Template talk:Spell

End Tags

What's with all the "<nowiki/>" end tags? -- saint23thomas -- 20:59, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Common.css

I'm new to the Wiki-World and I need a little help please. In looking at your template code for SRD Spells the first line says class="d20 dragon monstats". I looked all through the Common.CSS file and found the entries for those. I'm assuming that each one (d20, dragon, monstats) is an individual class. I copied the CSS file over and I can't get it to display correctly. Once I get this figured out i'll be able to create me own, but for now I was modeling yours. Could you please educate me on this? What am I missing? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 198.211.209.45 (talk • contribs) 15:40, 21 July 2009 (MDT). Please sign your posts.

I don't know - what version of MW do you use? --00:12, 8 August 2009 (MDT)

Homebrew or SRD

Stop messing around with the spell template for a moment! You messed up the descriptors thing, and the autolinking was meant to go to homebrew. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 198.211.209.45 (talk • contribs) 15:40, 21 July 2009 (MDT). Please sign your posts.

Also, I should mention that TheWarforgedArtificer is currently in The Tavern. A conversation might help resolve this. --Ganteka 00:04, 8 August 2009 (MDT)

Thanks, but I'm fine. I don't really like chatting online, sorry The Tavern users ;). Anyway, why homebrew over SRD for the links? SRD explains the school, subschool, or effect a bit and is the standard for links. Also it is relatively uncommon to add a link to a homebrew page (other then for the CS's). I don't know - what are your thoughts on adding it to the homebrew lists (like the breadcrumb)? --Green Dragon 00:12, 8 August 2009 (MDT)

Please sir, come to the tavern so I can properly explain to you what's going on. It's not efficient enough here. --TheWarforgedArtificer 00:15, 8 August 2009 (MDT)

I guess you could add |school= |subschool= |desc1= |desc2= |desc3=. However what happens, then, when adds a homebrew school, subschool, or effect? --Green Dragon 00:16, 8 August 2009 (MDT)

Restarting Discussion

Alright, after our "conversation" in the tavern, I've got to make sure I explain a few things ahead of time, and their reasoning behind them. First off;

1: The decision to attempt autolinking in the first place. Before the autolinking, the schools and subschools of all homebrew spells did not have a uniform method for linking. Indeed, there was no method at all. Everyone linked in their own way, and I saw quite a few weird ones, in addition to the fact that many did not bother in the first place (but not as much as I'd hoped). By creating an autolink in the Spell template, this problem was solved (though of course, all those manual links had to be removed first, which I did). (And as a side note, I didn't actually make this decision myself; I experimented until I found a way, and then, with permission from Ganteka and Eiji, I implemented it.)

2: The autolinks directing to the homebrew spells categories. Several reasons for this. One, the homebrew categories -exist-, as seen here. These are categories, by school and subschool, of all the homebrew spells. Having a link to these categories from an individual spell is useful. Then there are the regualr categorizations at the bottom of every spell, which link to school and subschool categories that include all things, including SRD. Having another SRD link is redundant. Third, because of the way the whole categories vs. the homebrew categories are organized. The whole categories are organized with this naming format, "Whatever School" and "Whosit Subschool". The homebrew categories are organized with this naming format, "3.5e Whatever Spells" and "3.5e Whatever (Whosit) Spells", where isntead of schools and subschools being separeate, they are instead included in their names. Minus the 3.5e and Spells thing, all spells follow this same format when naming their schools and subschools. Therefore, the simplest solution is to link to to the homebrew spells sections, which is exactly what was desired (and done) in the first place. If you were to change this to try to go to SRD categories, you would have to change all subschool spells to follow the different naming format by creating a "subschool" parameter, and then modifying the subschool spells to follwo this, because all subschool spells have "Whatever (Whosit)" in the school parameter. No matter how this is done, bot or manual, this is simply more, uneccesary work for no clear benefit, in addition to the work that has already been done (and suffices perfectly). We don't need linking to the SRD.

3: NOT autolinking the descriptors (yet). As you saw, you cannot create a single autolink for descriptors, because any spell with multiple descriptors gets a broken link (the autolink tries to make the whole thing a single link). As for the solution of creating multiple separate parameters (i.e., desc1, desc2, desc3) ...I actually found this solution as well, but it was not implemented right away. The first and most obvious reason is that is is simply more work; you'd have to go in and modify all multidescriptor spells to use the new parameters. While, in this case, more work will have to be done anyway if any kind of autolinking is implemented, I am sure there must be a better, cleaner, and less ugly way to do it. This is because, with specified manual acending parameters, they are not theoretically infinite. You could go all the way up to desc1000, but what if someone were to make 1001? (a ridiculous example, I know, but it demonstrates the point). I held off on autolinking descriptors until I can find a better way to do it (or someone knowlegeable enough to figure out a way, as I have never done any real coding in my life). Once that's done, changing multidescriptor spells to use the parameters may become necessary, but until then, I'd rather not rely on such a crude method.

In conclusion; the spell template is fine in it's current form. The school/subschool autolink works, it does not need any further modification at this present time. --TheWarforgedArtificer 02:22, 8 August 2009 (MDT)

We are using logic here. The method above improves D&D Wiki's accessibility and that is key. Less pages mean less places for people to get confused on. I hope you understand - your way is faulty in logic. Please watch out or a ban could be in ordnance. --Green Dragon 22:07, 9 August 2009 (MDT)