Please add your suggestions to this informal page

Official Text

This is what goes after any UFOpaedia entry on every page that has one. Word for word taken from pedia.mt.

From: Apocalypse Ufopaedia

The format: italics to denote that it is not part of the text, double-space after the official text, no period at end. eg:

Something official text from the in-game UFOpaedia sourced from, word for word, pedia.mt file NO LINKS WITHIN official text example example example example example.  From: Apocalypse Ufopaedia

UFOpedida Pic Not Showing

typically: Error:Bin/Bash yadda yadda.

The Solution

THIS PIC is using "frame"

The following pic is:
[[Image:Facil-Build2x2-(Apocalypse).png|thumb|left|THIS PIC is using "thumb"]]

THIS PIC is using "thumb"

Use "frame" instead of "thumb" in your code

UFOpaedia Image Format

Making pedia images uniformly.

Cut pedia pic so that left and right edges do not have border colours (white edge typically). Helps to zoom in alot for pixel-perfect cutting. Top and bottom do not have border colours.
Final pic size should be either 329x479 or 329x480. If wildly out from this guide you are not using original pedia pics!
Insert text using Reticulan fontsize= 34 using an 'almost black' colour (see Pic Errors - Black Colour, below). Black (R0, G0, B0) cannot be used! To stop having transparent text, use (R5, G5, B5) as the font colour.
- (R8, G2, B2) works if you still get transparent text.
Align text by hand roughly equi-distance from top-left corner. Uppercase and lowercase is the same.
Text too long? Take the grey bar, cut it then resize it 200% height only. Reinsert the new text bar to align with the top corner - no colour should show above with this double height bar. Insert text so that top-gap, middle-gap, and bottom-gap are approximately equal. Doesn't have to be perfect, but just look uniform.
Save file as PNG 256colour (8bit). This is ideal vs quality whereas TrueColour (24bit) gives minimal quality increase at the expense of triple the filesize.
Rename file as Type-Pedia-Name-(Apocalypse).png

⊗ Sometimes whatever you do to make it 8-bit, it will still show transparent text. The only option is to use the 24-bit version.

Pic Errors - Black Colour PICTURE

Two examples of the problem:
Left=bad, Right=good

The problem with trying to keep original paedia pics, besides manipulating the originals to cutting off the excess, is that any black RGB (0,0,0) areas become transparent as in left-side image.

It is irrelevant if the pic is 24bit or 8bit colour.

To solve the problem, the right-side pic has been Lightened 5% which is just enough to make black areas not black - and takes a few seconds to do.

Its not the picture editor that is at fault for this effect but MediaWiki.

Confusing Wording

Clarification: "Security Guards" wording should not be used anywhere.

Building Security or Guards = note uppercase, these are the generic defence forces (not cultists, gangsters, police or thugs).
Defence Force = any npc (except Corporate Thugs) who appears on a search/raid to defend the building against X-Com or Aliens.

To Do

Pick One!

Overspawn walks thru some, demolishes others. List which is which. Add solution to Apoc'd Edits page.
Weapon damage types icons added to Damage page. Enzyme icon is already made: GrownIn-Effect-Enzyme-(Apocalypse).png
Buildings: combat tactics and general building interesting features text In-fill to each building page.
Better pics of various plant growths which have an effect of some sort. New pics of all with black background.
Quantum Physics page: split up the chart into sections to make it easy to search
Agent Equipment: "UFOpaedia pic + Reticulan fonts" of weapons and ammution.
Agent Equipment: icon pics of weapons using yellow background. Shows easy comparable scale of item.
Cut Content page: go thru and removed repetative mention of <text in-game: none> and debug also etc. after the equip listing.
Use XME to go thru all battelscape segments and list which ones are never used, then add to Cut Content page
Alien Ship Technology: Propulsion, Energy, Control pages need ~~alot of work~~ finishing. Better pics
Base Locations: add percentage frequency to each layout shown, of getting a particular building for each difficulty.
Better pics (black background + resize 200%) all unit 360deg. collage
Cityscape and Tactical pages: pics with pink arrows and boxed text pointing to buttons could use a more thorough explaination.

To Do List (Apocalypse)