NexusWiki:Template Central

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Organised Discussions: General Template Central Fiction Central Fiction Revisions

Contents 1 General Template Discussion 2 Class Skill Templates Discussion 3 Vertical Class Skill Lists 4 {{skillbox}} and {{spellboxGS}} Renovation 5 Userboxes! Yay! 6 Pending Change size 7 Navigation templates 8 Template Request 9 Template:ElementalistSkills

Template Central is a central location for the construction of new Templates for the wiki. For those who either wish for a new template to be created, or for current templates to be adjusted, redesigned or debugged, Template Central is where these comments should be placed. Further, Template Central should be used as a central location to discuss template design as a whole for the wiki.

[edit] General Template Discussion

Moved from NexusWiki:Organization Discussion

Is there any way to give a tabled template a paremeter that allows the user to set how many rows they want? For instance, if I created a status effect template for spells and items, I would want the user to be able to increase the number of rows based on how many effects were experienced. -Sauth 15:00, 3 May 2006 (CDT)

Not really. Templates don't do looping all that well. The best you'd get is to do something similar to the following:

{{tabletop}}
 {{tablerow|element|element|element|element}}
 {{tablerow|element|element|element|element}}
 {{tablerow|element|element|element|element}}
 
 ...
 
 {{tablerow|element|element|element|element}}
 {{tablebottom}}

-- Odd Starter 10:10, 5 June 2006 (CDT)

The armor entries appear to use a similar table representing the various defense versus attack types. This could possibly use a template - something like Soakchart or Soaktable? --Lint 16:31, 12 June 2006 (CDT)

[edit] Class Skill Templates Discussion

Copied from User:Brizth/WIP

I get this odd feeling that we should be dumping the colour set. So far as I can tell, Jorm's preferring a Black & White/Greyscale set-up, as much as possible, so I think the green's not useful.

Honestly, I'm seeing the colours of each class as follows:

• Good: White with thin black border
• Neutral: Grey block
• Evil: Black block

Give me a second and I'll show you what I'm talking about. -- Odd Starter ^A 04:28, 11 July 2006 (CDT)

• The green is awful - UD flashbacks! --WiredDeath 04:29, 11 July 2006 (CDT)

The color wasn't my choice, I took it from the original Template:PariahSkills which was created by Karlsbad. I just copied the template when creating the others. But yeah, I agree, the colors are somewhat ugly and don't fit well into NW. Both of you (and everyone else) feel free to edit the WIP. --Brizth 04:37, 11 July 2006 (CDT)

I like the new style, looks good! --WiredDeath 07:17, 11 July 2006 (CDT)

I created the good & neutral templates as per Odd's suggestion. I also tested with Elementalist's skills, as they seem to have most of them. Seems to work ok. Now I'm only wondering if I should have stayed with div-based markup. Well it should be easy to change, if necessary. I wonder if there's any reason not to use it. --Brizth 15:27, 11 July 2006 (CDT)

Don't think there's any reason not to use div-based markup - so far as I can tell, using divs is the way most people on wikipedia do it, since it allows for quite a bit more flexibility than table markup. -- Odd Starter ^A 17:42, 11 July 2006 (CDT)

Since this was headquarters for the previous discussions...

Karlsbad has noted that the current setup doesn't really allow people to scan through for skill heirarchy. Any ideas on how we can change the templates to incorporate this information? -- Odd Starter ^A 21:00, 12 July 2006 (CDT)

It seems you already found a way. Although it is far from readability of the original, vertical format, it should do for a while.

Mortal skills could use completely different format as that template won't be used with any other template on the same page, as opposed to tier-2 & tier-3 templates. I'll test what unified shape & size vertical templates look like with the current color scheme. Although I do like the look of the current horizontal format... --Brizth 14:04, 13 July 2006 (CDT)

Whatever we do, we should keep everything consistent - Like templates should keep like formatting. Honestly, I don't think Template:MortalSkills looks too bad at the moment, though that may just be bias... -- Odd Starter ^A 20:02, 13 July 2006 (CDT)

Just so people know, I've fixed yet another unfortunate bug in the template design, ie that horrible overlap issue with Template:Skillbox. This should now be 100% fixed across all templates, but it's entirely possible I may have missed one or two. If so, the fix is to place in the outermost div tag's style property the tag:

clear:both;

This will force the link box to render lower on the page than the skillbox. And so, that rather annoying problem is happily solved! -- Odd Starter ^A 00:31, 14 July 2006 (CDT)

It might be a good idea to create either one or three templates (Template:ClassSkills or Template:GoodSkills, Template:NeutralSkills and Template:EvilSkills) that define the formatting. It would make it a bit easier to make modification, and as a plus would keep recent changes clean(er). I made the one template version on my sandbox, if someone wants to have a look. The plan would be to replace the current content of different class skill templates with a template call to this new one. Skill pages would not need to be changed at all. --Brizth 06:28, 14 July 2006 (CDT)

To be honest, I've been thinking exactly the same thing, as editing all the templates separately is a pain!

