User blog:Iopl3887/Tips on a good homepage.

OK, you may be wondering "How do I make people want to come to my wiki?". Well you may want to try to add templates to make it look good, maybe make a "Page of the month" or "Featured article" template. Or you could add a main character template, or a slider. Also maybe add some color. If it is a wiki like Halo or Assassin's Creed wiki you will probably want to make it like Navy blue or Grey. If it is a wiki for cars / houses / living, maybe make it a white, or red (but not a very bright red, maybe a little dark so that the reader's eyes don't get hurt) and also blue.

Fonts.
If you are making a homepage and want to introduce people, put a heading or text on the top beginning that says "Hello" Or "Welcome to my wiki" etc. You may want to use a color that stands out. . Maybe if the background is red make the font light blue, if the background is yellow , make the font red , etc. And if it is a wiki like Call of Duty wiki or Mass Effect wiki, make the font a bold font, or a 3D font.

Images.
If you add images, try to put them to the right so that it isn't in the way of the words. If you want to split the page with an image, add the correct HTML   and add it between the top and bottom part of what you want to split. If you want it to the right, enter   and add it wherever you want. If you want the image, but don't want it to say "Added by ExampleUser" you could just enter  .

CSS
If you want to add a color to text, simply add the correct HTML   or if you want to add a blinking text, enter the HTML  BlinkingText .

Templates
If you want to add a main character template (as I said above) it is best to do a small image width. I think it is best to do a small image width because it fits and it doesn't clog up the homepage, 134px is fine if you want to put the template on the right. ''' {| border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" class="article-table article-table-selected" style="float: left; width: 500px;" ! scope="col"| ''' This is a good example of how to do it.

Portals
Portals make it easy for people to navigate through your wiki. You could make portals with images, without images, with fonts etc. But first is the basics, to make nice portals, keep the images the correct size, you want the to be an appropriate size because if they are big, they cover up the whole screen. You may also only want to put 4 portals onto a template, like what I did with my template.

The code for it is simple if you think of it. The code I used for mine was ''' {| class="va-portal-buttons" cellspacing="3" cellpadding="0" style="text-align:center;" Future releases. Planes diecast. Our forum. Our live chat.
 * Cat_palace_car.png
 * Cat_palace_car.png
 * Cat_tuners_car.png
 * Cat_lemons_car.png
 * Kit_revster.png

Main characters
I organized the three main characters on my topic using centering. This is my template http://carstoys.wikia.com/wiki/Template:Improved. I made a simple HTML code and I centered it, and put the image next to it. '''.

Characters


= Main characters =

Lightning McQueen

Mater

Sally '''

Buttons
If you want to make an image link to something, you could use a code. The code is quite simple. I used an image called "File:MSGWall.png" and linked it to my Message Wall, this is the code I used  .

Wikia Wordmark
Click this and then click the "Wordmark" tab.

I used this to create my wordmark http://www.favicon.cc/. After you're done, upload your favicon (must be saved as "Example.ico") and click "Save, I'm done".

Sliders
Adding sliders to you're homepage can make it look flashy. As sliders look like thay may be hard, they are actually quite simple. You have a slider tool on the right in the menu in the editor. But you can also make them using text. The code can be like this for 3 slides