Hello—veterans, regulars and newcomers alike to GE&T—and welcome to my guide to formatting storefronts; with added templates of my own creation! I hope that my guide may be of service to you, and that—at the end of the day—you all have fun roleplaying your storefront.
With all that cleared up and out of the way, it's time to begin the first leg of formatting and customisation. It is assumed that one knows about bolding, italics, underlining, andstrikethroughs; for the purpose of this guide to more advanced formatting—and templates—the more complex formatting will be outlined.
Getting Started
You may have noticed—having seen me around here and there—that the paragraphs in my forum posts have smoothed edges, though they may look stretched in places; this is due to typing "justify" after the "=" sign in the "align" formatting tag, and then typing in the space within the opening and closing tags. Also, at times, I use the "blocktext" format around my text—but within the "align=justify" tag, in order to maintain the smoothed edges—in order to indent both sides of the text, as seen in the section above. Thus the below code block...
Preface
In direct contrast to the IC political nature of NationStates and International Incidents, Global Economics and Trade is a place to create and roleplay aspects of your nation's economy, in the form of buying and selling goods and services. For the sake of standardisation and convenience, many of us use NationStates Dollars (NSD$) when listing the prices of our goods and services, but you are free to use whatever currency you'd like. Every storefront is unique—with different formatting types (or none whatsoever)—and it often takes some time (in months, if not years) for a personal style to be perfected as one of many "signatures" of a given player's style.
For now, however, the intent of this guide is to provide a starting point—a springboard, so to speak—for players to develop their own style, while still looking absolutely stunning. The formatting provided is usable in a pinch, but it is strongly encouraged that you design, make, innovate, and expand upon them; formatting is extremely versatile, and some formats are able to be used in conjunction with each other for maximum aesthetics.
There has been some debate over whether to write a guide on formatting a storefront, or to not write a guide on formatting a storefront; ultimately, I have opted—with Kyrusia giving the green light—to write a guide on formatting storefronts. This will be done for all the major storefront concepts: military hardware, airlines, banking, food and drink, shipping, hotels and resorts, communications technology and—just for fun—slaves.
Do note, however, that—as a newer player to GE&T—I may have missed a few spots, written completely erroneous content, or have background knowledge whatsoever on a given sub-type of storefronts. If I have done any of that—or you would like to write part of the guide where I am unfamiliar with—you may find me on the Future Tech, Modern Tech, and Roleplay Mentors' Discord Servers as Tchemerzine and Direct Message (DM) me from there; as a general rule, I do not save Telegrams (TGs) for very long after having replied to them, and my inbox may have overflowed if there ever comes a time where there are too many TGs. If you do not have Discord, you are welcome to send me a TG, though. For those who have contributed to part of this guide, their co-authorship will be listed as per crediting protocol.
In direct contrast to the IC political nature of NationStates and International Incidents, Global Economics and Trade is a place to create and roleplay aspects of your nation's economy, in the form of buying and selling goods and services. For the sake of standardisation and convenience, many of us use NationStates Dollars (NSD$) when listing the prices of our goods and services, but you are free to use whatever currency you'd like. Every storefront is unique—with different formatting types (or none whatsoever)—and it often takes some time (in months, if not years) for a personal style to be perfected as one of many "signatures" of a given player's style.
For now, however, the intent of this guide is to provide a starting point—a springboard, so to speak—for players to develop their own style, while still looking absolutely stunning. The formatting provided is usable in a pinch, but it is strongly encouraged that you design, make, innovate, and expand upon them; formatting is extremely versatile, and some formats are able to be used in conjunction with each other for maximum aesthetics.
There has been some debate over whether to write a guide on formatting a storefront, or to not write a guide on formatting a storefront; ultimately, I have opted—with Kyrusia giving the green light—to write a guide on formatting storefronts. This will be done for all the major storefront concepts: military hardware, airlines, banking, food and drink, shipping, hotels and resorts, communications technology and—just for fun—slaves.
Do note, however, that—as a newer player to GE&T—I may have missed a few spots, written completely erroneous content, or have background knowledge whatsoever on a given sub-type of storefronts. If I have done any of that—or you would like to write part of the guide where I am unfamiliar with—you may find me on the Future Tech, Modern Tech, and Roleplay Mentors' Discord Servers as Tchemerzine and Direct Message (DM) me from there; as a general rule, I do not save Telegrams (TGs) for very long after having replied to them, and my inbox may have overflowed if there ever comes a time where there are too many TGs. If you do not have Discord, you are welcome to send me a TG, though. For those who have contributed to part of this guide, their co-authorship will be listed as per crediting protocol.
With all that cleared up and out of the way, it's time to begin the first leg of formatting and customisation. It is assumed that one knows about bolding, italics, underlining, and
Getting Started
You may have noticed—having seen me around here and there—that the paragraphs in my forum posts have smoothed edges, though they may look stretched in places; this is due to typing "justify" after the "=" sign in the "align" formatting tag, and then typing in the space within the opening and closing tags. Also, at times, I use the "blocktext" format around my text—but within the "align=justify" tag, in order to maintain the smoothed edges—in order to indent both sides of the text, as seen in the section above. Thus the below code block...
