User talk:Caw

Welcome to Battlestar Wiki!

Welcome to the Wiki, Caw. Tell us about yourself on your user page. We have a template that lets you put some information about yourself in a nice-looking box.

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We look forward to your contributions to the Battlestar Wiki community! --Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Sanctuary Wiki — New} 13:33, 9 September 2007 (CDT)

Template help

What is the line you are trying to enter? -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Sanctuary Wiki — New} 01:02, 13 September 2007 (CDT)

FYI, you can't just enter stuff like |abc=def and expect it to show up. Only certain parameters work, and others have no effect at all. For a list of available parameters and what they do, see Template:User Data. If you want a new field to be created, drop me a note on my talk page and I'll add it for you. --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 11:18, 13 September 2007 (CDT)

Template help

Catrope has set an "away" notice, so it may be a while till he responds. In the meantime, feel free to hit up any of the admins, as they've all been around the block a time or two.

In terms of formalized help files regarding templates, you might start here: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Templates

It's pretty dry stuff, but that's documentation for you. Basically, in order to add school to your user data, you'd have a few options. One is adding it to the user data template (Template:User Data). That'd mean that it'd be a field for EVERYONE using the User Data template. Now, we do have the capability to make fields optional. Back in the day we didn't know how to do that, so we had to be even more careful about which fields were added, since adding it to the template meant going to each and every article using that template and adding that field (even if it was blank), or there would be an ugly "error" that appeared near the template. Those days are gone, but you still want to avoid bogging down a template with fields that don't get used too often.

Option two is copy and pasting the code from Template:User Data to your user page, and then customizing to your delight. This has the benefit of allowing you to add ANY fields or customizations you want, without impacting everyone else. The downside is that any updates to the User Data template wouldn't affect your page and you'd have to manually catch up any time changes were made.

Option three is "subclassing" (sorry, using a computer science concept). That is, create a new template (say, Student User Data) which has as its base the user data, but also added fields specific to that particular thing. If the implementation of that "transcludes" template user data then you'd have the best of both worlds (specialized data, and it'd get updated when user data was updated). If not, you'd be stuck in the same boat as "option two".

If I only contributed to the confusion, or if you have any questions, let me know. I'm by no means an expert, mostly learning what I know about templates from the "school of hard knocks" around here, but I'll be glad to help if I can. --Steelviper 17:37, 15 September 2007 (CDT)

The simplest way - without messing with any templates - would be too add the school to the occupation field. It still fits there.

We could add an "other" field for any random info someone might want to add, but it wouldn't necessarily appear in the most logical place, as the fields have a fixed order when displayed, regardless of how they are arranged in the edit box. --Serenity 17:52, 15 September 2007 (CDT)

Thanks, Steelviper. i'll look it over. and Serenity, that's a good option as well. "school" may not be a valid field option for as many users, so i can see why it wouldn't be there. then again...they've got a field for kids! Caw 18:01, 15 September 2007 (CDT)