Template talk:Armor/Archive June 15, 2007edit this page

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Update

I am not a major adder of items, but in case this matters, with the wiki upgrade, templates within templates now works just fine. So for example (most complicated one I could find): File:TsooHajasHeadgear.jpg

Armor/archive june 15, 2007
All Races Lv. {{{level}}} All Jobs

Armor/archive june 15, 2007
All Races Lv. {{{level}}} All Jobs

That's great! I didn't know the site had been upgraded... that explains the slight change in the look of the site.

Anyways, I'd love to start using these if everyone else agrees.

~ Karuberu 10:39, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

Fixed some of the interior links to make it look the way it should.

The only thing I shirk from this is getting all the new users I just managed to help learn the current Item Template, to be able to use this one. This one will be much harder for me to teach people how to use from the beginning and might discourage them and cause more problems by doing it wrong or not at all. I mean, so many people right now can't even grasp the current simple template, can you imagine how it will be when you throw something more squished and complicated at them. I shudder to think, esp since its usually me that goes through all the Recent Changes and fixes all the mistakes made my new and old people, and helps them do it right next time. Its something I have been thinking over more and more since the increase in new members in reference to this template. While it is a great thing, I just don't think the support will be there to change every page to this. 6 people can't change the whole site, it take the entire mass and if the mass group can't do it, than their is no point. --Nynaeve 10:42, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

As you know my main goal is getting items added. I don't mind if this is used for some pages and not for others right now. But the use of this should be on pages that need entering - and not on simply updating existing pages that already conform to the Item Template. I view this as simply an option - not as a mass project to conform every item to this template so that we can make mass changes later. If some view this as easier than so be it. --Gahoo 10:47, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

I agree that this would be good on new pages. I am just hoping that it doesn't get complicated and messy and I hope I don't have to clean up after new people more than I already do. Its not that I have little faith in our new members, its just that I have seen many of them not be able to grasp the simplicity of our current one. We have many people that do, which could mean A) Since they are obviously compentent, they might be able to pick up this one as well or B) It will add more confusion and force them to learn over again and might not adjust well to the change. I edited my comment above to further show what I feel on this. I want Items Updated and added that aren't already and I am afraid that changing this now and forcing new people to do this will cause more distress than aid. --Nynaeve 10:52, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

How about we take it for a "trial run" on new pages/pages that need info. If people don't have too much trouble with it, then we can consider switching over to it, and if they do, then we can just remove it from the pages and use the simple format.

~ Karuberu 11:00, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

The problem with that idea is making sure people know that the Item Template Statistics Section has changed. Too Many People already don't come to the Item Template to get what they need to update pages. Too many people already just copy off of other pages and go from there, which isn't what they should be doing, but no matter how much nudging, you can't make someone do something they don't want to do. Even if it is just me, you, Chris, prolly Tsakiki & Daniel that use this, it doesn't cover all the other people that won't and still update. I want to hear what some of the newer people have to say about this before we put anything into effect. Like Tsakiki, Chrisjander, Waluigi, Daniel, Pinkfae, Enfield, Ichthyos, Nesomir, Joon & Skenter4. What do they have to say about this, do they think they can adjust to this. They are some of the major contributers to this site at this time and in the past few months. I want to know what they think, what they think will be better in general. If people can handle this and the general census is yes, go ahead, then we should do it, but I am going to post of each of these guys Talk pages and see if I can get them to post their thoughts. This is a major change, and if the major contributers can agree, I want to go for it. But just your opinion, you who doesn't edit nearly as much as them or me (correctly even), we can't go ahead and change this based on your opinion. Sorry. --Nynaeve 11:13, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

I posted on each of the above User Talk Pages and Ganiman's as well. I also posted on the Forums. Hopefully we should be hearing from some people soon. --Nynaeve 11:30, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

I like the concept. I'll try it out on some short pages if I get a chance this afternoon and see how much trouble it gives me and comment again. I've gotten so used to the current statistics section that I'm concerned I'll have a big learning curve on this, especially when it comes to getting job orders correct and things like charged gear, but the example here is good. --Tsakiki 11:33, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

Actually I think the template probably needs a separate section for changed gear. The way I did it above is rather unwieldy. --Gahoo 11:36, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

It's nice... looks like a copy of what I did a while back. Putting a bunch of &nbsp in it makes it look ugly. I'd rather have the charges aligned on the left than use that messy code, so I pulled it out of the example above. It can probably be cleaned up more and made a little easier to use. You don't have to cram a template all on one line, you can make it so the code for it is entered one line per variable and it would look easier to use for non-wiki-saavy people. If I get some time I'll try to work on it.

Here's the coding:
{{Armor|Tsoo Haja's Headgear||[[:Category:Head|Head]]|All Races|'''DEF:''' 10 {{Resist Fire}} +10 {{Resist Ice}} -50 {{Resist Wind}} +10 {{Resist Earth}} +10 {{Resist Lightning}} +10 {{Resist Water}} +10 {{Resist Light}} +10 {{Resist Dark}} +10 '''[[Enchantment]]: Calls Tsoo Haja'''|75|All Jobs <30/30 0:30/[20:00:00, 0:30]>|{{Rare2}}{{Exclusive2}}|}}

My honest opinon is that it might be too complicated for some users. There are other ways to do this that doesn't require that much code work. It also doesn't include all of the other information on the current template such as how to obtain, how to craft, etc. I like it, but think it might be too advance for some editors.--Pinkfae 11:55, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

It would only be used in the statistics section. --Gahoo 11:57, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

Tsoo Haja's Headgear page fleshed out as a discussion aid. --Gahoo 12:01, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

Even only used in the Statistics section, it might take away from some of the users that we have that only edit the statistics section because its easy and requires really no complicated coding. That is my main concern with this. While it is very nice. The ability of general users ability to use it will be cut short from what I have seen so far. --Nynaeve 12:06, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

Now that I understand it is just for the one section, I like it. I still think that it might be complicated for some people. Maybe we should have someone that could look over all changes to verify they are done correctly. It will also be a huge project to change all of the items to this new format as well. --Pinkfae 12:13, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

I'm pretty much in agreement with what Nynaeve has said. I do like how it looks, but there are some things to consider. First of all is its ease of use. Just looking at the straight template code, it's not clear what information belongs where. I was messing around with it earlier, and it's not very tolerant of small syntactic errors. Nynaeve had mentioned how it might be harder for new members. She would have more insight on how hard it is for them to pick up the existing template and how this might change things. Another thing is the layout. It makes the statistics section bigger than it is now, and it has a tendancy to dominate the content if you make the window smaller than 1024x768. However, I think we should use this template in new pages to see how it works out. We shouldn't go back and edit exising pages to use it, at least until we know we want to keep it.

