User talk:Dedridd

Greetings. Great place here for compiling game info! I ran across something in the DDO forums that I know I'll reference repeatedly, and thought it would be a good candidate for posting here. Rather than pestering others, I thought I'd jump in. However, I'm lost! I'm a software developer and can handle new syntax, I just need to figure out the structure and a reference for said syntax. I tried checking out the Help in the Edit section, but it didn't...uh...help. Got any links to a HowTo-Wiki-wiki? ;) Dedridd 07:08, January 31, 2006 (PST)
 * Welcome mate! Got MSN? I could explain it in a jiffy; else try http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Editing (-: [ [[Image:Peerlessico.png]] P e e r l e s s  [[Image:Peerlessico.png]] ] ( talk ) 08:47, January 31, 2006 (PST)
 * No MSN access here at work, but thanks for the link. That's perfect! I'll chew on that for a while, and see what it enables me to break here. :b Dedridd 09:28, January 31, 2006 (PST)
 * nice for only learning for a half hour, think I might take a look at that link as well --Tarod 10:04, January 31, 2006 (PST)

Formatting Question
Given that this is an edited-by-the-public site, should maintainability take precedence over presentation? Is there any official policy on this? Take for example, the following simple excerpt from the Collectables page:

Document Collector: Giles Goodman
 * Page torn from a research notebook (3) - Spell Level 1 Scroll
 * Khyber Prayer Pamphlet (2) - Spell Level 1 Wand
 * Tome: Prophecies of Khyber (1) - Jewelry or Accessory (Required Level 1, ~500gp value)

Religious Icon Collector: Goldscuttle
 * Prayer beads (3) - Masterwork Ammunition
 * Small wooden idol (2) - +1 Ammunition
 * An icon of Khyber (1) - +1 Bane Ammunition

Looks decent, doesn't it? Except for the fact that the spacing between the 3 parts of each bulleted line isn't consistant, so it's hard to browse down through and look for a specific item. Using tables and format code, I can make it look better (I would fix the background color eventually):

But the latter format is going to be tougher to insert new info, especially for someone not used to all that formatting code. Go into edit mode on this page, and you'll see what I mean. So what do I do? Which way is preferred? Or is there an easier way to line up columns of information? Dedridd 13:03, January 31, 2006 (PST)
 * Try sorry to butt in on somebody else's talk page, but this is my specialty: templates FTFW. Same table as above, just looks a lot nice in code, edit the page to see:

and Betty Crocker (note that this is a test of a really long note)

{{testtableformat/row|Tome: Prophecies of Khyber|1|Jewelry or Accessory (Required Level 1, ~500gp value)
 * }


 * }


 * Please feel free to answer my questions here (unless there is a better place that these sorts of things should be done?). I wouldn't have asked here if I didn't want an answer. :)
 * What I'm understanding is that you just whipped up those templates yourself for this special instance. Are there standard templates anywhere that I could use? Or does everyone make up their own templates on a page-by-page basis?   Dedridd 13:38, January 31, 2006 (PST)


 * Of course - everything is manual - it takes like five moments to make a template. Look at this: . It's a link to Template:this is a Random test template right? Wrong. Look at the code, it looks like this: - if you click any of those three red links and add something to the page, say, "blah" - the first link, which is the actual template, will dissappear and the word 'blah' will appear there. automagically. If you change the template, then the template up there'll change too. Make sense?  13:49, January 31, 2006 (PST)


 * After a quick scan of your post, yes, I think that I follow your example (I'll go over it in detail later tonight). I just didn't know if there were standard (global) templates out there for tables and lists and things that we should use to make everything on the site look similar. Since there's not, I'll make my own as I need them. One last question - is there a repository somewhere that all the templates get stored in? I'd like to know where I can go to look at some more examples once I get into this.  Dedridd 14:07, January 31, 2006 (PST)


 * Try Special:Allpages, then select the Template: namespace and hit go. 15:08, January 31, 2006 (PST)

Messing with templates myself here:


 * }


 * You do know that collectibles is spelled with an 'I'? 08:42, February 1, 2006 (PST)


 * That was something I've been wondering about, but hadn't gotten a chance to look up yet. So I did. According to dictionary.reference.com, it can be spelled both ways. Who woulda thunk? :) Dedridd 10:29, February 1, 2006 (PST)

Advanced template features
Ok, I'm starting over at the root level for a new question. I'm having problems getting optional parameters to work in templates. For instance in the templated chunk above, the Collectables/TableSubheader template has a 3rd parameter with a default value, but it doesn't seem to be working correctly. Am I doing something wrong. Ultimately, I don't want the 'a' to be the default value. Instead I want to use blank as an optional parameter - although I don't know what it's going to do with a blank in the middle of all those brackets. I may need to have different versions of the Subheader template for each different possible set of parameters, and just call the appropriate one. Dedridd 11:00, February 1, 2006 (PST)
 * And I added a section title, as it is a new conversation. You read too much of the Wikipedia help ^^/ we can't use features like that in templates, we are stuck with simple numbered substitution tags, no deafaults, no names. That's all in mediawiki 1.6, which Wikipedia itself has been using for god-know-how-long but hasn't released to the public yet for god-knows-why. I don't know when we'll get it, but you get to wait some more! yay! While we're stuck on this heavily modified and barely even running instalation of 1.5.4 (which is itself obselete as they have release 1.5.5 and 1.5.6). Bah. 11:13, February 1, 2006 (PST)
 * Ok. At least now I know the limitations, and can work with what I've got instead of playing around trying to get it to work. :D Thanks for all your help and patience! I know I ask a lot of questions. Dedridd 11:21, February 1, 2006 (PST)
 * Better that you spend your time constructivly improving the wiki than wasting it fiddling with broken templates! 11:46, February 1, 2006 (PST)