Basics[]
If you've been poking around the site at all, you've probably noticed that some types of pages have consistent layouts. Specifically, the Party Member pages, Synthesis Item pages, Equipable Item pages, Managraphics, Enemies, and Dungeon Floors all look like they have a bunch of prompts that are filled in with information (or left blank, in many cases at this stage). This is because I have designed templates for these pages--the templates are Template:Enemy, Template:EquipItem, Template:SynthItem, Template:Dungeon, Template:Managraphic, and Template:Party member. Additional templates are Template:Lurker, Template:Weapon, Template:Meteorite, Template:UseItem, Template:SoulItem. Templates are great for uniformity of layout on pages, and they also make it easier for less wiki-savvy users to contribute to articles, since there are boxes for all the information that a page needs that you can just fill in.
What does this mean for you? Well, if you follow a red link to create a new article that belongs to a category that there is a template for, the first thing you're going to want to do is to put the name of the template for that type of page (from the list above) enclosed in double curly-braces. This lets the wiki know that you want to apply that template to the page. After you've put that down, click the "Preview" button at the bottom of the edit window, and the new editing window that will show up will have a little jigsaw icon instead of any text. If you mouse over or click on the jigsaw icon, another window will pop up with a display of what the template looks like. Click on the Edit button at the bottom of that window, and you'll be able to edit the contents of the template. Most of the template fields are named so as to make it easy to figure out what information needs to be entered there. I plan to write out documentation for each of the templates at some point, but right now I'm tied up with adding content and working on the overall layout, so I'll leave a couple guidelines here to help you out: if a field is labeled xxxxFlag (where 'xxxx' is a word like Buy, Purchase, or Vend), then that means that you should put Yes or No into that field--these are designed as switches so that the template will only display the next line if the answer is Yes. For the Character field in the EquipItem template, if it's something that everyone can use, you should enter All, otherwise just enter the name of the character that can equip the item. If there's a field for you to enter the cost of an item for purchase, just put the raw number there--the 'G' is a part of the template, so you don't have to add it to the field.
As always, if you have any specific questions, either leave a message on my talk page, or write something on the Community Portal page. Happy editing!
Conjoiner Felka 18:26, July 11, 2010 (UTC)
How to use the Templates (in-depth)[]
Okay, so I've incorporated some fancy code into the Dungeon, Enemy, SynthItem, and EquipItem templates. It's important that people understand these, because they (nominally) reduce the amount of manual entry of information we need to do--before, if you were to fill out a dungeon page with Item and Monster info, you'd also have to go and update the Item page and the Monster page (if they were pages that had already been created) to reflect that you could ALSO find this item or monster on this dungeon floor. Super-lame, right? Well, with the magic of Categories, we can cut down on that sort of cross-referencing work and have the wiki do it for us! Here's a step-by-step guide for creating a new Dungeon page:
Adding a new Dungeon floor page:[]
Step 1: Name the Dungeon page appropriately---link it off of the correct parent dungeon and time of day. Proper syntax is "Floor Name: M" for the Morning version, "Floor Name: A" for Afternoon, "Floor Name: E" for Evening, and "Floor Name: N" for Night. If it's the version of a floor that you visit as an Event Dungeon, use "Floor Name: S".
Step 2: On the new Dungeon page, type {{Dungeon}}. This will tell the wiki to use the Dungeon template.
Step 3: Click Preview in the editor, and the template code will be replaced by a jigsaw icon representing the template's contents. Click on this, then click Edit at the bottom of the window that pops up.
Step 4: Fill in all the fields you have info for--if there's no Managraphic, just leave that field blank. For Floor, Chest, or Rare treasure fields, just put the name of the item in, not the quantity. For Lurkers, sometimes different floors will have ones with the same name, but with different-colored models. You may wish to include (Color) after the name of the Lurker if you suspect this to be the case. (Example: Ship Guardian (Blue)).
Step 5: Click Save Page. You're not quite done yet, though! If you look down at the bottom of the new page, you'll see a bunch of Category links. If any of those are red, there's some more work to be done.
Step 6: Right-click on a red Category link and open it in a new tab or window. You should have a blank page with the additional information "Pages in Category: Location (item name or monster name)" and a link back to your dungeon page. In the edit window, look at the very bottom and there's a button that says "Add category". Click on this, then type Location and hit enter. Save the page. This allows the monster or item page to recognize that you can find that particular monster/item on this dungeon floor, and will automatically update those pages to include that information.
Step 7: Pat yourself on the back, because you just added dungeon information to the wiki!
Adding a new Monster page:[]
Step 1: Go to the Enemies page and figure out which "Family" your monster belongs to. Add the monster's name to the first empty cell in the row for that family like this: [[MonsterName]], where MonsterName is the name of the monster exactly as it appears in the game (if there's a Greek symbol, type it out and capitalize the first letter. Example: Alpha). Lurkers and Bosses go into their respective lists below the moster table. Save your edit.
Step 2: Before going further, if this was a previously-unlisted monster, you will need to create a Category page for it. Click on "Create a New Article" in the sidebar. Name the new page Category:Location MonsterName. For the actual page content, put in [[Category:Location]] and save the page. This will allow the new monster page to properly auto-list all the dungeon floors you can find it in. If you get a message saying that a page with that name already exists, someone else probably added the Category page when they added Dungeon information, so don't worry.