As an aside on the item template issues, I've been working on a project to make template-abiding pages much easier, which is why I haven't been as active on the wiki recently. --Enfield 12:19, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

My opinion would be that it does look good, but if we have an image of the item on the page, does it really matter if it has a box around it and such? I'm of the opinion that it does not. I do like the current item template in that it closely mimics the layout of the item in game. This puts the information at least in the same order but not the same alignment. I don't know that it will really buy us much added value. That being said, I am willing to give it a shot if that's what is decided. might want to keep in mind Enfield's comments about different screen sizes. We definitly dont want it to be the dominating force on each page.Nesomir 12:28, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

I like what you have done-- It is very nice, but I believe that this would be overcomplicating an already complicated proccess. A lot of people are failing to conform to the current Item Template as it is. I am, however, happy with people using it if they want to-- I don't mind that at all. But do I think it should be made a standard proccess, or placed in the current item template over the existing information? I don't. I believe it should be use by those who choose to do so (If they find it easier.) The boxing around the template looks nice in the example. I'm not particulary fond of the way it looks when placed in the actual item template though. --Daniel 12:40, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

Talk:Tsoo Haja's Headgear page fleshed out as a discussion aid - this is the current template. --Gahoo 12:47, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

Hmmm, after comparing Tsoo Haja's Headgear and Talk:Tsoo Haja's Headgear... I actually like it. It does seem to make it a little clearer. As I said though, I think this is a "If you want to, then do it" sort of situation. --Daniel 12:51, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

I just want to bring up that we can also add the little icons next to it we want (I left the slot for it open). This would add a little something extra the template could have over the simple method. Hmm... I had a battle gloves example, but the icon has been deleted, so I'm not going to bring it back.

Oh, and Pinkfae, if you want to see the full-page template, look in the history. I originally created this as an experiment for a full-page template, but it was just too complex (and had some other minor problems), so I reduced it to a statistics-only template.

EDIT: Oh, I forgot one thing: When I had the icons as a mandatory part of the template (there was a big space if you left it out), you didn't have to worry about using breaks when entering information (it would automatically wrap to the next line after the 6th job on a line, for example).

~ Karuberu 13:01, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

Added example with image back up top. --Gahoo 13:13, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

I think it looks good, bit I still don't really see it as a necessary addition for the complexity of editing it induces. What is going to be the added value of having, basically, a wiki formatted copy of the item in addition to a screenshot of the item? I think that is the fundemental question right now.Nesomir 13:30, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

Added an icon for the headgear, just testing hehe.

Nice work with the template! I definitely like the way it looks, but I understand Nynaeve's concerns with new members learning to use it. As with any wiki changes will take place gradually. I feel that the improved look is worth the extra effort required to learn how to use it. Maybe we could write up a short guide for new users with guidelines to follow when creating item pages and how to use the armor template. --Ichthyos 13:29, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

When using the template, can you wrap the code so that it looks almost like the same old format? Like you can with certain parts of table code. --Chrisjander 13:32, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

Other than looks, the only value that I see is of being able to make template-based changes. If we want to change the background color to a shade other than white we can do so across the board. --Gahoo 13:32, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

Yellow - for temporary example only. Note it is automatically changed in both examples here and on the Tsoo Haja's Headgear page. --Gahoo 13:34, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

Nesomir: Some people's internet are slow (56k modems etc) and so sometimes these people disable pictures on sites. This will provide a nice text visual. --Chrisjander 13:33, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

Fair enough. My point though, was that the existing template presents the same information, just in a different alignment. Alos, if we are concerned with doing these because people disable pictures, wouldnt they be unable to see the elemental icons, or the thumbnail image either? I'm totally on board with learning these, i'm just kindof playing devil's advocate to make sure we think this through since a global change is going to require a -lot- of work. --Nesomir 13:39, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

I've tried it out on Noble's Mitts (and Aristocrat's Mitts), and it was pretty easy to use. It will just take a bit of adjustment, but the avid adders of items shouldn't have trouble adapting. I too am concerned about more inexperienced editors having a harder time picking up on subtleties, but overall it's a nice look (except for the hideous temporary yellow :-)). --Tsakiki 14:23, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

Edit: It does really make the statistics part stick out from the rest of the page, and I'm not sure that's a good thing. I think I like it better on pages that have no image (Aristocrat's Mitts) than those that have them (Noble's Mitts). And already having Nynaeve go in to correct problems, it's probably going to be an annoying change. --Tsakiki 14:31, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

I think this looks great, and I'd be more than comfortable to work with this new template. I'm also honored that my name was brought up and whatnot a few clicks up. I guess I'll hold off on updating more items until we get these new templates sorted out. ;) --Waluigi 19:29, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

How come there is a space underneath the Category /Race line. Before it was underneath the Name Line. Is there anyway to push this space all the way to the bottom? I mean it looks like you fixed the Name Line but now can you fix it so it doesnt put a weird indent in the middle of the box of text? --Nynaeve 11:12, 10 August 2006 (EDT)

Actually, I found a way to reduce the wide spaces while I was looking for a way to shrink the box some more. I'll change the template and see how you guys like it.

~ Karuberu 08:14, 11 August 2006 (EDT)

Well, I don't know why, but it doesn't seem to like Chris's format. It works like it should when you use the template without breaks.

With breaks:

Armor/archive june 15, 2007
All Races Lv. {{{level}}} All Jobs

Without breaks:

Armor/archive june 15, 2007
All Races Lv. {{{level}}} All Jobs

I'm trying to fix this, but it's giving me a lot of trouble. ~ Karuberu 08:41, 11 August 2006 (EDT)

Weird. The second one still has spaces between the Name and the Category Line though, so it still isnt perfect.. >.< I only understand basic coding, so I cant help you on this... Someone else on here was a computer technician - forget who... someone that I normally talk to on here anyways... Maybe they can help... --Nynaeve 08:45, 11 August 2006 (EDT)

Well, the space between the name and the category line is there because I made a new row for the name and the tags (it's how I was able to reduce the box size again). So I guess you could say that it's "intentional," even though I'd rather not have it there.

I'm going to give up on this for now (I'm kind of burned out on coding right now); I'll try again later when I have a fresh mind. Feel free to revert it or take a shot at fixing it. ~ Karuberu 08:54, 11 August 2006 (EDT)

Well, I fixed the biggest problem with it (the huge spaces around the name), but I can't seem to figure a way to get rid of the half-space after the category line. I'll keep trying... ~ Karuberu 09:15, 12 August 2006 (EDT)

The reason there's a half-space after the category line and before the enchantment line is that the text between those lines is enclosed by a (paragraph) tag. The way the wiki parses the table, if you have any line breaks at all in a cell, it will enclose all but the first line in a new paragraph as long as no lines are skipped. If there are skipped lines, it splits the paragraph up at those lines. So, our options are either to put everything on the same line while using the template (messy) or to put a CSS style statement in that cell that directs the browser to get rid of spacing before and after paragraphs in that cell. I haven't done web development in a while, but IE's always had problems with CSS inheritance in tables. I'll give it a shot and see how it looks in Firefox and IE. --Ichthyos 14:32, 12 August 2006 (EDT)

Actually, I'm not sure what I was thinking. Since the wiki's text interpretation engine is adding the paragraphs and we don't have access to the stylesheet, we can't add the breaks ourselves. We can, however, use nowiki tags before and after the line breaks, like so:

Armor/archive june 15, 2007
All Races Lv. {{{level}}} All Jobs

I'm not sure why there's a blank paragraph after the rare/ex icons, though.

