One significant feature of StrategyWiki guides is that you can add images, and place them anywhere you like. This page will deal with the specifics of uploading, naming, and placing images.
Please use restraint when uploading images or other media to a game guide. While you are encouraged to use as many images as you feel necessary for describing elements of the game, each should be relevant, important, and include informative captions (where appropriate). An image should add to the informative value of a guide--do not upload images for the purpose of making a guide simply "look cool".
Each image should have a specific purpose, such as demonstrating a particular task (such as finding the correct book to open a secret passage), or a boss's various evolutions or movement patterns, or a list of enemies so the player can learn to recognise and differentiate between them, and so forth.
Maps and other explanatory images are a priority. Featuring an overworld or screenshot map without any annotations is probably of little value. They should instead serve to either show all the major locations in the game world or else to highlight hidden goodies, enemies, etc. If the thing in question is not clearly visible it may be useful to draw a circle or arrow similar indicating it. For the sake of simplicity do not write on the screenshot, the explanation should instead go in the picture caption or in the walkthrough body. For more involved steps it may be necessary to label different parts "A" and "B" or similar.
Also, take care that images are high quality, clear, and easy to understand. Do not upload grainy pictures taken with video cameras. Either take a direct screenshot with a computer or use a capture device of some sort.
Do not, under any circumstances, use images with watermarks on them. Additionally, images copyrighted by others should not be used here. All images must be original or licensed under the GFDL 1.2 to avoid conflicts of intellectual property.
Uploading
The first part to uploading an image is to choose the file that you are about to upload. To do this click on "Browse" and select the wanted file.
If uploading a file by clicking on the Upload file link on the left hand navigation bar, you will need to specify a name. The default name provided will match the name of the file on your local computer, however unless you've saved it to do so, this name will not satisfy our naming conventions.
- Naming
The name of the image is important. This is an example of a wrong image name:
- [[Image:Metroid Prime Hunters1.png|150px]]
The image name should be, if possible, a good description of whatever the image is depicting, preceded by a recognisable acronym of the game name. For instance an image for Monster World IV would be named MW4 <description here>.
The last part to the image name is the tag. It can be jpg, png, or gif. Please note that the MediaWiki software will read different cased extensions as separate files, so Super Mario Bros. 3.jpg would be different from Super Mario Bros. 3.JPG.
- Summary
Next, the file needs a summary. Here you type in a description of the image you are uploading. It's best to put in both a description of the image so people know what it is or what purpose it has. Additionally, credits should be written here; this makes it easier to identify who owns the image (or created it from a game) and helps support fair use rationale. StrategyWiki does not condone the use of copyrighted material; any violations will be removed!
- Categories
After the description of the image has been typed, input the categories that the image fits under. Remember to place categories at the bottom, one on each line, to keep them standardized. There are categorization guidelines to help decide which categories to put on which pages. The most important thing to know is that each image must have at least one of the major categories on it (like one of the common ones below). Do not place Category:Images on a page - that category is for holding the image categories, not images themselves.
Also know that game specific images, such as those of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time should also have a game specific image category - such as Category:The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time images. If the image category doesn't exist, you can either create it or leave it as is and someone will create it for you. You can also request such a category on any of the administrators' talk pages or on the [1].
Categories commonly used:
- Category:Box artwork
- Category:Characters
- Category:Sprites
- Category:Screenshots
- Category:Models
- Category:Items
Using uploaded files
To use an image or other file which has been uploaded to the wiki, use:
[[Image:Super Mario Bros. 3.jpg]]
If you add a pipe (|) and some text after the filename, the text will be used as alternative text for text-only browsers:
[[Image:Super Mario Bros. 3.jpg|alternative text]]
If you don't want to display the image, you can link to the file's description page, by adding a colon:
[[:Image:Super Mario Bros. 3.jpg]]
To bypass the description page and link directly to a file , use the "Media" pseudo-namespace:
[[Media:Super Mario Bros. 3.jpg]]
You can also make piped links if you want some other text to be used:
[[:Image:Super Mario Bros. 3.jpg|link text]][[Media:Super Mario Bros. 3.jpg|link text]]
Image placement
| Description | You type… | You get… |
|---|---|---|
| Embed image (with alt text) |
|
|
| Link to description page |
|
|
| Link directly to file |
|
|
| Thumbnail (centered, 100 pixels wide, with caption) |
|
|
Advanced options
The full syntax for displaying an image is:
[[Image:{name}|{options}]]
Where options can be zero or more of the following, separated by pipes:
thumb,thumbnail, orframe: Controls how the image is formatted. Thumbnailed images are typically smaller, and what should normally be used for in-guide images. Framed images are similar to thumbnailed images, but are not scaled down, while if this option is left out entirely, the image is displayed at full size without any border or embellishment.left,right,center,none: Controls the alignment of the image on the page.{width}px: Resizes the image to the given width in pixels. Note that use of this option is discouraged for thumbnailed images, as it means people can't specify the thumbnail size they want to view in their preferences.{caption text}: A short description of the image and what it shows. This will be displayed under the image for thumb and frame images.
The options can be given in any order. If a given option does not match any of the other possibilities, it is assumed to be the caption text. Caption text can contain wiki links or other formatting.
Gallery of images
It's easy to make a gallery of thumbnails with the <gallery> tag. The syntax is:
<gallery>
Image:{filename}|{caption}
Image:{filename}|{caption}
{...}
</gallery>
Captions are optional, and may contain wiki links or other formatting.
for example:
<gallery> Image:Super Mario Bros. 3.jpg|Item 1 Image:Super Mario Bros. 3.jpg|a link to [[Help:Contents]] Image:Super Mario Bros. 3.jpg Image:Super Mario Bros. 3.jpg Image:Super Mario Bros. 3.jpg|''italic caption'' </gallery>
is formatted as:
-
Item 1
-
a link to Help:Contents
-
-
-
italic caption
Other files
You can link to an external file using the same syntax used for linking to an external web page.
[http://url.for/some/image.png]
Or with different text:
[http://url.for/some/image.png link text here]
You can also embed images via their direct URLs. To do that, simply insert the URL:
http://url.for/some/image.png
You can also use an external image as a link:
[http://destination.page/here/ http://image.url/here.png]
Note that if you want an image to link to an internal page you will need to use the external form of the link (e.g. http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Main_Page) rather than the internal one (e.g. Main Page).