My only worry is that the pipes in the current formatting may cause issues. Of course, this is easily resolvable by using html encoding (I'll just have to look up what the pipe's html code is). It should all be easily doable with a single template, no problems at all. -- Odd Starter ^A 12:42, 14 July 2006 (CDT)

Another way is using nowiki tags around the pipes. Or switch to another separator. The current edition in my sandbox also gets rid of that line break tag but still keeps reasonable formatting.

And now that I think about it, it might be better create the three template version, as that would make it possible to change colors more easily. Otherwise all the class templates would have to be changed in order to switch colors. --Brizth 14:19, 14 July 2006 (CDT)

I created {{GoodSkills}}, {{EvilSkills}} and {{NeutralSkills}}. {{PariahSkills}} is the only page currently using one of those. --Brizth 16:33, 14 July 2006 (CDT)

Looks good. It doesn't really matter how many templates we have as long as it's a fairly small number, but I would note that it was still possible to change colours and stuff and still have one template. Still, this is a manageable number. At some point I'll get to work moving everything over to new system. -- Odd Starter ^A 02:40, 15 July 2006 (CDT)

And the Templates have been changed over. While I was there, I also updated the skills list on {{OppressorSkills}}, {{AdvocateSkills}} and {{WizardSkills}} to include the new Enchanting skills, and altered the template slightly so that sort keys can be added to any page that needs it. -- Odd Starter ^A 03:45, 15 July 2006 (CDT)

[edit] Vertical Class Skill Lists

There was some talk on DND IRC channel about current class skill templates being hard to read and the old, short-lived, vertical lists being better. I pretty much agree with this. Requiring the in-game skill buying screen to plot your character's development is what we are trying to avoid. Anyway, one suggestion was to replace the skill box on actual class pages with a vertical version while keeping the ones on skill pages. This would conveniently avoid the problem with too many vertical mis-matching boxes on a single page.

I made a mock-up version on Pariah. Not a template yet, just edited the page. Doing this would obviously require creating 20+ new templates, but wouldn't be the first time eh?

Although I wonder if there is some way of using one and same skill list for both the vertical and horizontal template... Ok, maybe that's not required.

So, what do you think? --Brizth 16:57, 31 July 2006 (CDT)

Hmm... Assuming that Meb is going to be giving us more class portraits, I'm just thinking where the most appropriate place for a box like this is. Maybe... Maybe we should incorporate it into the Class Icon? I've done a rather kludgy example on the Pariah page. This also has the advantage of getting the Class Icons into the decor, as it were. Do you think that something like this is worth pursuing? -- Odd Starter ^A 03:09, 1 August 2006 (CDT)

I like.--Jorm 03:30, 1 August 2006 (CDT)

This actually brings up the idea that there may be cause for Template:CharacterClass or somesuch, that handles the symbol image, the skill list, and other things of note (entrances/exits, tier, alignment, etc.)

Oddly, just added something similar on that front. Give me a bit of time to see if I can't figure out a way to get everything in and still looking funky -- Odd Starter ^A 03:43, 1 August 2006 (CDT)

Also, if the vertical lists as only going to be on the Class Page proper, I think we can get away with only the one Template, so don't worry about massive numbers of Templates. -- Odd Starter ^A 03:33, 1 August 2006 (CDT)

Curious... I find that having the vertical box on the left hand side... clunky. Wouldn't it be better to place it on the right side of the page, since we have main nav bar on the left? Also all the other vertical boxes are on the right (see skills or pets). -- Dachibi 03:57, 1 August 2006 (CDT)

My only concern is that when the other classes get Class Portraits, we're going to get some severe crowding on the right margin, since the Class Portrait at present is also on the right margin on the Nexus Champion Page. You're right, it does look a touch odd, but I'm trying to be forward-thinking here. I'll give it a spin on the Nexus Champion page to see what it looks like complete with the Class Portrait. -- Odd Starter ^A 04:11, 1 August 2006 (CDT)

There we go. Have a look at that and tell me if it still looks odd, and if so, how we might be able to fix it up. -- Odd Starter ^A 04:16, 1 August 2006 (CDT)

I really, really like the new ones on Pariah and NC. Yeah, they might look a bit odd, but I tried what they would look like if swapped with the image: here, I think that one looks even worse. And I happened to catch some people on IRC saying that the NC page with the info box looks very nice.