--Ichthyos 15:02, 12 August 2006 (EDT)

Yeah, I knew about the nowiki fix, but I don't think it's worth having to write the nowiki tags at the beginning and end of every line just to get rid of the half-spaces.

Another fix I found was that if you use to force a paragraph start after the name line (making the space bigger, unfortunately), wiki won't be able to start new paragraphs until you end the paragraph with . This would be a good fix if the name line wasn't on a different row (the space would be at the very top), but the name line had to be moved to a new row (along with the Rare/Ex icons) in order to make the box smaller. ~ Karuberu 10:51, 14 August 2006 (EDT)

Oh! If we can force a paragraph, then we can also style that paragraph not to have top or bottom margins. I'll try that now. --Ichthyos 11:06, 14 August 2006 (EDT)

Sounds way to complex for me... So.. um... Yes... Karu you can fix it, I believe in you. ~insert annoying cheerleader dance here* =P --Nynaeve 11:08, 14 August 2006 (EDT)

Voila! How's that? :) --Ichthyos 11:14, 14 August 2006 (EDT)

Hurray! Great work, Ichthyos. ~ Karuberu 11:24, 14 August 2006 (EDT)

Sumation

To sum things up: This Template is a good idea, but there are a few problems:

The people that have gotten so used to the current statistics section might have big learning curve on this.
It's not clear what information belongs where when looking at it.
It's not very tolerant of small syntactic errors.
In general it is overcomplicating an already complicated proccess. A lot of people are failing to conform to the current Item Template as it is, this will def. make it harder for newer members to pick up on how to do it and help due to its increased complexity.
It makes the statistics section bigger than it is now, and it has a tendancy to dominate the content if you make the window smaller than 1024x768.
The little icon that Karuberu put in pushes it over even further and is unneccessary and adds more pictures that need to be uploaded and takes away from the simple just adding an item in. Now you would need to have that little picture in order to add said item in otherwise it would be incomplete.
Other than looks, the only value to this compared to the current way is of being able to make template-based changes. AKA: If we want to change the background color to a shade other than white we can do so across the board.
- What I have to say to this is: When we change the color, we can't change the color of the shading behind the Resist Icons and such so it looks kind of crappy with it all one background color with lil shades of white behind those icons. So it doesn't look appealing or very nice with color behind it, IMO. Speaking of which, again, that yellow is really hideous.
  - I just changed the Rare&Ex templates to take care of this FYI. We have File:Rare.gif and File:Trans-rare.gif. The latter has no white background. I am not sure how this was done but if we can get new gifs of the elements we can do a quick replace in the resist templates. --Gahoo 16:41, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

I suppose my Opinion after reading all this and after thinking it all over is that this will be a lot of work to do for just one part of one template: First you will be needing to make a guide on how to do just the statistics section; Then the current huge editors need to learn how to use it properly, which wont be simple; then you need to teach new members the regular coding for the site and then also how to do this Template because its different then everything else and even after reading said guide, its doubtful that they won't make mistakes, (I can already imagine the fustration and the people giving up when trying to figure this template out); And then after all the grumbling and the fixing the errors that people make when trying to figure out how to do this correctly, we have to put this template into play on the whole site... It wont be good for us to start being even less consistant than we already are. Consistancy is important, ascethically and practically. After giving it much thought, I am against this change as a whole. Everyone says its nice, and they all say they will use it if we all decide to but no one has firmly said hey this is great and doesnt have faults. Nearly everyone agrees that it isn't perfect, its ideally nice but when put into practice... its not as great as you would like. And since i am usually the person that makes those small corrections to the edits and I am the one that takes it upon myself to help newer members learn how to do everything correctly, I vote against this. I think it will be much to fustrating for not enough of a benefit. If the problems above could be resolved, such as putting a better order to the template to make it easier to understand and to learn to do; making it smaller so it doesnt take up the a big portion of a smaller page (which is what i use btw); take out the unneccesary icons on the sides that make it more complicated than it already is; taking out that ugly yellow =P; I might be more inclined to change my opinion, but I do help the newer members and I do correct the minor formatting changes, so I know all that I normally have to do and while this is pretty, I don't this the benefits of this counter the problems. --Nynaeve 14:21, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

EDIT:: Also, seeing it used on the Noble's Mitts & Aristocrat's Mitts, it doesn't look that great so the only other benefit just got taken away. It looks so plain and I don't like how it seperates the name from the rest of the Template. EDIT TO MY EDIT:: That looked mostly plain because someone didn't put the category link into the template... Tsk Tsk. Ugh. This is going to be so full of minor edits on my part if it goes through. --Nynaeve 14:26, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

The template adds the category automatically. ^^ --Pinkfae 14:33, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

It wasn't there a second ago- Gahoo had to fix it --Nynaeve 14:41, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

And I just realized something else = This is only the Armor Template, meaning we will still need to show newer users how to use the old Template for everything else, for example, Weapons and such. So now we will be having to correct two different templates. --Nynaeve 14:53, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

The Weapons template would be almost exactly the same as this. ~ Karuberu 15:19, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

Color

If we were going to add a background color, could we tune down on the brightness of the yellow? --Pinkfae 14:20, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

Removed - was just a demonstration. --Gahoo 14:21, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

Border

That makes it a bit better, but the seperation of the name of the Item from the rest still doesn't look that great. Also, is there anyway to rearrange the coding to make it easier of an order for people to understand like Chris asked earlier? --Nynaeve 14:43, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

You mean the 1/2 line space below the item name? --Gahoo 14:44, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

Yes, that 1/2 line space. It doesn't look good and it doesnt make it look like the original picture like it should due to this being the original purpose. Or so I remember. --Nynaeve 14:47, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

Not sure where this is coming from or if it can be fixed. I can't quite solve it.

I like it better with the border (and you removed the border the wrong way; it's just white now; use 0px to remove it). ~ Karuberu 14:49, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

Hmm, I liked the border, too. --Ichthyos 15:01, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

Icon

How about moving the rare/ex to the left, so that it isn't that far away from the rest of the information in the box? It squishes the information for the column to the right of the statistics page. Also, if we do use this, we ought to have an "head" icon for all of the items. --Pinkfae 14:41, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

The Rare/Ex can be adjusted by changing the size of the box. You still want it to hover, just not so far away.

It looks all lonely out there by itself. --Pinkfae 14:57, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

A lot of the icons can be resued since FFXI uses the same ones for most peices in the same set (example: the gloves icon can be used for all gloves with the same icon, not just battle gloves).

~ Karuberu 14:52, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

SE used a lot of different icons for armor and weapons. Sure there is a decent amount of overlap, but a ton of difference. Look at the head items only here. --Gahoo 15:27, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

I can't get it moved over in a way that doesn't effect the other lines. I am sure that there is a way. --Gahoo 15:00, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

It does Pink, it really does... Poor little R/E Icons, all sad and alone...

