MarioWiki:Navigation templates
MarioWiki:Navigation Templates is a guide to correctly making navigation templates. Navigation templates are a variety of templates designed specifically for navigating from one article to another. Similar to how a category should be used, navigation templates must link related articles. As such, articles that have nothing in common should not be linked. (An example would be creating a navigation template pertaining to Luigi's Mansion and including a link to Bowser Jr. within it. Because Bowser Jr. does not appear in Luigi's Mansion, he does not belong in a template dedicated solely to that game.)
Guidelines
Navigation templates, when created, should follow the following guidelines.
1) All navigation templates should be completely collapsible. This means all the way down to one row. Then, said templates should be reorganized in an easy to navigate manner, be it by alphabetizing it's contents, or by grouping them together in another fashion (see guideline 2) and alphabetizing them further. By doing so, navigation templates take up exactly the same amount of space, but can be enlarged with the click of a button to find exactly what you're looking for. Though this can slow down some computers considerably, a way around that is to conceal navigation templates on articles with many of them. Furthermore, should an article have a large number of navigation templates, (such as Mario, Bowser, and Princess Peach), the entire bottom of the article, which contains said navigation templates, should also be collapsed. This way, with the click of a button, all navigation templates on the article will be displayed.
2) All navigation templates should refer only to any one of the following:
- Game-specific templates — when making a template based on one game, you should break it down into four main sections: Locations, Items, Enemies, and Bosses. Other sections can be added if necessary. (Examples are {{SM64}}, {{SMB2}}, and {{Super Mario Bros.}}.)
- Series-specific templates — this should mainly be used to target an entire series of games with one common feature. This one feature would be broken down into its appearance within each game in the series. (Examples are {{Racecourses}}, {{MP}}, and {{Boss}}.)
- Species-specific templates — this should only be used with enemies with a large amount of species. If there are characters based on said species, they should also be implemented into the template under a "characters" section. (Examples are {{Goomba}}, {{Hammer Bros.}}, and {{Spinies}}.)
- Item/Object-specific templates — this should only be used in order to group items or objects of similarity with a large number of entries into one template. This would also refer to terms and such found throughout games. (An example is {{Mushrooms}}.)
- Character-specific templates — this would refer to a series of characters that have a solid link proven between them. (Examples are {{Star Spirits}} and {{Flipperfloppers}}.)
3) On an article, navigation templates should be arranged in a pyramid fashion. As such, the navigation template that is smallest in width would be the first navigation template in the article. The widest ones would be placed at the bottom.
4) In a template, the sections provided should be placed in a pyramid fashion as well. As such, a template section with only one line should be placed at the top. A section with two lines would go beneath that, three lines beneath that and so forth.
5) Navigation templates should be aesthetically pleasing. Colors that are extremely vibrant or garish should be changed to colors that are more subtle. Furthermore, when creating a navigation template, it is advisable to make the colors complement each other.
6) Categories, templates, help pages, user pages, talk pages, and PipeProject pages should not contain a navigation template. Should these namespaces contain a navigation template, said template will be deleted.
Should a navigation template not follow these guidelines, it will be subject for redesign or deletion. (Please note that any template can be edited at any time, but only if it improves the navigation templates' design and features.)
