User:Quadibloc/Frames

In response to an expression of interest by Mnenyver, after first gaining some familiarity with the wiki through conventional edits, and constructing a template for Has-Mad-Ns, which I have not uploaded yet (some wording on it would depend on what, if anything, the Mad: namespace is to be used for; if I upload it, it will make things appear that what it says is the official purpose of it)...

I have finally managed to develop some templates for the purpose of providing a gaslamp fantasy or (pardon the expression) steampunk feel to the site.

That is, I'm setting up to make it possible to make it look like this.

They can be used as follows:

some text

produces the following:

some text

and

some text

produces the following:

some text

the difference being (as should be visible unless your browser window is very narrow) that if you start with the Decorative Banner version, the box expands to the full available width, rather than being only as wide as the text within forces it to be.

Because background images are not available, the side borders are built from empty table cells with background colors. This limits how elaborate it is reasonable to make the sides, and it has also prevented certain alternate structures for the boxes due to limitations of browsers in handling empty table cells.

Using &amp;nbsp; to fill the cell, a recommended strategy, did not work out well. And uploading a 1px by 1px image was a strategy I rejected because that might be misinterpreted as an attempt to get around security, although 4px by 4px images of the different solid colors might be an option in some cases.

I now have the Box 3 style available in addition to the Box 2 style:

some text

produces the following:

some text

and

some text

produces the following:

some text

And the original style has been improved, although I had originally intended somewhat more elaborate corners:

some text

produces the following:

some text

and

some text

produces the following:

some text

Note that this style is of limited usefulness until it can be modified to change the color of links within it to a lighter color as well as changing text to white.

Similarly, there is Decorative Box 5, which offers more choice simply by being a version of Decorative Box 3, but in silver instead of gold:

some text

and also there is Decorative Box 7, which is used for tight spaces:

some text

But I couldn't manage to get it working on (some versions of) Internet Explorer, even if it looks all right with Firefox.

Finally, with Decorative Box 8, I have at least approached the type of style I was originally envisaging, but perhaps those more artistically inclined could improve:

This box, using light letters on a dark background, is only usable for text without links.