Template talk:Emailquote

New blockquote template
(Discussion from DRY talk page)

I looked at some of the assignments articles and noticed the Blockquote template that is used to show the messages that Shepard get before and after assignments. I thought some styling of the template could enhance certain page.

How it looks now: "Reports tell us you've been operating in the Omega Nebula. We'd like you to look into a situation on Lorek, a nearby planet in the Fathar system. Scan the planet for a base, where we believe Eclipse mercs are holding one of our operatives. You should be able to detect the operative's transmitter. Extract the operative; if the operative is beyond rescue, recover any relevant intel that Eclipse may have collected. This is a very delicate matter, Shepard. We trust in your discretion."

With a bit of styling:

--silverstrike 19:16, February 17, 2010 (UTC)


 * It's fine in and of itself, but the existing blockquote is used in contexts where the styling would not be suitable (inside Points of Interest tables, for example). I had been thinking about adding an emailquote template, ideally somehow using &lt;poem&gt; to better handle multi-line input, but I've been too swamped both here and in Real Life&trade; to even contemplate it.  (Even a pair of templates for email begin and end would be OK, if the parsing gets nasty, e.g. in the presence of other wiki markup – like links – on the quoted text.)  That would probably be the best bet, if you can hack one up.  --DRY 21:07, February 17, 2010 (UTC)
 * Pre-assignment:


 * Post-assignment:


 * After countless edits and revision in which the poem tag refused to parse the  parameter, I checked the documentation for it and found out that the tag have issues (none of the examples they provided helped) - so, for the time being, I replaced the &lt;poem&gt; tag with a &lt;blockquote&gt;. If ever I find a way to revert back to &lt;poem&gt; I'll let you know.
 * There is another style for the mailquote - I couldn't decide on the color scheme - seeing as I'm not so good with colors, you might want to suggest other color values:

&ldquo;&rdquo;
 * For each pre/post assignment letter, there is a template call (same template). --silverstrike 23:35, February 17, 2010 (UTC)
 * The parsing issues are why I mentioned a begin/end pair. However, that doesn't seem necessary:


 * That seems to work reasonably well, although it doesn't play nicely with other block formatting elements like indentation. It's probably good enough, though.  In passing, I don't think there's any need to provide multiple colour schemes or to otherwise distinguish "start" and "end" messages through styling: that will usually be naturally expressed in the context in which the message appears.  --DRY 00:01, February 18, 2010 (UTC)
 * I've applied it to Normandy Crash Site. It looks pretty decent.  Thanks for your efforts!  --DRY 00:26, February 18, 2010 (UTC)
 * Then I misunderstood your meaning - although, giving the options of colors can be used to make the template suit other needs (journal entries, for example). --silverstrike 01:05, February 18, 2010 (UTC)
 * I think I'd prefer totally separate templates rather than parameterization when they're used for different purposes, particularly when they're this simple. --DRY 01:12, February 18, 2010 (UTC)


 * While integrated this template to the N7: Blue Suns Base article, I encountered two examples for other uses of similar templates:
 * Journal entries - as noted before
 * Console, PDA, etc. - seem to be on many assignments.
 * Should I create additional templates, use the same template, or should I leave it alone (at least for now)? --silverstrike 02:37, February 18, 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd just go ahead and use emailquote for all electronic notices; blockquote can continue to be used for things like scanner messages, dialogue boxes and so forth. --DRY 04:11, February 18, 2010 (UTC)