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:

{|
|-
! 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
|}

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

{|
|-
! 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
|}

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

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 border=1 to the main table definition line as shown below:

{| 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
|}

To produce this:

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

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

{| 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
|}

Yields this:

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

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:

{| 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
|}

Gives:

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

Sortable tables

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

{| 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
|}

Gives:

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

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.

<dpl>
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|{{#ifeq:,|y|Yes|No}},\n||,,\n|| ,,\n|,
</dpl>

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 \n.

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