As to the others: Yes but it 1) pushes it out further, 2) is unnecassary 3) makes it so people now need to A) know which icon will go there and B) Have to memorize the icons in order to put them in.

Over all, as you can obviously see, its more work than its worth, As Gahoo said, this is supposed to make it easier, not harder. And you are now just trying to make it harder than it already is. --Nynaeve 15:01, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

They are not as lonely with the box. --Gahoo 15:06, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

Its true - for that purpose the Border looks better. --Nynaeve 15:09, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

Format wrapping test

Alright, I know this isn't armor, but check out the coding and see how much easier it looks. This is how we can set it up on the item template so its easier to see how to input stuff, without changing (too much) the format they're already used to. --Chrisjander 14:46, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

Armor/archive june 15, 2007
All Races Lv. {{{level}}} All Jobs

{{Armor|Nadrs|
|Swords|All Races|
'''DMG:''' 18 '''Delay:''' 236 {{Resist Water}}+3 
'''Additional Effect: [[Poison]]'''
|24|WAR / THF / DRK / SAM / BLU
|{{Rare2}}{{Exclusive2}}}}

{{Armor||
||
|'''DEF:'''   
||
|}}

There can be some serious issues if you put line breaks in the wrong area, but you seem to have found a good setup. That should make it a lot easier for people to understand/use, nice work. ~ Karuberu 15:00, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

This is a little better but it still doesn't take into consideration it warps the pages on a smaller screen. Screws up the whole table width and makes it look uneven. --Nynaeve 15:08, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

Not being able to see this I cannot really attempt to fix it. --Gahoo 15:13, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

Minimize you window so it isnt Full Screen. That is what it looks like. --Nynaeve 15:25, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

Looks fine to me. --Gahoo 15:30, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

Heh, I actually found the line break problems when I was playing with it, so I just fiddled around with it til it worked. Putting the | at the beginning of the line instead of the end seems to work (for each section). --Chrisjander 15:28, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

also, the table width seems to be a problem with the right side sections, not with the template. I'll test some more. --Chrisjander 15:31, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

Yup, its the right hand sections. --Chrisjander 15:32, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

Replace the item image?

Since it looks fairly close to the image of the actually in game description, how about using it to replace the image? That way it would save on some bandwidth space. We could then also bump it up to where the image would be at and then use the stats section for notes or something? --Pinkfae 15:02, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

It still doesn't look as good as the image and they have already previously stated they like the Images being in here. It makes us different than the other sites. Also you have to realize, this Template is still only for Armor. Would need to make these kind of templates for everything else if we wanted to do this. --Nynaeve 15:04, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

I like the in-game images. We'd have one for armor and one for weapons. I don't think they are called for in other areas at this point (assuming called for here). --Gahoo 15:06, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

Conditionals

I was trying to use a conditional to support easy display of enchantment info, but it doesn't seem to be installed/enabled. I wanted to do something like this:

 {| class="tborder" style="border: 1px solid black; background: white;" width="365" cellpadding="3"
 | align="center" valign="top"|{{{2}}}
 | valign="top" |'''{{{1}}}'''
 '''[ [[:category:{{{3}}}|{{{3}}}]] ]''' '''{{{4}}}'''<br/>
 {{{5}}}<br/>
 '''Lv.'''{{{6}}} '''{{{7}}}'''
 | align="right" valign="top" |{{{8}}}
 |-
 {{ #if: {{{9}}} |{{!}} cellpadding="0" colspan="3" align="right" {{!}}<{{{9}}}/{{{9}}} {{{10}}}/[{{{11}}}, {{{10}}}]>|}}
 |}

--Ichthyos 17:22, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

Hmm, after reading this page, I think maybe we can change that #if line to the following:

 {{{9|{{!}} cellpadding="0" colspan="3" align="right" {{!}}<{{{9}}}/{{{9}}} {{{10}}}/[{{{11}}}, {{{10}}}]>}}}

Going to try that now. --Ichthyos 17:30, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

Well the parameter default works but my logic wasn't right. The effect I want is:

If {{{9}}} is defined, then show the string with the variables.
If it's not defined, don't show anything.

I'm sure there's a way to do this but I'm not wiki-literate enough to figure it out at the moment. I'll keep trying though. --Ichthyos 17:45, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

Woot, got it. --Ichthyos 18:37, 9 August 2006 (EDT)

Hmm... I think this could help with the icons too. I'm going to play with it and see what I can do. ~ Karuberu 08:57, 10 August 2006 (EDT)

It works! Just input the icon name in the {{{2}}} slot, and the rest is done for you (skipping the {{{2}}} slot works the same as before). ~ Karuberu 09:08, 10 August 2006 (EDT)

Whatever Ichthyos messed up the example above that was explantive - the Nadrys and now the changes that Karuberu made a bigger mess of the top one. No one wants the icons Karu, give it up. It has already been stated that they are way to much work and no one wants to memorize which icons to put with which item. There are too many, it pushes the box even further over and stops the box from even further being complicated to make and preventing the casuaul user from just making the section. --Nynaeve 09:17, 10 August 2006 (EDT)

I agree that the icons should not be included. --Gahoo 09:23, 10 August 2006 (EDT)

I just wanted to show what could be done. But, I think the icon slot should be left in (even if noone uses it), just in case we decide to add them later. It's less work to include it now and make people type one extra "|" then to leave it out and try to add it later when it's used on a thousand pages. You never know what'll happen in the future, so think ahead. ~ Karuberu 09:33, 10 August 2006 (EDT)

Oh, and I think we should reduce the size of the box some more. Our font is smaller than the pics of FFXI, so we should adjust the box accordingly. It'll make the pages freindlier to low-resolutions, and if you make it the right size, you won't need to include breaks on the job line anymore (they'll automatically wrap to 6 jobs a line). ~ Karuberu 09:37, 10 August 2006 (EDT)

Even thinking ahead, I doubt it would be done even then. I am not sure if this Template will even be used. I know that I personnally still have doubts and don't want to use it for the many reasons above. I am not looking foward to having to clean up more people's messes. There are too many people that have been trying to add pages and things with the current template and can't seem to handle it. I still think adding this only complicates it and gives us more work to do. I don't think it helps. I don't think its an addition. I personnally don't want to use it and I won't until convinced otherwise. I've come to the conclusion that if this is forced on me someone else needs to take over the aid that I have been giving people and the clean-ups that I do. Anyone else feel the desire to step in there? I don't mind being helpful and making the site better but so far the disadvantages outweigh everything benefits that I see to this change. I mean if you want to use it Karu, why don't you, start with all those pages that you did incorrectly to begin with that you said you would fix when this was able to be used. This is better than the crap that is on all those pages you orignally made and if people want to use it - fine, but don't expect me to force this on new people or use it myself yet. I still object to it. And I think Gahoo said he couldnt shrink the box or something. So that objection of mine still stands until you can figure out a way to make it work. --Nynaeve 09:55, 10 August 2006 (EDT)

Nynaeve please try keep this objective and not personal. Nobody is forcing anybody to do anything they don't want. While uniformity is good, a wiki has its limits when it comes to having every single page look exactly the same. Templates should actually aid uniformity in the long run. If people want to start using this template I do not see the harm. If we start seeing a lot of mistakes we will address how to correct that at that time. You have taken it upon yourself to educate new members and that is a huge help to the wiki. If you think a new user is better able to handle the original item template then feel free to continue to point people in that direction. Alternatively you can identify this template for armor additions as a possible choice should they so desire. Let's not make this into something it is not. This is not a FFXIclopedia community wide effort to replace all existing armor pages with this template. This is a tool to help those who want to use it create a slightly different looking statistics section when adding new armor pages. --Gahoo 10:03, 10 August 2006 (EDT)

Honestly Nynaeve, you're not giving this much of a chance. Sure, it's a little more complicated looking, but when you actually use it, it's almost the same.

