Forum:Need help with layout

Hello again, I have a new idea for my layout, but I have no idea how to do it. I wanna change a box on my main page. To make my question more clear I've created and uploaded a picture of how I want it (I hope uploading this pic is ok?).

Could you please compare the current box and the box on the picture and tell me how I can make it look like on the picture?



As you can see, every header has 4 rows. 3 rows containing articles I picked to be listed and a 4th row which automatically shows the latest articles in that category. Is this possible to make? If yes, how? -- Zantam03 21:30, February 28, 2010 (UTC)

Changed my mind a little, instead of four vertical rows I think it's better to have just three. -- Zantam03 09:49, March 1, 2010 (UTC)


 * I quickly coded that table for you (in the 4 column style, I can easily reduce it to 3 if you want) and put it at the bottom of your front page, using the stock colors "Gray" and "Silver" for the table headers. I basically coded up 1 large table that takes up 100% of the page width with 4 columns which take 25% of the page width each, one of them being a seperate mini-table for the New Articles.


 * Each category (Wei, Wu, Shu, Other) makes up 1 of the table's 4 rows, more can be added easily by just copying the according part of the row code again as I did at the end. All links are included as you planned, feel free to change them however you want, should be pretty easy to do. Maybe the code looks a bit weird and spaced out, but I simply took code from my own wiki, which is more optimized to the minimum code necessary and I generally prefer to space code out much more than most people do, to make it more readable.


 * The only thing I didn't manage to do was the automatical updating of the "New Articles", since I wouldn't know of a template or magic word for that function. Maybe a magic word or a special script for that exists already on some wiki (which is rather doubtable though), but I simply wouldn't know of any easy way to implement that, so you'd have to do it by hand for now or something...


 *  ( C rynsos Talk 14:26, March 2, 2010 (UTC)


 * What about the Special:NewPages RSS feed? 14:41, March 2, 2010 (UTC)


 * Doubt that would work, since from how I see it, he wants dynamic in-page updates of new pages within each of the according categories listed in the table... I see no way how that special page would be able to do that.  ( C rynsos Talk 16:01, March 2, 2010 (UTC)

Thanks a lot Crynsos! The table looks very good! I don't know what I'll be doing with the tables on the right yet.. I'll think about that. I actually like it that it's so spaced out, it's more readable and easier for me to understand. I'll have a closer look at it tomorrow because it's getting a bit late here, but thanks ;-) -- Zantam03 22:17, March 2, 2010 (UTC)


 * Actually, Ose refers to something that is perfectly doable. Special:Newpages has an RSS feed that can be embedded elsewhere on the wiki with tags - help page for this is here. Wjxhuang,  the 888th Avatar  {Talk} 05:43, March 3, 2010 (UTC)


 * Yeah, that clears it up and seems rather well-working now. But I don't see a way to filter it by articles added into a certain category, so I guess it has to stay how it is for now. (Displaying the 3 latest article edits in the (Main) namespace.)  ( C rynsos Talk 13:14, March 3, 2010 (UTC)

I think I'll just remove the box on the right if it can't automatically show the latest articles in that category. btw.. I tried to replace the old table with the new one, but it won't let itself be placed next to the battles table... how come?

btw, is it also possible to use vertical rows without using a table? -- Zantam03 21:35, March 3, 2010 (UTC)

Anyone? I wanna replace my old Characters Table with Crynsos' one, but everytime I do it the page looks weird (other tables become part of the characters table, or the character won't let itself be placed among the other tables). -- Zantam03 14:21, March 6, 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, I made my table so its the only table within 100% pagewidth, so it won't easily work along your tables, which are after all not 4 seperate tables but 2 tables above and below each other with 2 large columns each, meaning you would have to replace the one column you want to change with the according code of my table instead.


 * But since your table coding has a lot of unnecessary details in there, I guess its better to rewrite the two large tables fully with my codebase instead of mixing the two different table styles into each other. If I'll have time tomorrow, I can probably help with that.


 * About "vertical rows" (actually called columns), you can easily make them like shown below. Tables are only for decoration (borders) in this case and to provide a styled header and list name. Using "#" or "*" is fully optional as well.

4 5 6 7 8 9
 * width="33%" valign="top" |
 * 1
 * 2
 * 3
 * width="33%" valign="top" |
 * width="34%" valign="top" |


 * Result

7 8 9
 * width="33%" valign="top" |
 * 1
 * 2
 * 3
 * width="33%" valign="top" |
 * 4
 * 5
 * 6
 * width="34%" valign="top" |

 ( C rynsos Talk 19:30, March 7, 2010 (UTC)


 * I tried to make something like you example picture, but you have the other tables on your main page that won't fit right if you make the characters table like your example. I would think of a narrower layout for the characters table to integrate with the others. -- Fandyllic  (talk &middot; contr) 8:00 PM PST 7 Mar 2010

Ok thanks, yea I just copied/pasted the tables from another wiki and editted them a bit, because I had no idea how to make my own tables... I'd like to know how to make my own tables though and to integrate yours properly

btw, thanks for the collumn example, I tried it on the Battles table and it worked :-) There's one thing that didn't work though... I wanted to place the two headers in the Battles section next to each other and not below each other... In source mode I tried to place a header above the second column, but that didn't work... what do I need to do? -- Zantam03 08:13, March 8, 2010 (UTC)


 * You can learn how to make and change tables on wikis at Help:Tables. A header in a table like this is really just another row, as you'll find. The 888th Avatar   (talk)  09:47, March 8, 2010 (UTC)

Well I've been experimenting a bit more and tried using that Help page, but there's something I can't seem to solve. Please have a look at the Main Page and check the Battle table.

1) I wanna center the text in the headers, but in the left header it doesn't work and the word center doesn't go away...

2) The articles in the right header appear far below the header and I don't know how to change it so that they're placed right below it.

How can I change those things? -- Zantam03 13:31, March 9, 2010 (UTC)


 * I fixed it. When you want to center stuff in a table cell, use . Also, a "*" can't immediately follow a   (vertical bar) and you started a new row before the next battle column when it should have just been a new cell. A 2 column table should go: start row, header, header, start row, cell, cell, etc. --  Fandyllic  (talk &middot; contr) 4:42 AM PST 10 Mar 2010

thanks :-) -- Zantam03 10:18, March 10, 2010 (UTC)