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[align=justify][Blocktext]Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Donec quam felis, ultricies nec, pellentesque eu, pretium quis, sem. Nulla consequat massa quis enim. Donec pede justo, fringilla vel, aliquet nec, vulputate eget, arcu. In enim justo, rhoncus ut, imperdiet a, venenatis vitae, justo. Nullam dictum felis eu pede mollis pretium. Integer tincidunt. Cras dapibus. Vivamus elementum semper nisi. Aenean vulputate eleifend tellus. Aenean leo ligula, porttitor eu, consequat vitae, eleifend ac, enim.[/Blocktext][/align]
...becomes this:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Donec quam felis, ultricies nec, pellentesque eu, pretium quis, sem. Nulla consequat massa quis enim. Donec pede justo, fringilla vel, aliquet nec, vulputate eget, arcu. In enim justo, rhoncus ut, imperdiet a, venenatis vitae, justo. Nullam dictum felis eu pede mollis pretium. Integer tincidunt. Cras dapibus. Vivamus elementum semper nisi. Aenean vulputate eleifend tellus. Aenean leo ligula, porttitor eu, consequat vitae, eleifend ac, enim.
See? That wasn't so hard, after all. Coding is a matter of enclosing your text in tags, both opening and closing. Now to the next lesson: boxes. You may have seen my own embassy storefront—which out of respect, and because my name's not Evony, I'll refrain from plugging either—with its text-filled boxes, nestled snugly under large, bolded sub-headers. Boxes are very versatile, and serve to add emphasis—just as "blocktext" does—to a larger block of text. You can also "blocktext" a box, but make sure that the "blocktext" tag is on the outside of the "box" tags—unless you prefer it as such—otherwise there will be a box, then large spaces within the box as the margins, then the text. I will show you both of them, and how they look.
First, this is how it looks with the "blocktext" on the outside of the box, and I've added justify alignment, as I am wont to do. This code...
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[blocktext][box][align=justify]Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Donec quam felis, ultricies nec, pellentesque eu, pretium quis, sem. Nulla consequat massa quis enim. Donec pede justo, fringilla vel, aliquet nec, vulputate eget, arcu. In enim justo, rhoncus ut, imperdiet a, venenatis vitae, justo. Nullam dictum felis eu pede mollis pretium. Integer tincidunt. Cras dapibus. Vivamus elementum semper nisi. Aenean vulputate eleifend tellus. Aenean leo ligula, porttitor eu, consequat vitae, eleifend ac, enim.[/align][/box][/blocktext]
...becomes this:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Donec quam felis, ultricies nec, pellentesque eu, pretium quis, sem. Nulla consequat massa quis enim. Donec pede justo, fringilla vel, aliquet nec, vulputate eget, arcu. In enim justo, rhoncus ut, imperdiet a, venenatis vitae, justo. Nullam dictum felis eu pede mollis pretium. Integer tincidunt. Cras dapibus. Vivamus elementum semper nisi. Aenean vulputate eleifend tellus. Aenean leo ligula, porttitor eu, consequat vitae, eleifend ac, enim.
Now I will show you what it looks like when the "blocktext" is on the inside of the box. This code...
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[box][Blocktext][align=justify]Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Donec quam felis, ultricies nec, pellentesque eu, pretium quis, sem. Nulla consequat massa quis enim. Donec pede justo, fringilla vel, aliquet nec, vulputate eget, arcu. In enim justo, rhoncus ut, imperdiet a, venenatis vitae, justo. Nullam dictum felis eu pede mollis pretium. Integer tincidunt. Cras dapibus. Vivamus elementum semper nisi. Aenean vulputate eleifend tellus. Aenean leo ligula, porttitor eu, consequat vitae, eleifend ac, enim.[/align][/Blocktext][/box]
...becomes this:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Donec quam felis, ultricies nec, pellentesque eu, pretium quis, sem. Nulla consequat massa quis enim. Donec pede justo, fringilla vel, aliquet nec, vulputate eget, arcu. In enim justo, rhoncus ut, imperdiet a, venenatis vitae, justo. Nullam dictum felis eu pede mollis pretium. Integer tincidunt. Cras dapibus. Vivamus elementum semper nisi. Aenean vulputate eleifend tellus. Aenean leo ligula, porttitor eu, consequat vitae, eleifend ac, enim.
You may have been wondering how people have gotten all their ducks spoilers in a neat row. You may have also been wondering why you might have been unable to replicate that with aligning your text and spoilers to the left or the right, while also being stuck with a default alignment and a long row of spoilers running vertically, instead of horizontally. Therein lies the "floatleft" and "floatright" tags, which have the added bonus of you being able to align the spoiler's content however you like—right, left, center*, justify—you name it! To do this, you put as many spoilers as you can fit on one line, and then you put alternating "floatright" and "floatleft" tags around them. This below code format...
*denotes that—for those who use the British spelling of "centre"—the forums only take the American spelling of "center" or else it won't work.
*denotes that—for those who use the British spelling of "centre"—the forums only take the American spelling of "center" or else it won't work.
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[floatleft][spoiler]Lorem.[/spoiler][/floatleft][floatright][spoiler]Ipsum.[/spoiler][/floatright][floatleft][spoiler]Dolor.[/spoiler][/floatleft][floatright][spoiler]Sit.[/spoiler][/floatright][floatleft][spoiler]Amet.[/spoiler][/floatleft][floatright][spoiler]Consecteteur.[/spoiler][/floatright][floatleft][spoiler]Adipiscing.[/spoiler][/floatleft][floatright][spoiler]Elit.[/spoiler][/floatright]
...becomes this:
NOTE: This part of the guide will be put on hold—for the time being—while subsequent sections are worked on; this is in the interest of being time-efficient. I will get back to this section later. Apologies for the inconvenience, folks!