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 <noinclude>[[Category:Guide-specific templates]]</noinclude> 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:
   • {{Header Nav|game=MapleStory|custom={{MapleStory/TOC/Jobs}}{{MapleStory/TOC/Jobs/sub|Aran}}}}
     • 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#ID]]. 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 <span id="IDYouWantToLink">Text</span> or fit it into the properties of a table cell, if possible. E.g.:

{|{{prettytable}}
!id="Cell 1"|Cell 1
!Cell 2
|-
|Row 2 cell 1
|Row 2 cell 2
|}

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 all 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, why not just show that treasure's icon? That way, readers unfamiliar with the name of the object can still identify it. See Castlevania: Circle of the Moon/Audience Room, Mega Man X/Highway Stage, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past/Skull Woods, and The Legend of Zelda/Underworld/Quest 1/Dungeon 5 for examples.

This same type of enhanced 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.

However, when implementing in-line images, except for controller buttons, please follow these guidelines to maintain our standard of quality:

1. Use a template like {{im/loz}} to place the links and images on the pages. This will minimize the number of characters in the code and the filesize of the page.
   • Use the original sprites of the game, and keep the images constrained enough to not affect the line spacing of the words on the page. See The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past/Skull Woods images implemented correctly.
2. Only use inline images where the object in question is both important (or the focus of the content) and novel (that is, not previously noted). In other words, it is the first time it is mentioned.
3. Do not repeatedly place the image even if references to it occur. Otherwise, the content will look like this.
4. Items should only be in-lined whenever/wherever they are actually found. Important/required items should definitely be depicted. Items found once in every dungeon are ok (maps, compass, heart container, triforce). Common items should be avoided.
5. For monsters, only have one in-line image per page.