Template talk:Profession icon sizes

Template name

Having the templates profession and profession icon is a little bit confusing especially when it comes to mainspace usage where we have templates like item icon or skill icon. The template profession is somehow intended for the mainspace (although it is preferred to use the according profession/elite specialization template directly) while the template profession icon is only used to determine the size and icon format (it is called by the profession/elite specialization templates).

What about renaming this template to Profession icon sizes (matching the name of the template Tango icon sizes) to indicate that this template is only used to determine the size but not intended for mainspace usage. --Tolkyria (talk) 12:43, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

It was done this way as it was the quickest way to implement the changes on Guild Wars 2 Wiki:Community portal#Profession icon templates.

Why not just bake the switch from this template (Template:Profession icon) directly into the current implementation of Template:Profession, and then move that template to here? -Chieftain Alex 15:55, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

The template profession should be hardly used in mainspace directly (if my search was correct then I found exactly one occurence), only called via templates, so merging these two is definitely an option. This would remove any template naming scheme confusions, it might also speed up things a little bit as less subtemplates are called in a row. Previously (before my edit today) skill infobox would have called the following templates to display an icon: profession → guardian (or any other specific profession template) → profession icon. Now, after the merge, skill infobox would only call profession which directly returns the icon.

I would keep the name profession since it fits to the other template names listed in Template:Icon#Possible values such as race, order, discipline and vendor. Unless we want to change these names too. --Tolkyria (talk) 16:22, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Kinda tricky to actually merge this two templates and keep the profession check (defaults to common) without expanding the code unnecessarily.

The code should return <profession, <size> and <profession in this order (for [[File:<profession> <size>|link=<profession>]]), either we have to use the profession switch twice, call the size switch in the profession switch or define a variable. None of these solutions sound actually appealing to me, I somehow have the feeling that all of them should be worse than calling a subtemplate (as we do right now).

Thus, if we don't have any better idea I'm tempted to return to my initial suggestion of renaming this template to Profession icon size (and no other changes as I already removed one subtemplate step from profession today). --Tolkyria (talk) 17:59, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Then, with no further contributions, I'm going to move this template to the less confusing name Profession icon sizes. --Tolkyria (talk) 17:20, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

I actually do think that race/order/discipline/vendor should all have the _icon suffix. -Chieftain Alex 17:23, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Okay, but as I said I can't see any way to reasonably merge the two templates. I think independently from the mainspace template names, we need a template that defines the sizes (sets the file name), namely profession icon sizes. The individual profession templates (e.g. guardian) don't need the profession switch from the template profession to call the correct icon (this would just overload it), while the profession template should handle also the "common" case and have some sort of profession/elite specialization verification. So I would keep the templates split, thus the template names (whether we use the suffix "icon" or not) should not affect my move suggestion at all. --Tolkyria (talk) 18:07, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for moving, helper templates should have clear names such that they cannot be used in mainspace by accident. Now also the template name is available for adding the suffix "icon" to the current template profession.

It somehow makes sense to give icon templates the suffix "icon", the question is how well accepted this change will be after all the years. Or are the affected templates mainly used in templates anyways and in mainspace the individual templates are called? I haven't checked this in full detail but at least for profession, discipline and race this seems to be true so the change should be too drastic.

Unfortunately I merged the templates order and order icon this week and now following your idea I decided for the wrong name and replaced all order icon occurences with order. Given how we use we use the profession/discipline/racial icons in mainspace (by calling the explicit template), we also might want to change this to call the templates Durmand Priory, Order of Whispers or Vigil instead of the template order with an unnamed parameter 1. --Tolkyria (talk) 19:51, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

So I took a look at the general icon templates that are missing the suffix "icon".

• Straight forward as the templates should be only called by templates:
  • profession
  • discipline
  • race
• Somehow mixed between using the general template and the specific templates in mainspace
  • order (specific templates: Durmand Priory, Order of Whispers or Vigil)
• Kinda tricky as the the templates are used a lot in mainspace:
  • vendor
  • crafter (also this template is somehow a duplicate of discipline)

Renaming the first four template should be relatively easy, while renaming the last two means that wiki editors would have to remember a new template name.

Edit: So it either doesn't really matter (first three) or is really disturbing (last two). Ultimately, I'm not sure if we should rename them or not. --Tolkyria (talk) 20:08, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Honestly it's a load of effort for zero gain, I'm equally ok with leaving the current names as they are. It'll require retraining users with muscle memory too. -Chieftain Alex 20:41, 6 April 2022 (UTC)