Forum:New Character Template!

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Hello everyone! I'm new here and a newbie in the whole of Ace Attorney's world. With a warm welcome, I wanted to create this forum for a special motive, which could improve this wiki.

Q. What is this forum about?

As the name suggests, it's about a new, better character template. The current one needs some edition, or it needs to be replaced (personal opinion).

Q. Why am I even doing this?

I, after looking at the character template in Phoenix's page, thought of re-constructing it. I don't know if this violates this wiki's rules or something, but I had an urge to make that template. I know this will be hard, as I realize the amount of energy spent on the current character template, it's a lot. Each row uses a template (templates within template), which is indeed a very tiring and time-consuming work. But the new template has ONLY one table which is a whole template itself.

Q. What is a template?

(Just for those who don't know) It's a special, wiki page that allows users to input the same thing in infinite articles, if that "thing" needs to be on those infinite articles. It's basically a copy-paste material which allows anyone to input the value in articles present inside it.

Q. What's the main idea?

Well, the main idea is to edit the current character template (to make to it look completely different and better) or to replace it with a somewhat same type of template.

Q. Is it really needed?

Well, in my opinion, yes. It is needed. "We need to change ourselves for progress." The template needs to be changed, especially the Alias and Temporary Nicknames section. They really worsen the condition of the template (at least in this page).

Q. But if we replace the template, every article will need them to be replaced. Wouldn't that be a tedious work?

Actually, no. If same parameters are used for the template, no work would be needed to done at all. It will just be "transformed", nothing else.

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Basic Idea of the New Character Template

As already said, the new template uses ONE table (built on wiki-text), with proper columns and rows. The new template does NOT contains parser functions as of now, but it will when it will be (ever) accepted. More functions will be added as per the wiki needs.

Now, without further ado, if you seem interested in this, then why not looking at the template yourself? Follow the link given below and vote in the poll following the link.

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Link to the New Character Template : New Character Template
Link to the Current Character Template : Current Character Template

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Poll

Other reviews, feedbacks and opinions are also of great importance. Feel free to post your review, feedback, opinion, complaint etc. below.

Sincerely, Phoenix Wright or Wrong? 15:14, May 23, 2013 (UTC)

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And a warm welcome to you as well! You say that you're "a newbie in the whole of Ace Attorney's world"? Surely, for a spoiler-packed wiki about a plot-driven video game series, immediately editing here is either very brave or very foolhardy? :S But each to their own I suppose!

As for the template itself, I think that an update would be great and yours is a good start. If I could make a few suggestions they would be:

• Make the colours closer to those used for character profiles in the court record in the games.
• Make section titles consistent by making them start with a capital letter then making the rest lower case (e.g. "Eye color" rather than "Eye Color").
• Make sections collapsable if possible (the alias/nicknames in particular really could do with this).
• Why is "Debut episode" in twice?
• Change "Dub names" to "Localization names" (dub would really be more replacement voices rather than replacement text).
• Keep "Alias" as "Alias/nicknames".
• Change "Temporary nicknames" to "Temporary names".
• Maybe put the nicknames under a section called "Also known as" or something along those lines?
• Move "Age at debut" to "Biological information".
• Move "Other information" down to the bottom and put "Debut episode" and "Character theme track" under it.
• Put "Occupation" back in (not really sure where though).
• Change the current "Other information" to something like "Associated individuals"
• Part of me wants to change "Character theme track" to "Leitmotif", but that may be going a bit far and is a little bit personal preference...
• Keep the biological information order as it is in the current template (Age, Eye color, Height, Hair color, Born, Died).

That's all I can think of at the moment! - Strabo412 (talk) 16:52, May 23, 2013 (UTC)

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REPLY

I appreciate that you think my template is great and as for the suggestions, I'll try to implement them on the current template in my sandbox.

Phoenix Wright or Wrong? 09:58, May 24, 2013 (UTC)

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Hi. Sorry for not responding to your messages. I've been trying to formulate a response, and this post you've made has clarified and changed some things. I'd just like to say that the fragmented "InfoBox" pardigm was adopted for its simplicity, flexibility and consistency. It's simple because a similar template, if one were needed (and it has been needed at times), could just use the meta-templates without constructing a table from scratch every time. It's flexible because all the material for sections and table rows are there, and one can mix them together according to what's needed. It also promotes a consistent look across every template that uses it. For example, Template:Investigation uses the InfoBox templates. There are templates on this wiki that don't use the InfoBox templates, and I guess there isn't a terribly good reason for that, other than that they're older templates from before the implementation of the InfoBox templates. At any rate, this is basically what programmers might call the "divide and conquer" strategy, and it's something that I appreciate more than I did before, now that I've done some programming. Each template solves a specific problem so that we're not repeating the same problems every time a new template is needed.