And heh, yes, one template should be enough. I was just too tired when thinking about these. --Brizth 05:14, 1 August 2006 (CDT)

I created {{ClassBox}}. Usage instructions on the template itself. It's currently used on Pariah and NC pages. I couldn't figure any easier way to pass the skills or exits to the template than * lists. --Brizth 06:11, 1 August 2006 (CDT)

I've started the rollout, though I'm not going to finish it tonight. I should ask, does anyone have any ideas on how to stop list bullets from intruding into the template (see Revenant for a good example)? It seems to happen regardless of whether it's a table or div system, so I suspect it's something to do with the actual list CSS itself. Anyone got any ideas of getting around it? -- Odd Starter ^A 01:36, 2 August 2006 (CDT)

Fixed. I don't know if putting margin-right:25px is the cleanest/proper way, but it works. --Brizth 05:45, 2 August 2006 (CDT)

Ok, the rollout is complete, if I didn't miss any. --Brizth 07:00, 2 August 2006 (CDT)

[edit] {{skillbox}} and {{spellboxGS}} Renovation

This may well just be me, but considering how much the wiki's templates happen to be Black and White as opposed to greyscale, I'm thinking that {{skillbox}} and {{spellboxGS}} should probably follow that pattern.

The problem, of course, is that I don't have a clue how to adjust the design of the boxes in order to make a Black and White template look pretty. Any ideas anyone? -- Odd Starter ^A 03:10, 15 September 2006 (CDT)

Hi! I know this was an old comment but I agreed with you. I changed both and wrote a completely new one for the Skillbox template as it was a bit of a mess (I've never written a wiki template before so if there is an error let me know). They look a bit more like the rest of the wiki and in-game boxes now. The boxes hold important info but they were just kind of sitting there on the page looking bland and grey - makes them a bit more noticeable now, maybe? If you hate them then you know what to do, I suppose. :P I checked how it looks in IE7, Firefox and Opera. -- Glampers 06:34, 14 April 2008 (CDT)

Excellent. Looks good so far, but I haven't seen every page on the wiki to know. Feel free to goof with other stuff, too.--Jorm 15:49, 14 April 2008 (CDT)

[edit] Userboxes! Yay!

Moved from Talk:Main Page

Hey there! I'm Scalene (Don't worry, one of these days I'll create a userpage) and I love NexusWar. But, I feel that there's something missing from the NexusWiki. Userboxes.

So, for the time being, after a lot of blood, sweat, tears, and code, I've created some USERBOXES. Currently, we only have ones for the different classes, which I wanted to get opnions on. What do people think?

Check them out at User:Scalene/Userboxes, allright? Scalene^{•UserPage•Talk•Contributions•Userboxes!•} 05:15, 28 November 2006 (CST)

I think that there is a desire to keep the userbox proliferation to a minimum on this wiki following the recent template deletion ruling. That being said, userboxes which simply identify the classes that the character use might be acceptable. However, I don't see why so many versions of the same template are necessary. It is probably possible to pass in a value through templates so something like {{UserClass|Wizard}} or {{UserClass|Infernal Behemoth}} would replace the class name and class image. --Lint 12:45, 28 November 2006 (CST)

I don't have a problem with NW-specific user boxes. I agree that they should probably be single-templatized, if they aren't already, if only to reduce the number of templates we have on the system. Someone with more wiki-fu than I will know better.
Also, we may want to move thisdiscussion elsewhere; Main Page isn't really for it.--Jorm 14:02, 28 November 2006 (CST)

I thought so. Discuss it on the talk page, then? And wiki-fying it to single template is complicated code.

In other words, I'd love to do it.

By the way, if anyone wants to help, it's easiest to do this on wikipedia by making the template there, subst: ing it, and copying the code onto this page. Scalene^{•UserPage•Talk•Contributions•Userboxes!•} 16:08, 28 November 2006 (CST)

I'd actually suggest discussion be moved to NexusWiki:Organization Discussion. We've got a couple templates that do what this needs to already; Odd Starter or Brizth are the masters of them.--Jorm 16:13, 28 November 2006 (CST)

Discussion moved.. well, here. I'll whip something together for the template. Should be quite straightforward. --Brizth ^{T A} 17:15, 28 November 2006 (CST)

I made something that seems to be working, though could use some more work. Found here. It should continue to work even if moved to proper location in template namespace. --Brizth ^{T A} 17:48, 28 November 2006 (CST)

Growls at Brizth Darn. He beat me to it. But, it could be improved. I'll give you a demo. Actually, it's perfect. Darn, I can't improve it. I did like the grayscale, though.

