User:Toomai/Wiki tips and tricks

If this kind of thing would do better elsewhere, go ahead and move it.

If you've got a tip or trick to add, go ahead and put it.

General

 * Always use the preview button. One wrong key can cause an entire page to go out of whack.

Tables
!make it red|put text here!!make it yellow|put text here
 * ALWAYS preview before saving! Mistakes in a single place can make tables look horrendous, especially if you've got merged cells.
 * Putting  in a table's header (that is, right after the  ) will allow users to sort the table. This doesn't work if cells are merged, however.
 * Generally, things in a table look better when they're centered (with the exception of large blocks of text). Putting  in the header will center all the text in every cell.
 * Generally, tables themselves look better when in the middle of a page. Put  in the header to do this.
 * Use  instead of   when starting cells that are headers. However, you still need to use a   to separate parameters (such as colouring) from the cell's content. Example:

Images

 * Normally, clicking an image leads to the image itself. However, by adding the  parameter, you can make images just like normal links. Usually, it's best to leave images as linking to themselves, since linking them forces people to look at the source to find out where an image came from. However, there are cases where linking them is better (such as the Tier list templates).

Formatting

 * Formats have to be closed in the opposite order they were opened. Otherwise, odd stuff happens.
 * Colour on the internet is represented by a six-digit hexadecimal number (prefaced on wikis by "#"). Hex numbers use the letters A to F as extra digits - A is 10, while F is 15. Basically, the first two digits are the amount of red, the next two are the green, and the last two are the blue. So, 000000 is pure black, 7F0000 is 50% red (brown), and FFBF7F is 100% red, 75% green, and 50% blue (tan). While adding colour can sometimes be distracting, there are times when it can have a positive effect. Here are some simple colours:

Templates/Infoboxes

 * Many things can be improved by using parser functions (see below).
 * If you need to put a  somewhere, but its location causes things to mess up, use  . A shortcut for   is.

Parser Functions
Basically, a parser function is something that does something based on a condition. Think of it like low-level programming in a wiki page. You'll pretty much always be using this for templates. The best way to explain this kind of stuff is through examples.