Step 3: Click the red link you created for the Monster and it'll open an edit window for the new Monster page. In the edit window, type in {{Enemy}} for regular monsters or bosses, or {{Lurker}} for Lurkers, then click Preview. This will tell the wiki to insert the appropriate template. The code will be replaced by a jigsaw icon when you click Preview. Click on the icon, then click Edit at the bottom of the window that pops up.
Step 4: Fill in the fields with the appropriate information on drops (Locations you can find the enemy are automatically inserted from Dungeon pages that have the monster listed as an Enemy found on that floor, so don't worry about that) and the type of Soul the monster has, whether it has Soul Barriers (and how many). Any additional information (say on weaknesses or strengths) should be put into the Notes field.
Step 5: Save your page.
Step 6: Look at the bottom of the page. If any of the Category links for the items the monster can drop are red, there's a little more work to do. A red Category link likely means that that item hasn't been added to the wiki yet. If you want to add the item to the wiki as well, skip down to the "How to add a new Item page" section. Otherwise, just right-click the red links to open them in a new tab/window, enter [[Category:Drop]] as the page content, then save the edit and close the tab/window. Repeat until all the Category links are no longer red.
Step 7: Get yourself a refreshing beverage to celebrate having contributed to the wiki!
Adding a new Item page:[]
(Useable Items, Mana Items, and Ore/Bar Items are completed)
Step 1: Go to the Synthesis Items page and edit the appropriate section. Insert [[ItemName]] into the list in the appropriate place, where ItemName is the name of the item you want to add (the lists are in alphabetical order, so try to maintain that). Make sure that the item name is EXACTLY as it appears in the game, with greek letters spelled out (Example: Alpha). Save your edit.
Step 2: If the new link is red, that means that the item page is completely new. Before you go any further, right-click "Create New Article" and select "Open in New Tab/Window" three times. On those last 3 tabs, make the page names Category:Drop ItemName, Category:Location ItemName, and Category:Synthesis ItemName. Into the editing window of each, put in [[Category:Drop]], [[Category:Location]], and [[Category:Synthesis]], respectively, and then Save the edits and close those windows/tabs. This will make sure that the automatic linking of places the item can be found, monsters that drop it, and items that require it for their synthesis recipes will work correctly.
Step 3: Now, right-click the red link for your Item and select "Open in New Tab/Window". Into the editing pane for the Item page, enter {{SynthItem}} for Synthesis Items or {{SoulItem}} for Souls, then click "Preview". This lets the wiki know you want to use the template for Synthesis Items or Souls, and will replace the code with a Jigsaw icon. Click on the icon, then click on Edit in the window that pops up. If the item is purchaseable, enter how much it costs. That's all the information this template requires--the monsters that drop it, places you can find it as treasure, and items that use it for synthesis will automatically be listed (if that information is already on the wiki--if no monsters, dungeons, or recipes have it listed, then those sections will stay blank until monsters/equipment/dungeons are added that reference the item). Save your edits.
Step 4: Take pride in having contributed to the wiki, because you're done!
Adding a new Equipment Item page:[]
Step 1: Go to the appropriate category page from the Items page. Edit the page and add [[ItemName]] to the table (right-click the table and select "Row=>Add Row After.. or Add Row Before.." to get a new line in the appropriate place), where ItemName is the name of the item you want to add. Add the stats of the item to the table. Save your edits. Done.
Step 2: Click the red link for the item you added to start creating the page for the item. Type {{EquipItem}} for armors, or {{Weapon}} for weapons, into the editor window then hit "Preview". This lets the wiki know that you're going to use the EquipItem or Weapon template, and will replace the code with a Jigsaw icon. Click on the Jigsaw icon, then click on the Edit button at the bottom of the window that pops up.
Step 3: Fill in all the fields you have information for (stats, item names and quantities for synthesis, purchase price, etc.), then click OK in the template window, then Save your edits.
Step 4: If any of the Category links that show up at the bottom of the page are red, there's a little more work to do. Right-click them and select "Open in New Tab/Window". In the editing pane for those pages, enter [[Category:Synthesis]] and then Save your edits. This will link the item you just made the page for to the pages of the items that are needed by its recipe automatically.
Step 5: If any of the item names for the synthesis components are red, then that item isn't in the wiki yet. If you're up for it, you can create those pages--see the section on adding a new Item page above. Otherwise, you're done! Give yourself a much-deserved congratulations!
Adding a new Meteorite page:[]
Same as the Equipment pages, except you use {{Meteorite}} instead. Insert ONLY the # for the Meteorite Synthesis Manuals; for example, MeteoriteSynth 01 would be entered as 01, MeteoriteSynth β would be Beta. Other than that, there are 4 values each meteorite has: Core Value, Ring 1 Value, Ring 2 Value, and Ring 3 Value. These can be found on the Meteorite Workshop page, or by equiping the meteorite in each slot yourself.
If any of this is still confusing, leave a message on my talk page about what you're confused over, and I'll try to make my explanation clearer. Thanks!
Conjoiner Felka 00:09, July 16, 2010 (UTC)