Here's the template:
{{Armor||
||
|'''DEF:'''  
||
|
|}}

Here's the simple way:
'''''' 
'''([[:category:|]]) '''
'''DEF:'''  
'''

I didn't want to start using this until people had finished playing around with it (and I didn't want to repremanded for using this without "proper discussion"), but if we're at that point, then I'll go back and change some of those pages. And I'll see if I can shrink the template box some more. It really does look bad with 800x600 resolution. ~ Karuberu 10:14, 10 August 2006 (EDT)

You don't daily go through all the Recent Changes and fix whatever is wrong that you can. People seem to have a hard time with coding and the more | } ] ''' '' there are for them to deal with, the harder it becomes. As we have seen, just missing one peice of code can mess the whole thing up. You don't see all the small errors that are already made. Try to shrink that box. It takes up the majority of the screen on my Resolution and it might be why it looks horrendous. I don't like being forced into doing anything and up until that last post it was being made out that all new pages had to be made that way. I do help out alot, I would hate to feel like I need to leave. --Nynaeve 10:35, 10 August 2006 (EDT)

Well, this size is a little better... I see that the Rare and Ex icons screw up if you go too small. I don't think this is a big enough problem to keep the template from being used and can probably be solved with a little tinkering. ~ Karuberu 10:27, 10 August 2006 (EDT)

I was able to shrink it just a little more, and I think it's enough that the word wrap (for the job line) will work now. ~ Karuberu 11:00, 10 August 2006 (EDT)

Aside from the template not liking my sense of hunour (had some issues that were easily solved by using less humour) my biggest problem was the charges section of the template as there isn't a "guide" on how to do it in the template itself. I had to click the "edit" button on this page to see how you had done it in the example. That would probably be the biggest problem for anyone new to editing Wiki (or just bad at coding like me ^^).(Confound it people let me put my input ;_; so many edits I can't get mine in)--Perim 11:24, 10 August 2006 (EDT)

Suggestion...

May I make a suggestion. I can mess around with it so the usage would be like (You can too though I'm sure ^^)

{{Armor |
name     =  |
category =  |
races    =  | 
def      =  | } (Optional)
dmg      =  | } (Optional)
delay    =  | } (Optional)
stats1   =  | } (Optional) this goes to the right of DEF, DMG, DELAY
stats2   =  | } (Optional) stats on the next line
stats3   =  | } (Optional) stats on the next line
stats4   =  | } (Optional) stats on the next line
level    =  | } (Optional)
jobs1    =  | } (Optional) 6 per line
jobs2    =  | } (Optional) 6 per line
jobs3    =  | } (Optional) 6 per line
usage    =  | } (Optional) would be used for usualable items (Like the head gear in the example)
tags     =  | } (Optional) Rare, Ex, Temp
}}

as an example

{{Armor |
name     = Tsoo Haja's Headgear |
category = Head |
races    = All Races 
def      = 10 |
stats1   = {{Resist Fire}} +10 {{Resist Ice}} -50 {{Resist Wind}} +10 {{Resist Earth}} +10 |
stats2   = {{Resist Lightning}} +10 {{Resist Water}} +10 {{Resist Light}} +10 {{Resist Dark}} +10 |
stats3   = '''[[Enchantment]]: Calls Tsoo Haja''' |
level    = 75 |
jobs1    = All Jobs |
tags     = {{Rare2}}{{Exclusive2}} |
usage    = <30/30 0:30/[20:00:00, 0:30]> |
}}

Just a though. --Daniel 11:08, 10 August 2006 (EDT)

That looks easier to me if it's possible. --Gahoo 11:21, 10 August 2006 (EDT)

This looks easy enough for new users and career minor editors like Nynaeve and I. I also don't know if we should include the icon or not... but it seems like if we did that it would be copying somepage.com just a bit. --Chrisjander 11:35, 10 August 2006 (EDT)

No need for multiple stat or job lines, just use a break when you need to. And the job line should automatically wrap to the next line after the 6th job now.

Also, the problem with naming the lines is that you can't leave them blank anymore (the name will pop up instead of being blank). ~ Karuberu 11:38, 10 August 2006 (EDT)

Tsoo Haja's Headgear
All Races Lv. 75 All Jobs

Well.. it seems to work fine.. but ifdef isnt working for me anymore... so it's showing everything... hmmmm --Daniel 12:17, 10 August 2006 (EDT)

Working, but all fields are defined... what do you think?

{{Armor |
name      = Tsoo Haja's Headgear |
imagename = |
category  = Head |
races     = All Races |
defense   = 10 |
dmg       = |
delay     = |
stats1    = {{Resist Fire}} +10 {{Resist Ice}} -50 {{Resist Wind}} +10 {{Resist Earth}} +10 |
stats2    = {{Resist Lightning}} +10 {{Resist Water}} +10 {{Resist Light}} +10 {{Resist Dark}} +10 |
stats3    = '''[[Enchantment]]: Calls Tsoo Haja''' |
stats4    = |
level     = 75 |
jobs1     = '''All Jobs''' |
jobs2     = |
jobs3     = |
tags      = {{Rare2}}{{Exclusive2}} |
usage     = <30/30 0:30/[20:00:00, 0:30]> |
}}

--Daniel 12:28, 10 August 2006 (EDT)

I think it just makes it overcomplicated. I like to be able to write code without having to copy+paste all the time.
Plus it may produce problems with editing the template later on (because of all the ifdefs) and once you start using a template that has defined feilds, you can't change them later without having to change it on every page. ~ Karuberu 12:34, 10 August 2006 (EDT)

If you want something simple that you can just type in, and something simple that new users can make, then just stick with the Item Template as it is now, and don't use a template for the statistics. The only thing that's going to be easy enough for new users is something that you can paste in like this, or what we're using already, which is basic wiki code that is easy to get used to. --Chrisjander 13:28, 10 August 2006 (EDT)

This is getting beyond out of hand. If this current template and the more code-like one produce identical results, then there can easily be two templates that can be used as desired. The fact is that these are intended to reproduce the images, so there are unlikely to be any changes. --Gahoo 13:34, 10 August 2006 (EDT)

Home now. I agree. As I said before I was happy with the Item Template (The one I'll continue to use). I was just messing around to see if it could be made easier. I think either one is fine if it's going to be used. But once again, I think if you want to use it, do so.. if not, dont worry. Reverting to Karuberu's --Daniel 13:41, 10 August 2006 (EDT)

Item Template

If you want to make things easier for new users (like myself), you need to come up with a unified standard that everyone agrees upon and everyone uses. The way it stands now, we have the Item Template as the standard, but different interpretations on that standard depending on the individual doing the interpreting.

