Template talk:NPC list

Template seems to be breaking references

Could someone with a keen eye for code please take a look at this template to see if there are any errors? I've been trying to add a reference to the main body of the Skara Brae article, which always results in a blank References section until I delete the two NPC List templates in the Inhabitants section. After that, references work exactly as they should. It'd be very much appreciated if someone could solve this, thanks! --Terilem 02:16, 11 April 2011 (PDT)

The problem only appears if the reference and the "references" tag are separated by the NPC list, as if the list is resetting the references list. If both the ref and the references list appear before or after the lists, they work just fine. Unfortunately, the template has some dpl stuff that I'm not familiar with. I'll see if I can do something about it, but we may need Fenyx for this.--Sega381 17:30, 11 April 2011 (PDT)

Yeah, that's about as far as I could narrow down the issue as well. I had considered replacing the templates with manually typed lists as a workaround it but figured it'd be best to get to the root of the problem. Thank you for your input; I only have a basic knowledge of HTML and my eyes glazed over when I saw the code for this. --Terilem 19:53, 11 April 2011 (PDT)

I found this, which is a similar report from another guy. There is also an active bug about this in the DPL2 extension bug list. Seems to be a bug with the extension itself, so I doubt we will be able so solve it, unless a new version of the extension fixes it, or we find a workaround.--Sega381 06:36, 13 April 2011 (PDT)

Ack, that's not good. I guess we convert to manual lists when needed to work around it, then? I only ever seem to see the template used for U4 and U5 inhabitants, anyway. --Terilem 06:43, 13 April 2011 (PDT)

Yeah, all ihabitents from Ultima VI to IX are manually generated lists (which had been some work, but was worth the efford). So it shouldn't be too complicated to ad Ultima IV and V to it.--Tribun 06:55, 13 April 2011 (PDT)

It isn't that making the lists is complicated it is keeping them updated. It requires people to know all the locations they need to update lists if they add an NPC and to remember to go do it. For example Eshka just recently got added however he didn't get added to the Tomb of Praecor Loth list. If

{{NPC list
 | game =Ultima Underworld II
 | location =Tomb of Praecor Loth
 }}

had been used to generate that list Eshka would already be in there.

But I digress. I'm looking into the DPL with references problem but so far there doesn't seem to be an easy fix (thanks for finding that bug report Sega381). When I get some spare time I'll try digging into the DPL code itself.

If it comes down to it what do people think should we remove the generated NPC lists or the generated generate references from the pages where this conflict occurs? I'm torn. On the one hand we are now using references fairly extensively so to have the occasional page where we don't use them seems weird. On the other hand the generated references are contained to one page and would be easier to maintain than NPC lists.-- Fenyx4 10:12, 13 April 2011 (PDT)

No good example, since me not adding him was on purpose, as the player doesn't actually meet him.--Tribun 10:14, 13 April 2011 (PDT)