User blog:Denmax/Project Template: The Basics

Getting Started

 * You'll have to understand first that when you are going through the idea of making templates, you actually do know how to at least make a darn table or know how to break lines, etc, and most especially, know what templates mean and their purpose. If you are planning to use it as a one time thing, don't even bother making one. If it is so useless that no one else in the whole of the wiki would even want to use it, then it's probably because it lacks the amount of features that would make it good, or you don't know enough on how to manage aesthetics properly - which is terrible.

Definition

 * Consistency: A template is basically something that serves as a pattern, allowing the wiki to have uniform looking objects around the wiki. We don't want to see different looking Navigation Boxes around the wiki, do we? It would look less uniform, which could result in dirty aesthetics and unattractive design.


 * Clarity: Another purpose of a template is to shorten the "code" of what would be something that would take a huge amount of space in the editting section, which would make things alot harder to manage. This makes organizing easier, and mistakes less frequent.


 * Ease: The most important aspect of the template is the fact that one is able to edit every page containing such template in one change of text. If ever one was desiring for a redesign in the color scheme of the wiki, one could just change the template of, let's say, the information boxes and it should change everything instead of doing so one by one in every page.

What we will cover today

 * • Basic idea of template exclusive commands, specifically inputs
 * • The idea of  and
 * • Executing the same table template which will outcome different texts, images, and colors.
 * • Helpful tips that might come handy in the future.

Template Inputs

 * I'm assuming you people actually do know how to make simple table (using, or  ) so we'll cut to the chase.


 * Suppose we have a table, say; the coding is similar to this


 * Which results into:


 * Let's try to save it in a page. So that we won't consume the main wiki's pages, let's use one of your subpages. Use this link and paste the code above. Once you press submit, the same thing should appear on your page.


 * So that we can test it out in the same page, we have to use the  tags. The purpose of these tags is to exempt some text from being reinterpreted. This allows us to document template pages without actually replicating the documentation when executed. Place the tags just after the table.


 * Normally, we can execute a template by typing, using a pagename of Template: . Since we are using one of your subpages, we need to write the complete page name. Let's use mine for example. The result would be:

...
 * style="color:red; background-color:green;" | Right Column
 * }


 * Once you accept the edit, you should see the exact replica just below your old table. But how do we hide the original one? Using  tags, we are able to disguise it. The point of this is in more complex templates, the original template will look ugly or unfitting due to the lack of inputs. Place the open tag just before the table, and the close tag after the table and before the opening   tag.


 * Now it's time for the real deal. We want to use this same template on the same page, but have differing titles. First of all, we have to change the text Title Is Here! into, where title is the input field and Title Is Here! is the default data. Let's make two tables, with one title changed to Donuthat and the other Dinky the Dolly.

.... ! colspan=2 style = "font-size:130%;"| ....


 * This makes tempaltes very flexible to create. You are able to add even more inputs on different other fields, such as the font color, background color, and the texts inside the columns

Tip

 * Go to your preferences, and uncheck "Enable visual editor" and check "Widen the Source mode edit box to fill the entire screen" under the Editing tab. It might not look like something you'd want to see at first, but it makes the letters a ton larger, but uniform in sizes and, which results in easier organization.

Next time

 * Template documentation
 * Use a template.. to create a template!
 * The if and switch statements