User:Chao

I'm gonna use this page as a scratchpad for what I'm gonna call the Easy Gallery Project, a project that aims to make Galleries on this wiki easy to use, maintain, and update through the use of templates and DPL (the DynamicPageList extension).

Progress

IN PROGRESS, still untested

Notes to Self

List of handy DPL references:

Is DPL really the right choice?

It could slow the wiki down.
- (supposedly - test this to see if the slowdown is acceptable)
- allowing DPL to cache results also greatly speeds up load times, especially if the content is largely static (unchanging), which it should be.
It greatly reduces maintenance work.
It simplifies modification work.

What if someone wants to:

add a category for files (ie for BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle or Artbook scans).
add a corresponding subcategory on all gallery pages.
rearrange the gallery
change how many items per row are shown in the galleries
change a specific gallery's number of items per row
sort the gallery differently (ie by timestamp, alphabetical order, reverse alphabetical, etc)

How much maintenance is needed?

How hard is it to add the code that's needed for a suggested change?

Note: I believe it's good wikimedia practice to use only ==H2== and beyond (in essence, to avoid using =H1=)

Other things to look into later:

CategoryTree extension
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Category

Template:Gallery Page

Idea: automatically check if each gallery is empty or not & if empty, skip the header.

ie for Bullet, skip XBlaze Code:Embryo under Story since she doesn't have any pictures in that category.
how to do this across all categories on a Gallery Page without making the template impossible to read?
how do you do this with DPL? -> you don't. Count them with {{#ask}} GO TEST THIS
- {{#ask: [[Category:{{{1}}}]] | format = count}} returns a number that I can use?

would an if statement like this work?? (this is pseudocode)
{{#if: get page count | do nothing | else show header and query DPL for the gallery }}

Usage

{{Gallery Page | Character}}

Simple, I like it!
Abstracts the purpose of the page - hides how things are done.
- The Fix: add DOCUMENTATION that's EASILY ACCESSIBLE on both Template:Gallery Page and on Template:Gallery_By_Category
- (easily noticeable link(s) to "HOW TO USE THIS GALLERY" or "HOW TO ADD A CATEGORY" on the page or something)

Template

<includeonly>
{{TOC}}

{{#if: page count of {{{1}}} and Main Artwork = 0 | /*do nothing*/ | /*else*/
==Main Artwork==
{{Gallery By Category|{{{1}}}|Main Artwork}}
}}

==Sprites==
===Battle===
===Palette References===
===Lobby Avatar===

==Character Crest==

==Arcade==
("Arcade Endings" on Noel's page)
===Calamity Trigger===
===Continuum Shift===
===Chrono Phantasma===
===Central Fiction===

==Story==
===Portraits===
===Calamity Trigger===
===Continuum Shift===
===Chrono Phantasma===
===Central Fiction===
===Clone Phantasma===
===XBlaze Code: Embryo===
===XBlaze Lost: Memories===

==Novels==
===BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger — Part 1===
===BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger — Part 2===
===BlazBlue: Continuum Shift — Part 1===
===BlazBlue: Continuum Shift — Part 2===

==Artwork==
===Promotional===
===Birthday===
===Special===
===Chibi===
===Unlimited VS===
===Wallpapers===
===Stickers===

==Production Art==
===Model Sheets===
===Early Designs===
===Storyboards===
</includeonly>

Template:Gallery By Category

Usage

{{Gallery | Cat1 | Cat2 }}

Example:

{{Gallery | Touya Kagari | Early Designs }}

Template

{{#tag:DynamicPageList|
category = {{{1}}}
category = {{{2}}}
namespace = file
ordermethod = sortkey
order = ascending
galleryshowfilename=no
imagesperrow=7
gallerycaption=No caption
mode=gallery
}}