Ultimately, the fact that people like Chrisjander and Nynaeve spend a good portion of their time fixing so many mistakes is proof in and of itself that something is wrong. Nevermind the fact that these two individuals have different interpretations on what is classified as a mistake and what is not.

Another thing that I want to address is the Item Template itself. It's overly complex and contradicts itself at certain points. For example:

In the Synthesis Recipe section, the Article tab shows the following:

[[:category:<Craft type>|<Craft type>]] (Skill cap)
However, the Edit tab shows the following:

{{Craft|<Craft type>|(Skill cap)}}
Obviously the code in the Edit tab should take precedence over the code shown in the Article tab, but I personally stick with the Article tab's code because it makes more sense to me... especially when other areas in the Template use the same format for making links, the most notable ones being:

Category Definitions Section (very top of the page): [[Category:]][[Category:]][[Category:]]
Statistics Section: ([[:category:<item type>|<item type>]])
Used in Recipe's Section /
Desynthesis Recipe Section /
Obtained from Desynthesis Section:
<Item name> - [[:category:<Craft type>|<Craft type>]] (Skill cap)

- note: these sections suffer from the same contradiction that the Synthesis Recipe section suffers from since the code in the Edit tab shows different code

Noticing a trend here? Just about every major link on the page uses :category: to define a link.

I personally find it easier to copy and paste existing code not only because I know the code works, it's less likely to result in non-template conforming pages.

As for minor edits, I have yet to see any of my pages receive edits that make the page conform to the Item Template. In fact, quite the opposite is occuring. For example, in the Statistics section, each major type (like DEF) has a colon (:) after it in the Item Template (which shows up like DEF:). However, one of the first things I see removed are those colons.

Why does this occur?

If you want to teach new users how to properly utilize the Item Template, you need to ensure the template is easy to use (which it should and for the most part is with the exception of removing unnecessary sections), you need to ensure the template is uniform in it's coding (i.e. you shouldn't have different code types for making links present on the same template... it should be uniform), and most importantly, you need to set up a standard for all people to follow that leaves zero room for interpretation. Then follow that up with actual discussion with new users. Don't sit there and say "So-and-so did such-and-such wrong. Follow the Item Template" and offer no tutoring into what so-and-so did wrong.

According to the discussion on my user page, I'm under the impression that every page I've added has multiple problems that are classified as requiring "minor edits"... but the only things that have been specifically brought to my attention was the proper naming procedure for making pages for +1 items (by Chrisjander) and the proper use of the Stub and image-stub tags (again, by Chrisjander).

I have yet to receive anything from Nynaeve in the form of feedback that helps me make pages other than "follow the Item Template". Hell... half the edits she's done to the pages I've added (Chrisjander has done the same so plz don't think I'm focusing on you Nynaeve) has been to remove inline comments, to remove colons from the Statistics section, to capitalize Unknown, and to replace the crafting section link code with the new and improved craft link code.

Now I agree the pages need work... but by not explaining WHY your changing the stuff, how do you expect people to learn? All your doing now is causing anger and fustration (as you can see from my user page discussion, I'm completely fed up with the whole "individual interpretation standard" and has led me to take the stance of I add the pages, you fix em.

It shouldn't have to be that way.

And that brings me to my last point. Discussion on this page gives me the impression that new users are a source of aggrevation to the few people who spend their day "cleaning up" after them. I notice a paticular amount of chagrin and bitterness in Nynaeve's posts on this discussion. To which I can only say: fix the baseline problems. Anyone in the Education profession will tell you students who aren't learning are usually being taught by teachers who don't know how to teach. Telling people "follow the Item Template" and then complaining about pages needing "minor edits" is about the same as telling a student "read the Math book" and then giving the student an F because the student failed to comprehend the intricacies of Algebra due to the teacher relying on the Math book to do all the teaching.

The last thing I want to do is make more work for people. I think most of us new users feel that way. If we're a hinderance, we'll just stop contributing until the dust settles. --Oberonqa 10:35, 11 August 2006 (EDT)

Amen. ~ Karuberu 10:45, 11 August 2006 (EDT)

I don't think you understand coding and its purpose for what it does. I have directed you to look at the History Tab at the changes I have done. In doing so I am directing you to what has been changed and what you can do better next time. Everyone has else has learned from that, if you need me to be more specific I can be, I just though you would have taken my advice and gone to the help pages given you. Such as, My User Talk Page that I originally directed you to - User talk:Nynaeve, you would see the New User Help Section, that would help clarify many of the questions and things you don't seem to grasp here. Chris and I usually agree on everything here seeing as we are engaged in real life and spend a long of time discussing our opinions on said issues outside of this site. The {{Stub}} is the first thing we didn't agree on and he apologized to you for accusing you of putting it in. (Which BTW is fixed with the addition of a new {{Format-stub}}.) Now instead of commenting on not understanding, why don't you research first what has been given to you:: Editing Guide & The First Section in my User Talk Page. The worst thing is ignorance due to not utilizing the resoures that you have. I'm sorry if I sound disgruntled, I am only so when people have been talked to, explained to, given help and then don't change. I am not this way with any of the contributers that show initiative and learn from what is given to them. So many people have faced the same things you are saying and adapted and changed to the way the site does thing without complaint or problems. I'm sorry you feel the way you do, but I will say no more until Gahoo says something. --Nynaeve 11:09, 11 August 2006 (EDT)

He brings up a good point though, the Item Template has many problems and holes (example: what to put when the item can't be auctioned). Not to mention it's a little unweildily due to its size. ~ Karuberu 11:21, 11 August 2006 (EDT)

I've looked over everything you've directed me to look at and I've compared revisions on every page (hence how I was able to pinpoint specific changes). The issue still stands and now you've given me something else to latch onto. "I am not this way with any of the contributers that show initiative and learn from what is given to them". So what your basically saying is "I've given you the same resources as everyone else and if you can't figure it out then so be it."

Thank god Chrisjander is not like that. You'll notice that in every instance Chrisjander has brought something to my attention, he explains what I did wrong and he explains what I can do to not repeat the mistake. Case in point: I named a +1 page as "Plus_One" rather than "Plus_1". After Chrisjander explained what I did wrong and what to do in the future, this hasn't been a problem.

It's called Constructive Critism.

Oh and I've made extensive use of your New User Help Section. It has been invaluable and is a good resource. My problem isn't with what you provide... it's with what you don't provide... which is Constructive Critism.

