Help:Starting with infoboxes

An infobox is a wiki element showing a photo and facts at the top of many pages. They are the first thing your readers are likely to see when they start reading an article on your wiki.

Your new wiki contains all you need to add a basic infobox to your pages. But there is a lot more you can do with them! See Help:Infobox for advanced help.

Start by finding your infobox
No matter which editor you use, you have to start by knowing the name of the infobox, exactly. Template names are case-sensitive so Template:Infobox character is not the same as Template:Infobox cHarActEr.

New wikis are created with a number of ready-to-use infoboxes, you can find them in Category:Templates on your wiki.

When adding an infobox, your first goal is just to find the infobox that best matches your page's subject matter. So, for example, if you are adding an infobox about a character, you would use Template:Infobox character.

Source
When first starting out with an infobox, it's a great idea to use a source editor. Even if you don't normally use it, putting the infobox on the page with a source editor helps you get the basic box exactly right.

And it's easy, too!

Just go to the template and copy everything in the grey box below "Syntax". Paste that on to the edit page. Then you can fill in the lines that you want, leaving the others blank. That will help others to add new information to the box later.

When you've filled out the infobox, just hit the publish button!

VisualEditor
After you've put the infobox on the page for the first time with source mode, you may find it more convenient to edit it with the VisualEditor.

To do this, click to edit the page, then click on the infobox. This will bring up a small box that includes the name of the infobox. Click on this box, and you'll get a list of the possible variables you can fill out for the infobox.

Edit these variables, then hit Apply changes. This will take you back to the main editing window, where you'll click on Save page, enter an edit summary, and again press Save page.

Breaking an infobox
Because infoboxes are templates, the most common way to "break" them is to disobey the most basic rule of templates: they must start with two curly braces  and they must end with two curly braces. If they don't, it'll obviously look like something is wrong.

It's easy to see (and fix!) the problem, but the fix — adding back the curly braces — must be done in source mode.

Tips

 * You don't have to fill out every line in an infobox. Infoboxes are typically created with more possible options than the creator actually expected you to use on any one page. Typically, if an infobox parameter does not have a value assigned, it will not show up in the infobox as an empty field—it just won't show up at all. Likewise, if you don't specify an image file name for the image field, no placeholder will appear—it will just be a title and the rest of the data.
 * Responses like "none" or "n/a" aren't generally helpful, but will cause the field to appear in the infobox. If this is not desired, just leave it blank.
 * For legibility in source mode, it's good to keep the template with one line for each variable.
 * Sometimes, local admins get busy and don't write up proper documentation for all their infoboxes. So there may be no code to copy on a template page. Consider creating it — or reaching out to an admin to ask them to help! It'll do a lot of good in the long run!
 * Most infoboxes automatically show a title. To see if yours does, leave the   or   variable blank and see what happens!

Further help and feedback
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