Userboxes are small boxes designed to appear on user pages to quickly communicate information about a user. While some of them are made for informing another user of who you are, others are only created for humorous purposes.
Introduction
Before making a userbox, you must ask yourself some questions:
- Is it a useful userbox?
- Will it offend anyone?
- Will someone understand the joke? (in case of humorous boxes)
- And more especially... DO I KNOW HOW TO CREATE IT?
If your answer to the fourth question was a loud "NO", then take a look at the next section.
How to make (and place) a userbox
Userboxes look awesome because they are made using this template here. The template gives you also all instructions of how to make a userbox by using all steps that it gives you. Userbox then are placed on a straight line by using a table, like the ones that MicroWiki normally uses for infoboxes, which of course are different from the one's we're looking at here (for instance, that box you see on the right of a person's article, like this one).
In this small tutorial, however, I'll show you a very rapid way of making an infobox for your userpage. This table with userboxes is the one I have on my user page:
{|style="float:right;"
|{{Userbox|#AAF|#EEF|[[File:Flag stcharlie.png|40px]]|This user is a citizen of the [[Federal Republic of St.Charlie]]}}
|{{Userbox|#669933|#EEF|103|This user's Micronation has a population of '''103'''}}
|}
And that's the result it gives:
|
|
| 103 | This user's Micronation has a population of 103 |
|
Who is who?
With the code above, we can now analyze how the template works:
- float is where we want the userboxes to appear. In my case, you can see that they're on the right because this command tells them to be there. Therefore, if you want them to the left, you must write float:left.
- {{Userbox is where our userbox starts.
- #AAF or #669933 is the hexadecimal notation for the combination of blue, red, and green values (RGB); basically, the HTML code. This defines the color of the border and of the background where the image usually goes.
- On the other hand, #EEF is the color of the background of the userbox itself.
- Then, you have the two remaining sections for the image of the userbox (or text, if you wish) and for the description of the userbox.
- Concluding, we have brackets: }} is where the Userbox template ends and |} is the end of the whole script.
How to construct the box
There are a number of box types to select from when deciding to make a userbox. The most commonly used design is the "Standard box". It has one square shaped area on the left ("id") and a rectangular area on the right ("info").
For ease of use, userboxes are typically made using maker-templates that have a number of parameters.
| Template Parameters
|
Meaning
|
Value type
|
| border-c
|
The border color of the userbox.
|
CSS color value (#hex or color name)
|
| border-s
|
The border size of the userbox.
|
Width in pixels
|
| id-c
|
The background color of the id box.
|
CSS color value
|
| id-s
|
The font size of the id box.
|
Size in PostScript points
|
| id-fc
|
The font color of the id box text.
|
CSS color value
|
| id-p
|
The distance between border and content of id box.
|
CSS padding width value. px, pt
|
| id-lh
|
The distance between text lines of id box.
|
CSS relative line height/length value. em
|
| info-c
|
The background color of info box.
|
CSS color value
|
| info-s
|
The font size of info box.
|
Size in PostScript points
|
| info-fc
|
The font color of info box.
|
CSS color value
|
| info-p
|
The distance between border and content of info box.
|
CSS padding width value. px, pt
|
| info-lh
|
The distance between text lines of info box.
|
CSS relative line height/length value. em
|
| id
|
This is the content of the id box.
|
Free-form
|
| info
|
This is the content of info box.
|
Free-form
|
The id and info boxes can include text, links, and images using the usual Wikipedia syntax. Generally, the id box will contain a few letters or a 43px image, while the info box will contain a sentence with a link or two.
Userbox types
| Types of Userboxes
|
| Code
|
Appearance
|
| Standard box
|
| {{Userbox |border-c=#000 |border-s=1 |id-c=#fff |id-s=12 |id-fc=#000 |info-c=#039 |info-s=8 |info-fc=#fff |id=ID |info=Content}}
or {{Userbox |side-box colour |main box colour |side-box content |main box content}}
|
|
| Reverse box
|
| {{Userbox-2 |border-c=#000 |border-s=1 |id1-c=#fff |id1-s=12 |id1-fc=#000 |id2-c=#000 |id2-s=12 |id2-fc=#fff |info-c=#039 |info-s=8 |info-fc=#fff |id1=ID 1 |id2=ID 2 |info=Content}}
or {{Userbox-2 |side-box 1 colour |main box colour |side-box 1 content |message |side-box 2 content |border colour |side-box 2 colour |main box font-colour |box border thickness}}
Note: If omitted, border colour and side-box 2 colour default to the same colour as side-box 1, and font colour is black. Default border thickness is 1.
|
|
List of userboxes with their code
Basic
Basic userboxes.
| ### | This user's Micronation has a population of ### |
{{Userbox|#669933|#EEF|NUMBER HERE|This user's Micronation has a population of '''###'''}}
Micronation-Related
List of userboxes that are related to micronations in general.
{{Userbox|#AAF|#EEF|[[File:Flag stcharlie.png|40px]]|This user is a citizen of the [[Federal Republic of St.Charlie]]}}
{{Userbox|#dcdcdc|#EEF|[[Erusia|DPRE]]|This user is an honourary citizen of the [[Democratic People's Republic of Erusia]]}}
 | This User is a citizen of Secundomia |
{{Template:Userbox|id= [[File:Secundomia Official Flag.jpg|40px]]|4=This User is a citizen of Secundomia}}
{{Userbox
|id = [[File:Music Userbox.jpg|40px]]
|id-c = #FFFFFF
|id-fc =
|id-s =
|info = This user composed the [[National anthem|National Anthem]] of a [[micronation]]
|info-c = #FFFFFF
|info-fc =
|info-s = 10
|border-c = #000000
|border-s = 1
}}
Titles
List of userboxes showing titles, offices, memberships, and/or MicroWiki staff.
 | This user is a janitor. |
{{Userbox|#383838|#EEF|[[File:Janitor.jpg|40px]]|This user is a '''janitor'''.}}
| Admin | This user is a MicroWiki Administrator |
{{Userbox|#dcdcdc|#EEF|Admin|This user is a MicroWiki Administrator}}
 | This user is the Prime Minister of a micronation |
{{Userbox|#202020|#EEF|[[File:000000000000000.jpg|35px]]|This user is the Prime Minister of a micronation}}
 | This user is the King of a micronation |
{{Userbox|#DEB887|#EEF|[[File:Crown.jpg|40px]]|This user is the King of a micronation}}
Humor
List of userboxes only created for humorous purposes.
 | This user is a grammar Nazi. You might find him intruded in your pages, editing your articles because after him, you are an ignorant |
{{Userbox|#dcdcdc|#EEF|[[File:Grammar Nazi.png|40px]]|This user is a '''grammar Nazi'''. You might find him intruded in '''your''' pages, editing your articles because after him, '''you are an ignorant'''}}
 | This user has a good knowledge of micronational colonialism, and will claim your land as soon as your micronation dies |
{{Userbox|#dcdcdc|#EEF|[[File:Rhodesia vanpelt.jpg|40px]]|This user has a good knowledge of micronational colonialism, and will claim your land as soon as your micronation dies}}
 | This user is suspected of only having four braincells, please immedeatly report any stupid activity to the admins |
{{Userbox|#AAF|#EEF|[[File:Patrick bottle dumb.png|40px]]|This user is suspected of only having four braincells, please immedeatly report any stupid activity to the admins}}
External links
