Forum:Game availability icons

Forums: Index > The Keeper Compound > Game availability icons

Discussion

This is the discussion space to see whether these are needed.

First issue, it requires javascript, which means it's useless to people who have it disabled.(note: nothing on this wiki currently requires java to function)

Secondly, (bluntly), it appears to be just eyecandy for 14 year olds.

Third, on another wiki that uses it Star Wars there is also an Appearances section.--Sxerks 20:07, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Its not for eye candy, but rather more importantly so you don't have to write "Appeared in T1, T2" or "Only available in T3"... you just put an "Era" template there and its done. So its really easy to know the availability / source of that object/person/place. -- Drtomjenkins 23:28, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

And 95% of the world's browsers have JavaScript in-built and enabled. See the stats., also, you mean JavaScript which executes script, not Java, which is a browser runtime which plays applets. -- Drtomjenkins 03:16, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

The point is you are still going to have to "write" the source as well as have reference marks for the material, these refs & sources many link to different places then the generic icon. This also places actual text on the page which makes it "searchable" unlike the icons. Also it's useless for blind people who use page readers :)--Sxerks

Very true. Anyways we do write the availability, because we like to comment on the availability, you know.. like "its there in T2 BUT only after this", or "its NOT there in T1 although you get it at the end. -- So really it does boil down to eye-candy, I admit! Anyways too bad for the icons! They actually might have looked nice had they been given a chance to present themselves! Haha. -- Drtomjenkins 00:13, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

One last reason we might still want it. Its a quick visual overview of the availability/appearance of anything. So even if you don't really read the list and conditions, you quickly grasp in which game you can find something. -- Drtomjenkins

Sxerks: First, JavaScript in the Thief Wiki templates isn't a big deal in itself IMO. People ought to not use IE6 anyway. Java might OTOH be a big deal, but we don't need that here. Secondly: I really like eye candy. It's sweet to the eyes. =) Thirdly: Combining The Appearances section is a good idea IMO. Fourthly, the blind Thief fans are more than welcome to register and chime in here with their opinions of the Thief Wiki pages. =D. And while you do have a point WRT the searchability, proper indexing filters should take care of it.

My vote is yes. --Larris 23:10, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

What

Introducing Game availability icons. They show availability of a certain topic within a game. (I don't know what they're formally called!) Courtesy Halopedia for the templates and icon standards.

• - Thief: The Dark Project
• - Thief Gold
• - Thief II: The Metal Age
• - Thief: Deadly Shadows

• - Featured Article

Where

Basically used to:

• Indicate what references were used to generate the article's information.
• Indicate which games did the object appear in.

You could add it to almost any page:

• city location, building
• character, creature, guard
• item, weapon, artifact

Also delete any text such as "appears in games T1/T2/T3" within the article since the icons are just for that purpose.

How

Add these images using the new syntax:

{{Era| }}

Use the below variables to add images to the top of the article.

{{Era|TDS}} - Thief: Deadly Shadows

{{Era|T2}} - Thief II: The Metal Age

{{Era|TG}} - Thief Gold

{{Era|T1}} - Thief: The Dark Project

{{Era|FA}} - Featured Article

Peace. -- Drtomjenkins 04:27, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Code

These can be added to your personal User:XXXXX/Common.css and User:XXXXX/Common.js for testing.

At the start of MediaWiki:Common.css

/**** Era Icons ****/

#title-linktabs {
  float: right;
}
.infobox div.plainlinks
{
    color: #fff;
}
/* tweaks for title-messing templates */
#title-override { left: 0px!important; font-weight: bold!important; background: #f4f8ff!important; }
#title-eraicons { display: none!important; visibility: hidden !important; }

/**** END Era Icons ****/

At the start of MediaWiki:Common.js

/* Any JavaScript here will be loaded for all users on every page load. */ 

/**** Era Icons ****/

function showEras(className)
{
   if(typeof(SKIP_ERAS) != 'undefined' && SKIP_ERAS)
       return;
   
   var titleDiv = document.getElementById(className);
   
   if(titleDiv == null || titleDiv == undefined)
       return;
   
   var cloneNode = titleDiv.cloneNode(true);
   var firstHeading = getFirstHeading();
   firstHeading.insertBefore(cloneNode, firstHeading.childNodes[0]);
   cloneNode.style.display = "block";
}
function getFirstHeading()
{
   var elements = getElementsByClass('firstHeading', document.getElementById('content'), 'h1');
   return (elements != null && elements.length > 0) ? elements[0] : null;
}
function getElementsByClass(searchClass, node, tag)
{
     var classElements = new Array();
   
     if(node == null)
           node = document;
   
     if(tag == null)
           tag = '*';
   
     var els = node.getElementsByTagName(tag);
     var elsLen = els.length;
     var tester = new ClassTester(searchClass);
   
     for(i = 0, j = 0; i < elsLen; i++)
     {
           if(tester.isMatch(els[i]))
           {
                 classElements[j] = els[i];
                 j++;
           }
     }
       
     return classElements;
}
function ClassTester(className)
{
   this.regex = new RegExp("(^|\\s)" + className + "(\\s|$)");
}
ClassTester.prototype.isMatch = function(element)
{
   return this.regex.test(element.className);
}
showEras('title-linktabs');

/**** END Era Icons ****/