So right now I'm looking at this as a discussion on changing and improving the look and organization of the InfoBox templates. In that regard, you have a good point about the nicknames. They can get really bloated, though a lot of that is because so little justification is required to put something in there. It's been brought up before, and my lack of enthusiasm for the nickname sections overall was probably a significant part in my not really trying to address it in the past. This section could probably be solved by making another meta-template to handle Template:InfoBox head and Template:InfoBox row, and having a parameter to make it hidden. I'm not sure on the organization of the tables, though I kind of think the current organization is mostly fine. As for the look itself, I don't really have an opinion on having your box-within-box or the current left-box-right-box. I like that it has the curved corners, something that was supposed to happen with the existing InfoBoxes but browsers stopped doing them for some reason.

capefeather (talk) 23:28, May 23, 2013 (UTC)

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REPLY

Well, I can try to improve the InfoBox templates if you want, but as of my point of view, tables are better than these flexible templates. Why? Because they create only ONE table, but those InfoBoxes are simply "rows" (and even "heads") from a table, and even if we put them accordingly in the character template, they'll form ONE template only. And in my opinion (I don't know if my opinion really matters here), ONE table is more than enough for a template. About the collapsible part, I can help with it, but I think I'll need help with edition of the wiki's CSS (could be done by an admin only). I'll try to do as much as possible without the edition of it, so, where should I make it on? Here? Is it a proper name for the collapsible row? About the curved corner thing, it will appear as of only in Mozilla Firefox, because of the present wikitext in the InfoBox template.

Phoenix Wright or Wrong? 09:58, May 24, 2013 (UTC)

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I'm not sure of what you mean by creating only one table. The InfoBox meta-templates are used in multiple table templates, each of which has slightly different needs in terms of the arrangement of rows and subheaders. I used to keep breaking templates even though I was solving slight variations of the same problem. Template:Place in particular presented issues that I couldn't solve in a sane way without outsourcing them to meta-templates. By having row and header units already in place, if the wiki ever needs another similar table template, I don't need to worry about all that at all anymore, and neither does anybody else. At any rate, I think the best idea is to wait and see what people think about the actual look of the template(s). Although not many people tend to pay attention to these things, I still like to hold out hope. capefeather (talk) 18:05, May 25, 2013 (UTC)

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REPLY

Just as a brief note, Capefeather, all templates in this wiki (be it character or place) are made up of ONLY one table. I know it's hard to believe, as you say they are "Meta-template TABLES" Nope, they're not tables. So, you must know what a template is (already told above). For an example, if there's a template like Template:Dead, and the content in it is "This character has died.", then wherever we'll put { { Dead } } (without all the spaces), the text shown will be "This character has died." So, about the InfoBoxes, they are NOT tables, they are ROWS and HEADERS of a table, and not tables themselves. They make up to create ONE table (Rows and heads make up tables, sure thing).

Phoenix Wright or Wrong? 10:33, May 27, 2013 (UTC)

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I don't see what your point is. The whole point of the InfoBox templates is that they are "building blocks" for a table. capefeather (talk) 23:54, May 27, 2013 (UTC)

Well, what I'm planning right now is to incorporate the new organization and look into the templates without having to change the parameters. I'm thinking voice actors should be added to the character template as well, so this should probably be addressed soon. Maybe it's new car smell bias, but I do prefer the look of Fubuki's table. capefeather (talk) 17:45, June 6, 2013 (UTC)

A trial run of sorts sounds like a plan. I like the more subtle colours of the new template, but I still wonder if it would be possible to make the colour scheme more like that of the court record in-game? Or would that just look awful? There are a couple of other niggling things, but they can be addressed later if the new template is implemented. - Strabo412 (talk) 18:46, June 6, 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, Capefeather. If the Voice Actor section has to be added, I can add it, but first please confirm where it has to be added. Strabo, I fail to find a similar looking color with the Court Record one from the game. Could you possibly provide it to me? If my "new work" is implemented, I would surely like to add parser functions, shall I add them? Also, I will be adding the collapsible table for the Alias and Nicknames part (or well, at least try to).

Edit : I've added the collapsible blocks, but I've stumped on CSS. Of course, I'll need an admin's help for that, to change the color of [Exapnd] and [Collapse].

Fubuki風吹

This statement is clearly contradictory!19:26/06.7.2013