EDIT: Moved to the proper section of the discussion. :) --Oberonqa 11:21, 11 August 2006 (EDT)

I figure this is a good time to bring into light the project I've been working on for the past few days. It's a Perl script which will will take copied information from Somepage and convert it to the wiki item template. I've tried to make it as smart so it's almost possible to paste the entire ouput into the wiki without any editing. I've been using it for the past day or so, and it makes things a lot faster. I wanted to have a version up online last night for people to test out, but I ran into problems getting it to play well as a CGI script. I hope this will make the item template easier to use for new users. --Enfield 11:31, 11 August 2006 (EDT)

Time Out

First - everyone please read "Thanks!" in the FFXIclopedia:Community Portal. I'll wait... Done? I don't believe you. Go read it - it's short. Ok. Few specific points of clarification to Oberonqa's understandable post because I think it is needed.
1.

In the Synthesis Recipe section, the Article tab shows the following: [[:category:<Craft type>|<Craft type>]] (Skill cap) However, the Edit tab shows the following: [[:category:<Craft type>|<Craft type>]] (Skill cap)

This gets back to how the templates work. The {{Craft|<Craft type>|(Skill cap)}} is a template that when the user inputs a craft type (i.e Cooking) and a skill cap (i.e. 10) it outputs Cooking (10). So by typing a two words and number only you get the same output as had you typed [[:category:<Craft type>|<Craft type>]] (Skill cap). This is intended to make the coding easier. Because the template does not have the fields filled in (because it is a template), the output into the template is just the underlying template code. Hope that makes sense. The visual result of using either is the same, but the template (a) should be easier and (b) allows for some more uniform changes down the line if needed.

2. The categories at the top are user defined categories. They differ from the others on the page because they actually categorize the entry rather than providing a link to the category. The colon before the word category tells the software that you are intending to code a link and not actually categorize the article.

3. I do agree that the AH section of the Item Template should probably have something along the lines of [[:category:<Main Category>|<Main Category>]] > [[:category:|]] to make that more clear.

As for making corrections/revisions/edits. Well hopefully you all read the Thanks! box referenced above. There is no one person who is in charge of teaching new users how to use the wiki, no one person in charge of minor edits, no one person in charge of major edits, no one person in charge of formatting, etc. The beauty of this project is that it is a democracy. That said, certain people have devoted a lot of time to this and have taken projects on themselves. Nynaeve has taken it upon herself to welcome new users and provide assistence with formatting. She was not asked to do so and gets nothing in return for doing so. Nor are Nynaeve's changes gospel that will go unchanged forever in the wiki. Everyone should recognize that a wiki by nature is fluid. Formats change, templates change, our collective knowledge of what we can do with this software and what we cannot changes. This page is a case in point. Two months ago we did not have the ability to put a template within a template and thus a statistics template was deemed impossible. The technology has changed and now we have the ability (although maybe not the desire). Another example is categorizing rare/ex items. I think we would have looked upon this as impossible a few months back, but with rare/ex templates we now have a decent start on this. Are there a lot of pages that were created without the rare template and thus are uncategorized? Sure. But its fluid and eventually we'll pick them all up. Same goes for item pages. Do they all look exactly the same? Nope. Maybe they will never look exactly the same. As a wiki there will be some pages with colons and some pages without. The templates provide a basic guideline for people to enter the information.

The above template is just like the change from [[File:Rare.gif]] to {{Rare}}. There will be a lot of pages using the older coding for a long time to come. But that should not prevent us from using a different code if it is helpful. People are still using [[File:Rare.gif]] - and that's ok. It's a far cry from when we just used text (which was not so long ago). Some people will use format A and some B. If people who like B want to edit the A to B go ahead. If people like A and want to edit B to A go ahead. If there are reasons that it should not be changed one way we can (and do - and will continue to) address them. The fact that someone changes A to B should not stop someone from adding new items with code A.

The fact is that we have a lot of new users joining now and a lot of new users adding items - that is great and is the most important thing IMO. Nobody should be made to feel that their contribution is worthless or unwanted. It is exactly the opposite. All contributions - no matter how small - are wanted and needed. It is the size of the contributor base that makes this project work. Trust me when I say that nobody can do it alone. After 20,000 edits I am still learning how to make various edits to the wiki and am still constantly corrected. That is a good and necessary thing. There is no need to create an expectation of perfection the first time, or the 10th or 10,000th time.

Go read "Thanks!" again. Everyone take a deep breath. And don't quit. --Gahoo 11:16, 11 August 2006 (EDT)

Thank you Gahoo. Now that I understand what it is the Craft template code is for it makes sense. As you can see, I was under the impression it was just code that output a link... hence the confusion I had with it. Now that I understand it it makes sense and I'll be able to utilize it in future pages (if I choose to do so, because honestly I'm still comfortable with the other method due to extended use... but at least now I can give the new method a try). --Oberonqa 11:29, 11 August 2006 (EDT)

As Gahoo said, I do like to help out New Members and I do it my free time for no benefit. What I say isnt Gospel and I am one of the first people to suggest a Discussion on it. If the community as a whole goes for a change because it will benefit the site, I go to. I try to help and I have helped many people. While there are many times that I have explained things out fully, sometimes I don't have the patience that Chris has - He is better at fully explaining things which is why we work better together. Everything that is on my User Talk page has come off from advice I have given one user or another. I need to broaden it some more because you have brought up some good points that should be addressed somewhere. I keep toying with making it into an actual guide so I don't have to use my User Talk Page for it - It didn't start out that big. Some of the small mistakes you made, I thought would be suffeciently explained on my Help Section or on the editing guide but I notice now that not all of them are, so you are right to question. Just so you know, nearly everything I learned how to do, I learned from Chris which is why, the way we do things is so similar. You will see that sometimes I make mistakes too, I never claimed to be perfect, I was just trying to help and obviously the way I help doesn't help you.

As to this page, we have agreed at this point that either this or the other Item Template Statistics Section can be used. Karuberu is still trying to work out some kinks and honestly he has fixed alot and I give him credit for working hard to alleviate the issues that people had with it. As soon as he fixes it for the time being I was going to try to fully understand how to use it so I could make a section on that too. I have actually begun to warm up to the idea due to his actual listening to the problems and trying to fix them. As I have said many times before the general idea behind this is really good and I would like to use it if it didnt have the above problems that Karu and others have actually been fixing. But in the meantime, either are okay. At this point, I just haven't wanted to learn it till it was done being tinkered with.

Going back to the Item Template, if you want to get specific as to what you don't understand, feel free to post it on the Talk:Item Template page and I am sure that either I or someone else, will help explain it to you or it will start a discussion on how to make it easier to be read. I know a lot of stuff isn't actually written on the Item Template stuff which is why I tried to explain some of it on my Talk Page, but if more stuff is needed to be explained, feel free to ask, we don't want you confused. Again, I am sorry I let my temper out above, sometimes I can be very short with people, I would still like to help you if I can and I know others want to as well. --Nynaeve 11:42, 11 August 2006 (EDT)

I have a perfectly acceptable solution

Since I've just learned of the <noinclude> thing, I can find a good use for it in the Item Template.

With the help of myself and a number of other wiki-knowledgable users, the Item Template has become what it has today. Its not perfect, but its the basis of the good looking pages we have at the moment. There are certain idiosyncrasies (little tiny, accepted formats) that cannot be wholey expressed with inline comments, or the whole thing will be full of them.

