Forum:Individual Creature Template (Atarax Jan 2009)
To: Tlosk
I was thinking the that you could use the Class Variable to dynamically build the [[Category:Creature Class]] portion. That would eliminate any edits required at the bottom of the page for a typical creature. --Atarax 13:21, 23 January 2009 (CST)
To: Atarax
I've added that feature to the template, it can have it twice (at the bottom too), but it now automatically adds the Creature Category, the Class Category, and if there is a Subclass, that too. So you can just normally leave the bottom blank now when using the Creature page template and it will categorize itself according to what is put into the Class and Subclass fields.
The Individual Creature Template has been significantly changed in form though not in substance. It now uses a template for the table that lets you fill out the data in line rather than amongst tons of formatting info. The notes section has been kept out of the wiki template because there's a lot of variability there and also for a technical reason (you can't have actual page sections like == Notes == within a wiki template because when you click on edit it will take you to the template page and not stay on the page where the template is being used. Also just to clarify, a Page Template is what we use as a skeleton for an entire page, a Wiki Template is a smaller section of formatting code that is used within a page. So a page template can contain several wiki templates as part of it.
I made two more tweaks, now any stat left blank will automatically show as ?? so when go back to fill them in don't have to erase and for the xp just put the number. --Tlosk 06:37, 23 January 2009 (CST)
To: Tlosk
Nice, those changes will work. Question... Can you use the variables in more than one page on the page? Like Class? Or is it a 1 to 1 relationship? The other suggestion I have is to change some of the wording at the bottom to make the What Links Here line be automated instead of relying on someone to properly pluralize it. So, by default even the Class, Maybe something like this:* [[:Special:Whatlinkshere/{{PAGENAME}}|Locations]] where a {{PAGENAME}} can be found.--Atarax 16:35, 23 January 2009 (CST)
To: Atarax
That's a good idea, to avoid agreement issues (a/an etc) I made it so it just says "* <Name> Locations." and added it the creature template. As I'm going through the old creature entries and changing them I've come across quite a few that were either missing the plural name all together or weren't pluralized so this will make it a lot better.For example:
{{Locations|{{PAGENAME}}}}displays as:
- Forum:Individual Creature Template (Atarax Jan 2009) Locations. (Dungeons | Landscape Spawns | Points of Interest)
--Tlosk 13:08, 23 January 2009 (CST)