Help:Tables

For a general overview of tables in wikis, see the Wikipedia entry.

Ordinary tables
For very plain tables, the following syntax can be used. The first example separates each row and cell entry with a line break:

Alternatively, cell entries can be listed on the same line.

Note that the table code always begins with  and ends with. Individual table rows are marked with  at the beginning and cells within a row all begin with , unless they are headings, in which case they begin with. This automatically signals that the text be in bold and centered.

Both the examples above result in the following, extremely plain table:



! Column name 1 ! Column name 2
 * Row 1, column 1 entry
 * Row 1, column 2 entry
 * Row 2, column 1 entry
 * Row 2, column 2 entry
 * }
 * Row 2, column 2 entry
 * }

Tables such as the one above can be difficult to read because the cells are not obviously separated.

Borders
Borders help make the tables more legible. Below is an example of a very simple way to add a border. Simply add  to the main table definition line as shown below:

To produce this:
 * {| border=1

! Column name 1 ! Column name 2
 * Row 1, column 1 entry
 * Row 1, column 2 entry
 * Row 2, column 1 entry
 * Row 2, column 2 entry
 * }
 * Row 2, column 2 entry
 * }

Borders can also be tweaked to appear in different colours, or to be thicker or thinner. For example

Yields this:
 * {| style="border-color: #050505; border-width: 1px; border-style: solid;"

! Column name 1 ! Column name 2
 * Row 1, column 1 entry
 * Row 1, column 2 entry
 * Row 2, column 1 entry
 * Row 2, column 2 entry
 * }
 * Row 2, column 2 entry
 * }

There are also some predefined classes that exist on most wikis. The following example uses the class "wikitable", which puts the table header in a contrasting color and sets the border style:

Gives:
 * {| class="wikitable"

! Column name 1 ! Column name 2
 * Row 1, column 1 entry
 * Row 1, column 2 entry
 * Row 2, column 1 entry
 * Row 2, column 2 entry
 * }
 * Row 2, column 2 entry
 * }

Sortable tables
Sortable tables are just like ordinary tables, but are given the additional class of "sortable". For example:

Gives:
 * {| class="wikitable sortable"

! Column name 1 ! Column name 2
 * Row 1, column 1 entry
 * Row 1, column 2 entry
 * Row 2, column 1 entry
 * Row 2, column 2 entry
 * }
 * Row 2, column 2 entry
 * }

Automatically generated tables
The wiki also uses the DPL extension (DynamicPageList) to automatically generate tables from pre-existing wiki pages. These are a bit more complicated to create, but not actually difficult.

category=food uses=Template:Infobox item include= {infobox item}:craftable,{infobox item}:hunger, {infobox item}:thirst, {infobox item}:consumption format={| class="wikitable sortable" style="width:70%"\n! style="text-align:center"|Name !! style="text-align:center"|Craftable !! style="text-align:center"|Hunger !! style="text-align:center"|Thirst !! style="text-align:center"|Other Effects,\n|-\n|%PAGE%,, secseparators=\n|,\n||,,\n|| ,,\n|,

This example selects all documents in the Food category, then narrows that to only documents which use the infobox item template. It further narrows the information displayed by only using the date found in the "Craftable", "Hunger", "Thirst" and "Consumption" fields. The next line of code (beginning with format=) is regular table code as described above, with line breaks expressed by using.

An example of that output is the Food page on this wiki.