User:Lancey34/Style Guide

This is the Style Guide I use when I make edits to pages. I don't always follow it so I guess that makes me unpredictable.

Image Tables
I made Image Tables specifically for status effects like Stun and Silence, because they were, at the time, long lists of names. I think adding a visual aspect, in this case, an icon, helps players identify abilities. It works really well for other stuff, so I've started replacing lists with Image Tables where I can. You can add an Image Table to any page with the following code:

They look like this:



Image tables have specific limitations and benefits.

Pros: Cons:
 * Uses normal table formatting, so you can insert headers and raw information in between elements
 * Displays information with visual backing
 * Is a neat and organized way to format lists of things
 * You can modify Template:Img table el to do a lot of things with them.
 * Maximum of two elements per line
 * Subtext can run long. If it's too long, it'll wrap around the image.
 * A lot of typing to properly link up everything

Examples:
 * Stun
 * Magic Resistance
 * Heroes

Wikitables
Wikitables are also pretty cool. All the formatting is handled in the CSS and you can do a ton of stuff with them, so they're recognizable elements across all pages. I use them to contain quantitative information, like statistics and things that you can easily tabulate. You can make them with this code:

Personally, I like to center most information in wikitables so that it looks neat and make them take up the whole page. Overall they look like:

You can do so much with them.

Pros: Cons:
 * They're tables so you can easily see and compare information
 * Comes with all sorts of classes like "sortable" and "collapsible"
 * You can do really neat stuff like split columns and multiple rows without breaking the formatting
 * Really awesome
 * Not as efficient for certain things
 * Formatting is strict on these. You can't do much with style.
 * You have to think about the best way to display information with them

Examples:
 * Strength
 * Creeps
 * Abilities

Navboxes
Navboxes are neato. I fell in love with them for a while but they're very limited in what they can really do, but what they do they do well. They're basically at the bottom of every Wikipedia article and that's for a good reason. But they're really not as great as other things, and you shouldn't make a navbox because you feel like it.

You'll have to make your own navbox templates if you want to use them.

Pros: Cons:
 * Really good way to link to related articles
 * They're neat
 * Wikipedia uses them everywhere
 * Takes some effort to make one and they're not always the best
 * Stacking them up on top of each other looks bad
 * They're really expensive
 * Wikipedia uses them everywhere

Examples:

Infoboxes
Here's another thing Wikipedia uses, because they show information in no time. Want to know a Hero's BAT? Just check the infobox. Want to see who owns your favorite competitive team? Just check the infobox. If you have a navbox somewhere on your page, you should probably have an infobox somewhere on your page. Also like navboxes you should figure out how to use these before you do.

Pros: Cons:
 * Displays information about a thing that can be categorized in a small space
 * They draw the eye to the side of the page, which in turn causes people to read things
 * You can overuse them
 * They can get very expensive if you're lazy (and boy howdy are we)
 * It's hard to find a middle ground between too much infomation and too little information
 * We have so many different styles of infoboxes

Examples:
 * Anti-Mage
 * The International
 * Natus Vincere