{str right|{{{1}}}|1}}|title={{{title|State Transit route {{str right|{{{1}}}|1}}}}}|publisher=Transport for NSW|}}

the missing "=" after the name means "same as the next entry". note that they all have to have the same pattern, so

| b389 = {{cite web|url=https://transportnsw.info/routes/details/sydney-buses-network/389/25389|title={{{title|State Transit route 389}}}|publisher=Transport for NSW|}}

isn't the same pattern since it has a /25 and not a /31 for the URL. Frietjes (talk) 12:52, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Frietjes That is fantastic. I will need to move the 308 to another group as it now hasFleet Lists (talk) 22:10, 19 June 2018 (UTC) /25 in the URL like 389 as it has moved one depot to another but that is not a problem - something which would have needed to be changed in any case. Thank you - certainly an approach I would not have thought of.