Forum:Transferring a template from Wikipedia

I'm trying to copy the Infobox Book template from Wikipedia to my wiki here. I'm aware that I have to copy over any of the sub-templates, but I think what's tripping me up is the part that says

span class="Z3988" ...

I'm still learning about templates, and I just don't know what to do with that. Here is an example of what the broken template looks like right now.

Thanks for any help! Katya0133 18:34, November 10, 2009 (UTC)
 * Here is a link to infobox template for Wikia. If you need to have any extensions enabled please contact us at Special:Contact Sarah (talk 01:51, November 11, 2009 (UTC)


 * Wikia's default Infobox template and Wikipedia's Infobox template are kind of incompatible. Wikia's infobox has "Row # title" and "Row # info" parameters instead of "label#" and "data#", respectively, along with a few other name changes, and Wikia's default infobox only supports 10 rows. --Yoshord 04:43, November 14, 2009 (UTC)


 * So write a templace called Infobox_Book that is just a wrapper around Infobox. Your _book one can take what ever parameters you want it to, and it'll just pass them to the non-specific Infobox. As for the 10 thing... so add more? No one says you cant modify the one on your wiki to add as many as you want, we just found that 10 was a nice high number that suited most people's needs. --Uberfuzzy 03:26, November 22, 2009 (UTC)

Same problem
It was recently that I found out about Gaiapedia's Info Box (it was very hidden), but now that I have it, I can't seem to edit it (expand on it) so I can use it for all characters. Here is what it looks like w:c:gaia:Template:Infobox_Bio. When I followed the same edits that were on the template, I couldn't get it to work beyond what is already there. Bunai82 02:51, November 11, 2009 (UTC)


 * What are you trying to do and where? --Yoshord 04:43, November 14, 2009 (UTC)


 * I am trying to create a character info template, to use for the characters from Gaia Online. So while I have a mental set up of what I want to put. I haven't been able to figure out how to edit it and make it display. Bunai82 00:33, November 16, 2009 (UTC)


 * So you are trying to expand the page that already exists, not transfer it someplace else.
 * I noticed that you never saved the page. What MediaWiki/Wikia does, when editing a template, is that it loads a cached version of template should the page call itself. The page used &lt;noinclude&gt; tags around the actual template, meaning it would not show what was in the edit box, but then called itself so it would show the cached version. This combined means that a template page being edited would not show any changes while being edited. Saving the page would cause the page to update to the changes, though. If it helps, because you like previewing and such, as you should, I've removed the &lt;noinclude&gt; tags from that page so that the previewed version of the page shows edits. Partially. The top infobox would show changes, as that's the code being changed, but the bottom one, which shows the cached version, would not change until the page is saved.
 * Anyway, tl;dr, you should be able to see changes to the template when editing now. --Yoshord 00:50, November 18, 2009 (UTC)


 * Thank you, I will test it out. And like I put before, I didn't even realize it was there till a few weeks ago ^_^;; I am VERY new to Wikia when it comes to editing and coding, I am gradually learning, so it is likely that I will ask more questions...but I don't want to bother people. Bunai82 20:33, November 19, 2009 (UTC)

New Question on Template
Hi again and thanks again to Yoshord. I managed to edit the information how I wanted (sloppy editing skills), I am back to try and make it more completed.

So my question is, is there something I need to do in order to make the Bio infobox be surrounded by a rectangular border? Without using the actual Border code?

This is my current info box w:c:gaia:Template:Infobox_Bio, I would like it to appear something like this for example(s): w:c:avatar:Gansu or w:c:naruto:Hayase and w:c:phineasandferb:Dr._Hirano. You see how there are boxes surrounding the whole Bio, and the lines are neat and small? Included are color titles for the next section.

My second question is, how is it that even though I left two places blank, when saved they are included in the Bio. When the Template page stated that anything left blank would not show up. Bunai82 01:45, November 22, 2009 (UTC)


 * For the first question: adding 'style="border:1px solid [color]"' to any row (|-) or the table itself ({|) will add a border around it. example:  would give the table a red border.
 * The second question involves if which applying to tables is fairly annoying... Put very simply and very specific to your purpose, changing  to   would make the parameter associated with the row optional. --Yoshord 00:26, November 23, 2009 (UTC)


 * *yawns* After hours of trying to figure out how to place that code to make things blank, I kind of gave up. I will likely be creating two Info Bio pages... (is that possible?) so I can use one of each for different characters. The border code did work, so thanks for that. -- I am still going to figure out a way to make things smooth, so far the box looks how I want it...minus one thing. But anyway Happy Thanksgiving and all. Bunai82 07:37, November 25, 2009 (UTC)