StrategyWiki:Guide/Polishing a guide

This page will help you to add the finishing touches on a guide to get it from the completed stage (CS4) to featured (CS5). As featured status is an optional component in our consideration of guides, so are these additional features. That means they may not always be a best fit for certain guides. Use your best judgement, and as always, try to be bold and innovative.

Custom navs
Header Nav is on all pages, and it is pretty bare. You can add additional links in two ways:
 * 1) If you create a page at Game name/Custom Nav, like Final Fantasy X/Custom Nav, the contents of the page will be included on all sub-pages that use Header Nav. This is the easiest way to add custom links to the header nav. Remember to add to the end of a Custom Nav page so it doesn't get added to our uncategorized pages list.
 * 2) You can create separate templates to be placed into the header nav by hand. To include a template, add the custom parameter to the header nav, like so:
 * 3) **The above is a real world example. The custom parameter can load hardcoded links and plain text, e.g. Link (description), but using templates is better for managing multiple pages at once. In this case, two templates are used, one after the other. You can see it in action at MapleStory/Aran/Skills.
 * 1) **The above is a real world example. The custom parameter can load hardcoded links and plain text, e.g. Link (description), but using templates is better for managing multiple pages at once. In this case, two templates are used, one after the other. You can see it in action at MapleStory/Aran/Skills.

IDs for appendices
Appendices pages are nice for their completed tables and plentiful details. However, they can be hard to search for specific information. To make things easier, throughout all pages of a guide we can link to specific items in an appendices by using Page name/Subpage. When we do this, it will take you to the sub-page and the browser will jump to the ID, if it exists. The easiest IDs to link to are headers, since they automatically generate an ID equal to the text of the header.

To link to a specific line in a table, though, you need to hard code an ID. The most efficient way to do this is to convert tables into templates, and make an ID parameter. This is because to make an ID you either have to add a tag, like Text or fit it into the properties of a table cell, if possible. E.g.:

Links, links, and more links!
IDs and links go hand in hand. Therefore, once you have IDs set up all over the appendices, remember to link to them where possible. This means that walkthroughs should be littered with links to subpages with IDs to help people jump right to the extra info they need.

In-line graphics
An excellent feature of wikis is the capability of easily putting images in-line with text. What we can do with game guides is actually put an image next to any object reference. For example, if the guide talks about an enemy, put a picture of the enemy right next to its name. If the guide talks about a piece of treasure, show that treasure's icon. See Castlevania: Circle of the Moon/Audience Room and Mega Man X/Highway Stage for examples.

The same type of "upgraded content" applies when considering controller buttons. Remember that we have templates like nes and cade so that images like and  can be displayed to enrich our content and simplify our instructions to players.