I feel I probably understand the full use of the Item Template the most, since I've "grown up" with it, and helped it grow as well to what us, the community, wanted it to be. I fully understand that its full potential is hard to grasp, and this worries me, cause I know its complex, but it has to be to cover all bases.

And so, after thinking about it, I'm putting all my other projects on hold, and will be shortly creating the following:

FFXIclopedia:How to use the Item Template and other useful Editing Tips

Hopefully this can clear up confusion in two ways; I'll be able to explain little things in the guide like accepted naming practices ("Plus 1" instead of "plus one"), punctuation practices (Synthesis result for the item in question is Italicized, but others are just links) and other little things that make the page work. When I'm done with the first draft, I'll be perfectly willing to discuss making additions in its talkpage. --Chrisjander 12:56, 11 August 2006 (EDT)

I look foward to reading it and finding out exactly what <noinclude> does. Thanks Chris. --Gahoo 12:58, 11 August 2006 (EDT)

Sounds great to me. --Nynaeve 13:20, 11 August 2006 (EDT)

Hmmm, maybe I got the <noinclude> thing wrong, but regardless, I thought of something else that might mitigate confusion. I'll bring it up when I've finished with my guide. I just got through the Statistics section, so I've a bit more to go. --Chrisjander 14:03, 11 August 2006 (EDT)

This sounds great to me, too. I've always been somewhat intimidated by creating/editing item pages, mostly because I wasn't sure whether some sections were optional, whether some specific text should be capitalized, whether some text should use an unordered list, indentation with a colon, or neither, etc etc. Having a guideline article that goes into detail about every case and what exactly should be done will be very helpful.

Oh, and in addition to <noinclude>, there's <includeonly> which does the opposite. Here's a nice reference: MetaWikiPedia:Help:Template#Noinclude and includeonly. --Ichthyos 14:44, 11 August 2006 (EDT)

Lol, I was dreading this. Until I'm done, please don't correct my spelling and grammar. I've protected the page to prevent this. If you find a spelling, grammar, or other indescrepancy, please mention it on the talk page, as this page is still under construction, and I don't want to be competing with minor edits. I know I will be making mistakes, so we can all correct them when I'm done. Thank you for your support of my guide. And thank you Gahoo for the construction sign. --Chrisjander 15:12, 11 August 2006 (EDT)

Ah, sorry about that hehe. --Ichthyos 15:19, 11 August 2006 (EDT)

My draft is done, feel free to look it over for errors, as well as spelling and grammar mistakes. Overall I'm pleased. Not bad for a wizbang guide. --Chrisjander 17:05, 11 August 2006 (EDT)

Looks great. I feel like it shouldn't have the guide disclaimer at the top, and should maybe be moved to FFXIclopedia:Editing Item Pages with the admins' approval. --Ichthyos 20:16, 11 August 2006 (EDT)

Just finished reading the guide, and I agree with Ichthyos; I think it should be moved to an official FFXIclopedia page. Excellent job, Chris. ~ Karuberu 11:55, 14 August 2006 (EDT)

Resolution?

It looks like people have had time to voice their thoughts about the template. Let's see whether we can reach a consensus on whether or not we should use a template this in new item pages for armor. If so, then is the template in its current form acceptable, or are there changes that people would like to see before it is adopted? I feel that if we decide to use it, we should iron out any kinks before adoption, and then lock it to prevent any problems with people editing it by mistake and breaking a lot of our armor pages. --Ichthyos

My vote is for using the template but removing support for the icon. The template presents the armor stats in a familiar, organized format that we can all recognize. With a section devoted to it in Chrisjander's guide (after the template is finalized), I think people will be able to learn how to use it without too much extra headache for editors like Nynaeve. Regarding images... as stated above, we already encourage people to upload a screenshot of the item box from the game, and people who use the wiki with images disabled won't see the icon anyway. So, while I think including the icon is a nice visual touch, I don't see that it adds enough to be kept in the template. --Ichthyos 20:16, 11 August 2006 (EDT)

Until this is finished, and all issues are resolved, there is no reason to call for a resolution on whether to use it or not. People will be able to make more informed decisions after it is complete and can be evaluated in full. --Chrisjander 20:34, 11 August 2006 (EDT)

Ah, ok. Hmm, then could we get some people's thoughts on what kind of changes they would like to see in the template before we make a decision (like inclusion or exclusion of the icon)? --Ichthyos 20:40, 11 August 2006 (EDT)

I like this template... but as has been mentioned before, it is redundent to make the Statistics section look like a picture when there is (or will be) a picture added to the page anyway. Don't get me wrong... I do like the template and Daniel's contributions to making the code more legible makes it pretty easy to use. I just don't see any potential gain by using it over what we already have in the Item Template. --Oberonqa 22:13, 11 August 2006 (EDT)

Like I said before, I think the icon slot should remain in the template, but be disabled for now. If we leave it out, then it would be impossible to add later without screwing up the template on every page it's used on. I know we might never add icons, but it's a good idea to leave the option open (it's only one extra "|" to type, anyways). ~ Karuberu 22:29, 11 August 2006 (EDT)

I don't feel like reading the whole page, but here are my opinions; forgive me if these points have already been addressed.

I really like the look of the completed template; it's very clean & easy to follow. The problem is for people who can't see pictures on their PC for whatever reason & as Oberonqa mentioned above, it's a bit redundant. If the new template is used, I think it should just be used for text. Personally, I'd be willing to work with the new template, but will new users be willing to learn it & work with it?

I see Chris made a little guide so I'll check it out soon.--Joon 17:04, 12 August 2006 (EDT)

Use? / Don't Use?

There hasn't been much talk regarding this template recently, I'm curious if we're safe to start using it... i.e. is this the final version? The icon support can be added later since it's part of the current template as was stated above, so we're safe in that respect. I used this template on Ninja Hakama +1 and Ninja Kyahan +1; I found the template pretty easy to use, especially when using the empty template that was posted a few clicks above. Just curious if I should start updating with this thing. --Waluigi 14:40, 22 August 2006 (EDT)

Revisions

I made some revisions to this template to make it easier to use and not so different-looking. It's still in a table, but it will only be as big as it needs to be (no set width).
The main advantage of this template are that the tags and the charged item info will be aligned to the right of the rest of the text, making it look more like the images, while still maintaining the current look. It's also fairly user-friendly, and allows for easy formatting of the various info (such as adding the brackets around the armor slot, which would normally be difficult for a novice user). ~ Karuberu 16:41, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

Unfortunately, this is probably going to fall to the wayside, as it is much more user friendly to just copy and paste info into the parcer than to deal with a template. --Chrisjander 17:19, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

Yeah, I know. I kind of gave up on this a long time ago, but I had some new ideas recently, so I figured I might as well share them. And the parser is nice, but it'd really be better to not rely on it, since it only works by taking info from somepage and, more importantly, it can't be readily updated. But, perhaps the parser could be updated to use this? It needs to be updated to use "Cannot be sold to NPCs." anyways. ~ Karuberu 17:47, 6 April 2007 (EDT)