Template talk:Family tree

Great feature

Oh, snap. Very useful here, but awfully complicated. Gonna have to get into this. Thanks, Ebakunin. --Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 03:03, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. This template is rather nasty to use, but there really isn't a better alternative. At least it's better than using <pre> tags or uploading images. --Ebakunin 03:50, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I like this family tree, but I have a suggestion - this template is cool, but cumbersome to use. Rather than use this template on every character page, why not make separate, family tree pages entitled, for example, Steiner Geneology for all the Steiners (and Steiner-Davions), or Kurita tree, or even place the tree on House Marik. Though these might be tremendously long and complicated trees, you would only need to make one per major family - I figure that would entail one for each of the major houses, one for each of the major periphery realms, several mercenary families, several supporting families, and of course, major Clan bloodines - as a conservative estimate, you could probably start with 30 family trees and cover nearly everyone important.--S.gage 19:59, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

I think we should have both. I don't believe that most readers care who Hohiro's great-great-great-grandfather was, but Hanse's familial relation to Michael Hasek-Davion is important to the storyline (see family tree). A twenty-generation ancestry will be difficult to decipher and I think most entries should only focus on recent and relevant family members. --Ebakunin 20:37, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

DUDE!! That's awesome!!! Probably put 3 or 4 generations on the character pages and then a family page with everything? --Communibus Locis

S.gage, I see your point about the complexity of the tree and too be honest it'll be a bit before I attempt to learn how to use them. However, I would submit, no Editors are expected to have to use the tree. Rather, those individual Editors that are interested in both the informative value of the trees AND adding them themselves will do so. ('Sides, the idea of being the one to create the master tree is gonna give me fevered nightmares tonight.) --Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 22:06, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

First Complete House Tree

I decided to try to map an entire family tree, so I used House Amaris - because I was working on this very recently. The tree is on the page if you want to see it. For making a tree this large, I suggest using the preview, and saving occasionally. In addition, the tree can be only so large, so you may want to cut and paste, or learn from my failures and successes here. I hope this helps.--S.gage 03:38, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I'll say it again here: it looks great. You did a spectacular job. --Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 03:41, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

One more note - when working on long family trees, each save takes forever. It might make sense to break up the job.--S.gage 03:42, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi S.gage. The work you're doing is extremely impressive. Let me offer a couple hints with the template that will help with layout and problem solving (if needed).

In the early Amaris genealogy you use this code:

{{familytree/start}}
{{familytree | | | |HWR | | | | | | | | | | | | | |HWR=[[Hector Rowe|Hector Worthington Rowe]]}}
{{familytree | | | | |!| | | | | | | | | | | | |}}
{{familytree | | | |MAR | | | | | | | | | | | |MAR=[[Maxwell Rowe|Maxwell Achilles Rowe]]}}
{{familytree | | | | |!| | | | | | | | | | |}}
{{familytree | | | | AB| | | | | | | | | | |AB=[[Arabella Rowe]]|UNK=Unknown}}
{{familytree | | |,|-|^|-|.| | | | | | | | | |}}

You'll notice that not all the pipes ("|") line up. It's important to keep everything aligned to ensure you can easily read the code for mistakes (if there are any) and to make sure that every row has the same number of table cells. I recommend writing the above code this way:

{{familytree/start}}
{{familytree | | | | HWR | | | | | | | | | | | |HWR=[[Hector Rowe|Hector Worthington Rowe]]}}
{{familytree | | | | |!| | | | | | | | | | | | |}}
{{familytree | | | | MAR | | | | | | | | | | | |MAR=[[Maxwell Rowe|Maxwell Achilles Rowe]]}}
{{familytree | | | | |!| | | | | | | | | | | | |}}
{{familytree | | | | ARB | | | | | | | | | | | |ARB=[[Arabella Rowe]]}}
{{familytree | | |,|-|^|-|.| | | | | | | | | | |}}

Every person now has a three letter abbreviation, which when surrounded by one space on both sides guarantees that all the pipes are aligned. With all the pipes in order it becomes clear that each row has a different number of table cells, which can be easily fixed. Having an unequal number of table cells can be an issue in some older browsers.

This template (which I swiped from Wikipedia) is a remarkable, and remarkably aggravating, piece of work. If you look at the underlying code the complexity is just insane. My hats off to you for tackling it. If you have any technical questions feel free to ask away on my talk page. Thanks a lot. --Ebakunin 04:04, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, it started to become difficult to predict the placement of the "|" that I was using in the article - I was writing this table in my browser. The width of each character I typed was not equal, so by the time I really started to edit a line, the only way for me to tell where I was, was to count, or simply bring up a preview. Also, I may not have noticed correctly, but it seemed like while I was typing, as long as I maintained a certain number of "|" per line (counting from the left), then I would end up reasonably close to what I predicted I would get. Anyways, This one may need a little more work, but I gave it a shot.--S.gage 04:24, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

condensing the final product

I have been developing unit Organization Trees using this code... It is incredibly time consuming work with a lot of trial and error but I am quite proud of what ?I have achieved (check out my user page). The only problem is that they are huge. Is there a way of shrinking the image down a little or am I going to have to go back to the drawing board? --Dmon 07:05, 29 August 2009 (UTC)