Help talk:Contents

Word/Sentence Structure

I added this section to list a few guidelines regarding how wording, sentence structure, and tense should be handled. We need a uniform standard throughout and hopefully this will minimize the number of edits we will have to do. The first one that came to mind was "possessive determiners". I believe it is proper to leave these out and leaves a more professional and clean feel to the writing. Thoughts? If anybody has any more in the category they want to add...go for it. Cdrras (talk) 18:40, 15 February 2013 (MST)

I suggest a standard that the player manipulates the device and game, but it's a Blockhead that actually takes actions within the game. It's easy to write that "you" carry or craft something, but it's actually the Blockhead being controlled that does it. --McClaw (talk) 09:49, 16 February 2013 (MST)

I agree. This sort of thing would refer to writing in a third person tense rather than using second tense pronouns. Cdrras (talk)|

I'm with these guidelines emerging from the community as they are. Thank you Cdrras and McClaw for all the thought and effort you're putting into this wiki!--MintYogi (Admin) (talk) 22:02, 17 February 2013 (MST)

You're welcome! Anytime. It is great to see it coming together and even better seeing a few more users contributing. I can only do so much in the time I have, but I like to contribute where I can. Cdrras (talk) 17:27, 18 February 2013 (MST)

Why use start case?

Why does this wiki use "start case" for page titles, image captions, and section titles? It seems really odd. --Abcboy (talk) 15:16, 12 April 2013 (MDT)

Image standards

This might be a good page for specifying the preferred dimensions, formats, files sizes, and naming conventions for images. Particularly the icons, reference pics, and achievement icons. --McClaw (talk) 09:18, 11 October 2013 (MDT)

Here's my proposal: Use PNGs over JPGs in all instances. Don't just save JPGs as PNGs though, as quality has already been lost. Normal item icons should be 40x40 pixels, blocks 80x80, and all HD texture item icons 80x80. All large item icons should be 160x160 and in PNG. They should all share the same background, and if a rendered item, (bed, door) use any square photo with a solid background. All other items should just be an upscaled version (nearest neighbor) of their item slot icon with a different background. No need to upload large HD texture icons. Achievement icons should be updated as if rendered in iOS 7 on a retina device, and be uploaded at 100x100. --Abcboy (talk) 13:40, 11 October 2013 (MDT)

I'd add that animated GIF icons and images should be considered on a case-by-case basis (for such as the multiple forms of in-place stone and limestone, and the multiple materials for a pickaxe) and be of appropriate resolution. An alternate to using upscaled icons or rendered items is to capture (and edit to clarify) the image in front of a crafting surface when making that item (or in front of soil when planting), which tends to be very close to an upscaled icon anyway. HD textures could be placed in galleries, and therefore could allow in-place textures. Achievement icon resolution might depend on how large they are in a screen capture. --McClaw (talk) 13:53, 11 October 2013 (MDT)

"An alternate to using upscaled icons or rendered items is to capture (and edit to clarify) the image in front of a crafting surface when making that item (or in front of soil when planting), which tends to be very close to an upscaled icon anyway." The problem is that it tends to mess up the perspective, and an upscaled icon ends up looking exactly the same. "HD textures could be placed in galleries, and therefore could allow in-place textures." That works fine for blocks, but everything else can be added as another icon on the infobox. --Abcboy (talk) 14:19, 11 October 2013 (MDT)

Achievement icons for iOS7 seem to look better at 120x120. Do the ones I've loaded look okay? If so, I can load the others I've prepared. --McClaw (talk) 10:48, 17 October 2013 (MDT)

Sure, that's great. --Abcboy (talk) 14:36, 17 October 2013 (MDT)

Standard large item icon backgrounds

I think we need a standard background. Some are solid-color, others are gradients. --Abcboy (talk) 22:31, 18 October 2013 (MDT)

Agreed, but what? Some result from where/how the image is captured, others are the result of editing to remove surrounding clutter. --McClaw (talk) 09:31, 19 October 2013 (MDT)

Perhaps transparency, or that blue-yellow gradient that we have on most of them. --Abcboy (talk) 11:08, 19 October 2013 (MDT)

Wouldn't transparency just make for white backgrounds? For the "gradient" ones I've done, it was based on a capture of blank, bright sky. But we'll still want some exceptions for visibility or contrast. --McClaw (talk) 12:31, 19 October 2013 (MDT)

I think this should work okay with most items. --Abcboy (talk) 12:46, 19 October 2013 (MDT)

It could also serve as a depiction image for "air." --McClaw (talk) 19:00, 19 October 2013 (MDT)

Not sure if this goes here?

Hey guys, I'm kinda new to the wiki, I hope I become active here and help with it's developement, so I'll try :) I've checked this out, seems that McClaw, Abcboy, Cddrs and MintYogi are the main people here.

--Kandylolipop (talk) 19:47, 19 October 2013 (MDT)

Yeah, we're the admins. Just remember to look at how things work before you jump in. --Abcboy (talk) 20:02, 19 October 2013 (MDT)

Style guidelines

I've crossed out the rules here that appear to not be followed much. My arguments:

• Captions aren't titles. Often they are sentences, and if not, will generally look weird capitalized.
• Some pages, like weather, would have images stretching past the end of the page if all of the images are 300px wide.
• No page at the moment has an image centered on the page at the end of a paragraph illustrating a specific point from the preceding paragraph. Zero.
• Generally, as this isn't a game with a plot or any unexpected plot twists, spoilers aren't used very often. Should I put a spoiler on Cave to hide cave trolls? There are too many pages where this might be required and used in odd ways.

<spoiler>

Doesn't This Look Stupid?

</spoiler>

--Abcboy (talk) 21:07, 26 December 2013 (MST)