Template talk:Spell

New Version

This template has been updated, and here is an overview of the changes:

• Removed notes field so the Notes section may be more easily changed and expanded by future editors.
• Added graphics to indicate held mana, targetted, and scroll spells, and automatically add to those categories as appropriate. See note below.
• Added capability to designate a spell as planned.
• Added title bar and a few other minor text improvements.
• GuildThumbs have been added with an eye towards a guild-level spell navbox that will take its place once it's finished.

The old version of the template has been moved here: Template:Spell/old.

--Farman 22:45, 5 May 2007 (CDT)

Better Held, Target, and Scroll graphics needed

The current graphics used are wanting since they include that ugly beige background color. A graphically gifted person is needed to make something nice with an alpha background to take their place.

--Farman 22:51, 5 May 2007 (CDT)

Planned Spells

Actually, my thoughts on the planned spells is to have them ONLY in the planned category. The same goes for planned enchantes and any other planned ability. It is misleading to look at a guild's spells category and see all the planned spells there. What I was going to ask Callek about was a way to ignore all of the regular spell categories if a spell is indeed planned and not released yet. Also if a spell is marked "planned" we'll need to put a notice on there (I saw you made a template of something of the sort, Farman) saying it was indeed planned and not yet live.

In summary, I vote that planned spells/enchantes/abilities only be in one category (Planned Spells/Enchantes/Abilities) The info pages can still contain the proper information (magic type, guild, spelltype, etc) but it won't show up in those categories until it is released.

Thoughts?

--Naeya ^(talk) 16:41, 6 May 2007 (CDT)

The way I have it now includes that template for all spells that have the planned parameter set to yes, and puts them in the planned spells category. It's pretty straightforward to do what you describe regarding other categories (just wrap the pertinent category-setting sections in another #ifeq), and I think I agree on that point. I think I'll wait a day or two to see if anyone else has an opinion then go ahead and make it so. I'm currently in the process of updating each spell article to match the new template. --Farman 20:23, 6 May 2007 (CDT)

I'd actually like to go one step further with it, Planned Spells as the main category, but perhaps sub-categories akin to the current category stuff "Planned WM Spells", "Planned Earth Manipulation Spells" or whatever, have the PLANNED spells not be in the real categories as Naeya envisions, but *allow* the further fine-graining if desired. (We can even then have the "Planned Empath Spells" for example, a subcategory of "Empath Spells" but not putting the spells themselves in the "Empath Spells" category), thus there will be multiple ways to navigate the spell list. --Callek 22:51, 6 May 2007 (CDT)

I was thinking exactly the same thing, Callek, although I would stop at 'planned guild spell' categories and not get into spellbooks or any other criteria. For one, that info is unknown for many planned spells, and secondly, there are so few planned spells that some of those categories would be empty or only have one member. I have a clear plan of how to go about putting all this in the template so heck with the wait time, I'm going to roll it in tonight or tomorrow ;) If anyone objects then they'll surely add a comment here or in the category talks. --Farman 23:57, 6 May 2007 (CDT)

It took a bit more futzing around with syntax than I expected but the change is in. Check out the history comparison if you're amused by finicky little bugs :P As of this writing, I haven't finished emending the spell articles to use the new features of the new template yet, so not all the planned spells will show up until that is completed (within a day or two). --Farman 01:02, 7 May 2007 (CDT)

Redundancy in Spellbook Categories and Magic Type Categories

Previously each spell was added to the magic type (Lunar, Life, Holy, etc) category and its spellbook category. Spellbook cats are all subcategories of their magic type cat already, and I don't think the spell articles need to be doubled up like that. I'm changing the template to no longer add spells to the magic type category. --Farman 22:28, 9 May 2007 (CDT)

For some reason removing that from the template has not prevented spell articles from being added to the magic type categories, even though that parameter is now completely unused in the template. Individual spell articles don't show the membership link to the magic type categories either. Anyone know why that's happening? --Farman 22:36, 9 May 2007 (CDT)

Never mind, seems it takes a few minutes for a change like that to propagate to the category listings. --Farman 22:58, 9 May 2007 (CDT)

The reason it did that, is that once a template is changed the pages that use it are added to a list of "pages we must update", now this update can be run two ways, only one of them I know for a fact is run here, so I'll talk about that one. The update runs on EVERY page view, and only a few articles at a time, I think its something like 5 or 10 articles here, but I can't recall for sure. And because its hard to know FOR SURE that you are completely removing a page from those magic categories, until the page itself is updated, it won't leave the category listing until the updates complete, unfortunately for Spell template (and earlier the title temple) this takes a while. Which is why for any (important) updates to these templates, its really good to be sure the "job queue" as it is called, is run to 0. --Callek 00:33, 10 May 2007 (CDT)

You're talking about automated tasks that the server performs, right? I sure as heck hope you don't have to do that manually :P --Farman 14:54, 10 May 2007 (CDT)

Arcane vs Sorcery

I know we've got an "Arcane" category already, but would it be beneficial to add a "Sorcery" category to the template as well? It'd basically be everything in Arcane BUT the Analogous Patterns Spellbook. It came to mind when I noticed a red link for Sorcery, and I thought it might be nice to see the illegal spells at a glance. --Ogoh 18:32, 21 February 2008 (CST)

The template doesn't recognize specific spell categories in the way I think you mean. You can enter any value in the template for the "spelltype" field and it will put the spell article in that category eg. spelltype|XYZ will put [[Category:XYZ Spells]] in the article. But if the spell needs more than one category tag, you have to add them manually to the spell article. I chose that way instead of puffing it up with even more parameters (spelltype1, spelltype2, spelltype3, etc.) since there are already enough parameters as it is. And as a separate issue, the way spells are organized currently, I think the spellbooks would be in the sorcery category, not the individual spells. --Farman 21:21, 21 February 2008 (CST)

Guildleader Comments?

I'm curious as to why this field was needed. I'm only aware of one or two spells which have actual guildleader comments. Otherwise, I don't think Kssarh's insults would be relevant. --Aetherie 03:49, 20 April 2008 (CDT)

Yeah this was added recently but that info is completely covered in the desc and prereqs fields, so it's redundant. I'll remove it and try and work through the list of spells that had the field added (found by searching for "glcomment" --Farman 09:53, 10 May 2008 (CDT)

If anyone thinks it's worth showing how the various guildleaders have different comments, that info is best placed below the box in a separate article section anyway. --Farman 09:59, 10 May 2008 (CDT)

Analogous Patterns

I've also updated the code that inserts {{Incomplete}} to ignore the guild field for analogous patterns spells. --Farman 14:12, 10 May 2008 (CDT)

Updates

I just added some additional functionality. 1) There are now 3 recognized spell type fields, since a spell can be both area effect, versus agility and offensive, for example. 2) I've also had it add all spells to the Category:Spells so I can use the semantic wiki "has default form" to force it to default to edit by form. 3) There is now a form for spells, Form:Spell. -Caraamon Strugr-Makdasi^(talk) 02:51, 7 July 2008 (CDT)

The template seems to be semi broken. This is showing up on all pages {{#ifeq:paladin|bard| Could you take a look, Caraamon?--Naeya ^(talk) 13:41, 12 July 2008 (CDT)