EDIT: I've fixed it to make it duo-tone grayscale, similar to the image itself. However, there's a slight problem - the size of the second side of the box is the same as the first. I can't figure it out. Can someone help me out with that? Scalene ^{•UserPage •Talk •Contributions •Userboxes!•} 02:26, 29 November 2006 (CST)

Hmm. I really didn't like the different color for each side, so I made one. I think it looks much cleaner with a single-color background. As for the color itself, the darker grey (#444) you used is quite close to visited link color, making them unreadable, at least for me. Also, the silver color is used in other templates around the wiki as the color for Neutral classes, so that's why I used it. Anyway, the colors can be customised easily when including the template. --Brizth ^{T A} 16:44, 29 November 2006 (CST)

(You know, typing all these colons is getting annoying...) I don't really mind about the duo-tone - and thanks for adding the black border. But the main problem I'm having with it is that there's no divider between the image and the text. Originally, that's what I was trying to do with the border. Is there a way of adding a line that splits it 45px for image, and 358px for text, with a line dividing the two? Scalene ^{•UserPage •Talk •Contributions •Userboxes!•} 23:11, 29 November 2006 (CST)

How about now? I think it looks quite nice. Of course if the background is set to black the line disappears, but there's not much I can do about that. --Brizth ^{T A} 03:58, 30 November 2006 (CST)

I moved the template to {{UserClassBox}} after someone started using it. --Brizth ^{T A} 04:05, 1 December 2006 (CST)

(I am really tired of this colon stuff) That's perfect. Right on, Brizth! Maybe I'll make some later on - wikipedia related ones. For example, "This user writes flavor text".
(And please, don't take that idea - I need to contribute in some way...)

I'd prefer we not get into the entire template war type thing that happens on other wikis.--Jorm 00:14, 2 December 2006 (CST)

[edit] Pending Change size

Moved from NexusWiki:Organization Discussion

In this edit here, you can see how the Pending Change template screws up the formatting. So can there be a smaller or two-line version of the same template for when the current template is farking with the page? --Karlsbad 18:04, 10 October 2006 (CDT)

I played with the wording on the current template and made it a bit smaller. But it wasn't the size that was the problem, but clear:both on the style definition. I removed that, and it seems to work. But I wonder if there was some very good reason for it in the first place that I've just forgotten. --Brizth ^{T A} 18:21, 10 October 2006 (CDT)

The reason was to stop much a similar occurence with other Templates, such as Skillboxes and the like. What I'd love is if there was a way to "relative centre" the pending changes banner to the centre of whatever space is left, but I've yet to find a decent way of doing so that scales to more than a single screen configuration. -- Odd Starter ^A 19:08, 10 October 2006 (CDT)

[edit] Navigation templates

Moved from NexusWiki:Organization Discussion

Would it be beneficial to have a navigation template, like the Rulers of St. Germaine template, for all the point systems in the game? "Action Points", "Hit Points", "Magic Points", "Morality", "Experience Points", and "Character Points". Possibly even extending it to include all the basic information - "Faction", "Alignment", "Level", "Class", "Skill". It is somewhat redundant with the Main Page and Glossary category, but it might prove to be a means of assisting a new player navigate the basics. --Lint 12:39, 27 November 2006 (CST)

Several examples of what I had in mind can be seen in my Sandbox. These will operate just like our existing templates for Template:StGermaineRulers and Template:Planenav. The suggested navigation templates currently include: Point Systems (Pointnav), Basic Actions (Basicactionnav), Combat Actions (Combatnav), Elder Powers (Elderpowernav), and Neighborhoods (Neighborhoodnav). --Lint 11:17, 7 December 2006 (CST)

[edit] Template Request

I'd like to have another "pending change" template that is really small - just a word, maybe - that I can insert on specific lines instead of as a banner (I like the banner, but it doesn't work in all cases, like when adding a skill to a class' main page). Easily doable?--Jorm 13:26, 30 November 2006 (CST)

Like this? It still has to be moved to proper location in template namespace. --Brizth ^{T A} 13:38, 30 November 2006 (CST)

Exactly like that, but maybe with parenthesis.--Jorm 13:42, 30 November 2006 (CST)

Done, and also placed it into {{Pending}}. There was some other, unused pending change template that I don't you have ever used. --Brizth ^{T A} 13:55, 30 November 2006 (CST)

Excellent. As long as these things show up in the pending changes category, we're all good (I use the category to find what I need to "undo")--Jorm 14:00, 30 November 2006 (CST)

Yep, they will show up there. --Brizth ^{T A} 14:08, 30 November 2006 (CST)

[edit] Template:ElementalistSkills

Now that there's actual mechanics around the different elemental skills, I thought it would be useful to show which skills belong to which element on the Skills lists. While the Class page itself was fairly easy to update, getting the actual {{ElementalistSkills}} template to work has been rather frustrating. After a few changes, I think I've got almost everything working. The only thing I can't figure out is how to get the element tags to push right to the left, so there's no whitespace there. Anyone else care to help? -- Odd Starter ^A 06:34, 8 March 2007 (CST)

Something like these two? I can't test them with IE so I can't say if they work or not. --Brizth ^{T A}

They both seem to work okay in IE - I've taken the second one just because none of the lines line-break in IE as well as Firefox. Thanks! -- Odd Starter ^A 16:28, 8 March 2007 (CST)