Template talk:Albumbox

Here's an example on how the Albumbox template looks like:

Dirt
Missing image AliceinChainsDirt.jpg Album cover
Album by Alice in Chains
Released	October 1992
Recorded	???
Genre	Grunge
Length	57 min 35 sec
Record label	Columbia Records
Producer	Alice in Chains and Dave Jerden
Alice in Chains Chronology
Facelift (1990)	Dirt (1992)	Jar of Flies (1994)

<tr>

<th bgcolor="orange" colspan="3">Professional reviews <tr> <th align="left" valign="top"> Q <td valign="top">2 stars out of 5 <td valign="top">October, 2000 (http://www.q4music.com/nav?page=q4music.review.redirect&fixture_review=121171&resource=121171&fixture_artist=146990) <tr> <th align="left" valign="top"> Robert Christgau <td valign="top"> Grade: B <td valign="top">link (http://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=Alice+in+Chains) <tr> <th align="left" valign="top"> Alternative Press <td valign="top"> Favorable <td valign="top">March 1993 p. 40 (http://www.buy.com/retail/proreviews/product.asp?sku=60110766&loc=109&PageFormat=7) <tr> <th align="left" valign="top"> Vox <td valign="top"> 8 out of 10 (Very Good) <td valign="top">December, 1992 p. 63 (http://www.buy.com/retail/proreviews/product.asp?sku=60110766&loc=109&PageFormat=7) <tr> <th align="left" valign="top"> Allmusic.com <td valign="top"> 4.5 stars out of 5 <td valign="top">link (http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&uid=UIDSUB040402061702081566&sql=A9bsxlfde5cqy) <tr> <th align="left" valign="top"> Entertainment Weekly <td valign="top"> Grade: A <td valign="top">October 16, 1992 p. 76 (http://www.buy.com/retail/proreviews/product.asp?sku=60110766&loc=109&PageFormat=7) <tr> <th align="left" valign="top"> Spin magazine <td valign="top"> Favorable <td valign="top">November, 1992 p.114) (http://www.buy.com/retail/proreviews/product.asp?sku=60110766&loc=109&PageFormat=7) Template:Albumbox end The reviews have diferent templates:

• Template:Music review header

This one should only be used with the very first review, because it's the only one with a header, and it allows the color to be changed according with the album type.

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• Template:Music review

This one is to be used with the rest of the reviews, since it has no header.

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Due to the five templates restriction (see here (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Template#Restrictions)), and to overcome this, I created another template which is exactly the same as Template:Music_review:

• Template:Music review2

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These three review templates allow a maximum of 11 reviews. If more than 11 reviews need to be added, then a new template should be created.

Known issues

Piped links are the major setback at the moment because a parameter name or value can not contain a "|", since this separates parameters.

Piped links are no longer an issue. Parameter values can now contain piped links. The "|" is not taken as a parameter separator anymore.

Image resizing and adding captions to pictures are also not a problem anymore.

Two questions

1) What's the current status of the template?

2) Can you think of any reasonable way to preserve the chronology (previous, next album) at the bottom of the box? I understand why it's done the way it is currently shown (the parameters for the chronology are for the albumbox template which generates everything using these parameters before the reviews), but the reviews really pertain to the album while the chronology actually follows. More typing, but perhaps the info about the current album should just be repeated for the chronology.

Having seen a bunch of album articles, I definitely think this is a worthwhile idea. -- Rick Block 04:38, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

1. In limbo, I guess. I quietly stopped pushing the template after some concerns were raised on the mailing list about taxoboxes, which would also apply to this. Basically, there was a suggestion that this behavior (making one table out of multiple templates) might be a bad thing that may not work in the future. A while ago I had suggested and implemented {{AlbumboxStart}} which wound up breaking after the upgrade to 1.3, and all the albumboxes had to be fixed. Naturally, then, I'm a little reticient about suggesting something else which might break. Having said that, though, it doesn't seem to have stopped the taxoboxes, so who knows? It probably wouldn't take much more pushing to get the template accepted.
2. If you were able to pass templates as parameters, then you could do something like:

{{Albumbox| 
title=Dirt|
artist=[[Alice in Chains]]|
type=[[Album]]|
color=orange|
coverart=[[Image:AliceinChainsDirt.jpg|225px|Album cover]]|
dayreleased=[[October]]| yearreleased=[[1992]]|
releasedmore=|
daterecorded=???|
musicalgenre=[[Grunge]]|
lengthmin=57 | lengthsec=35|
lengthmore=|
recordlabel=[[Columbia Records]]|
producer=[[Alice in Chains]] and [[Dave Jerden]]|
reviewsection=
{{Music review| [[Q magazine|Q]] |2 stars out of 5| link=[http://www.q4music.com/nav?page=q4music.review.redirect&fixture_review=121171&resource=121171&fixture_artist=146990 October, 2000]}}
{{Music review| [[Robert Christgau]] | Grade: B | link=[http://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=Alice+in+Chains link]}}
{{Music review| [[Alternative Press (music magazine)|Alternative Press]] | Favorable | link=[http://www.buy.com/retail/proreviews/product.asp?sku=60110766&loc=109&PageFormat=7 March 1993 p. 40]}}
{{Music review| [[Vox]] | 8 out of 10 (Very Good) | link=[http://www.buy.com/retail/proreviews/product.asp?sku=60110766&loc=109&PageFormat=7 December, 1992 p. 63]}}
{{Music review| Allmusic.com | 4.5 stars out of 5 | link=[http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&uid=UIDSUB040402061702081566&sql=A9bsxlfde5cqy link]}}
{{Music review2| [[Entertainment Weekly]] | Grade: A | link=[http://www.buy.com/retail/proreviews/product.asp?sku=60110766&loc=109&PageFormat=7 October 16, 1992 p. 76]}}
{{Music review2| [[Spin magazine]] | Favorable | link=[http://www.buy.com/retail/proreviews/product.asp?sku=60110766&loc=109&PageFormat=7 November, 1992 p.114)]}}|
prevalbum=[[Facelift]]| prevalbumyear=[[1990]]|
nextalbum=[[Jar of Flies]]| nextalbumyear=[[1994]]}}

Which would be very neat and tidy, but I don't think you can. The only other way, as I think you realise, would be to create a separate chronology template. Why not try it? Just remember to update the mark-up on the pages that use the template (particularly the few articles).

You might want to also check out the rival Template:Album infobox (ugly IMHO). - 16:12, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC) Lee (talk)