Thread:TheRealPella/@comment-5275054-20151111200824/@comment-15636815-20151122034903

TL;DR version - Template:rliq, a test version of Template:rli, is complete. See it in action on New table test.
 * regular rewards - input: no change; output: image is in separate column
 * resources - input: simplified
 * resources - can be called using four-letter shortcut codes sitewide

Okay, I finally have a working copy of rli.

The test version is at Template:rliq. The test display page is at New table test. To see the source code for the test display page, click the "Expand" link.

==Contract list==

!scope="row"| 1 !scope="row"| 2 !scope="row"| 3
 * - id="1"
 * Sell 10 Rotten Pumpkin
 * - id="2"
 * - id="2"
 * - id="2"
 * Deliver
 * - id="3"
 * - id="3"
 * - id="3"
 * Build 1 Spook's Disco

!scope="row"| 4 !scope="row"| 5 . . . . !scope="row"| 19 !scope="row"| 20
 * - id="4"
 * - id="4"
 * - id="4"
 * Deliver
 * - id="5"
 * - id="5"
 * - id="5"
 * Send 33 Bathurst Special  Send 9 Pixel Classe 2
 * - id="19"
 * Send 3 set: Vampire Aristocracy (Set)
 * - id="20"
 * - id="20"
 * - id="20"
 * Build 1 Halloween Piñata



!colspan="5"|
 * }

Changes: The goal was for the footer template to display everything the table needed after the last contract. Adding the  section to the footer template requires #if statements that check for the two standard footnotes ("sets", for sending train sets, and "oldrules", for explaining "FULL" and "COMPLETE" in old contract objectives), then add the necessary   tags. However, inside an #if statement, Wikitext requires that  and   be changed to   and , respectively. Unfortunately, #tag:ref doesn't work inside a references tag. Therefore, the references line must appear in raw code after the footer template.
 * 1) Created a fifth column with no header, for displaying the image. This is the fourth column from the left, between "Reward" and "XP."
 * 2) Input for rliq is one cell only (third column).
 * 3) rliq creates fourth column, regardless of input.
 * 4) *normal input - Third column displays page link and statistics for reward item. Fourth column displays image, centered.
 * 5) *resources input - Third column displays reward resource and amount. Fourth column displays nothing. The template creates the fourth column and leaves it blank.
 * 6) Removed table header and column headers. Replaced with Header table contract-list. This part is clean and neat.
 * 7) Removed column footers. Replaced with Footer table contract-list. This part was supposed to be clean and neat, but change #6 made it messy.
 * 8) Added references line and table closing code  after footer template, for reasons explained below.

Obviously, the only way for the header and footer templates to make things easier for editors is for the templates to display everything at the top and bottom of the table. Obviously, the footer template can't do this, and the result is more confusion instead of less. Therefore, the footer template is a bad idea for contract list tables and any other tables that have a footnotes section. (Hint: The Wiki has many of them.)

If the footer template is a bad idea, is the header template still a good idea? In my opinion, keeping the raw code for the footers means we should keep the raw code for the headers, too. Using a template for the headers would case confusion, which always leads to editing errors, which means someone must re-edit to correct the errors.

The bottom line: The header and footer templates are on the test display page to show what they do and how they do it. Unless people speak up and say they want to use them, anyway, we will not be adding them to the contract list format.

Mhommer wrote: We already have straight forward and simple to use template for resouces (wood, bricks, etc.) as well as gold and whistles. Why add the complexity of integrating them into the rli code resulting in multiple ways (direct and indirect via rli) to input and display resources, gold and whistles? I agree with you, in principle. Keep things simple whenever possible. For this reason, I tried desperately to get rli and the CSS to work together to display the link, statistics, and image all inside the one "Reward" cell. I asked for help at Wikia Community Central, and I spent most of a week doing Internet searches to find a solution. I did, in fact, find several solutions that worked with the code for which they were written. When I applied them to our code, though, nothing worked. The closest I got was to have everything display on one line, but with the image left-aligned within its part of the cell.

Since the only way to get our template to display our output correctly was to use two cells in the contract list table, I recommend we use rli for all contract rewards, including resources. I modified the code for rliq to make this as simple, intuitive, and consistent as possible. To make the template accept the four-letter shortcut codes, I simply created shortcut templates for all the resources. That means that four-letter shortcut codes now are available sitewide.
 * Template expects three parameters at all times, whether the reward is an item with its own page or a game resource. For resources, the third parameter is.
 * Template will accept four-letter shortcut codes for all resources. This is true both for display of resources as rewards and for display of resources for cargo wagons.

For example, each group below will display exactly the same output.

{{uran|100}