D&D 5e Spell Template Questions (looking for starting an understanding)

Hey folks, and apologies for what is probably a horribly worded Topic Title, but it's just one of those areas where I don't have the understanding to make use of my vocabulary correctly.  :/  Upfront, I should mention that while what I want to be able to do is a whole heckuva lot, I'm really just looking for **starting** to understand how to accomplish my end goal.  And it's because I'm so low down on the knowledge pole that I include a lot of questions.  Also, I absolutely promise I am doing web searches and such elsewhere for the how-to questions I have here, but I figure it's easier to get the answer-fish with lots of question-hooks in the water (kinda wish I'd gone with a metaphor involving spiders and webs now, but whatever).  What I'm looking to do is to start getting an understanding of how to set up Roll Templates, Macros, or however it should be termed, that would output a "card" with the following options: The ability to cast the spell at a higher level Include the formula calculations expressed in the spell as a final result (e.g. give me the random result of 8d6 rather than just say that's what you roll) which may involve multiple boxes for those results (attack rolls, damage / healing, who knows) or as a link to output the damage (or whatever) in a separate card that references the first. Change the font color of the numbers to match the energy type in play (green for healing, black for necrotic, light blue for electric, red for fire, gold (?) for radiant, etc. I know all of this is pretty crazy to ask for answers to in a single topic when my actual understanding is so way down there, but again: even just a few good links on where to start picking up some of the how to's would be great as I know the wiki / help desk is sorta languishing in disrepair.  I do plan to continue to use the help desk and all, but my general feeling is there's a lot of connective thought that's missing, and so anyone that can say, "hey, check this out and when you think you understand that, come back."  I will also hope folks understand that even admitting to how little I know and where I hope to go was a bit of a trick, lol.   Thanks in advance to anyone that replies with something helpful or useful, and I hope your weekend is going good.

Most of that is easy enough depending on what character sheet you use, but the different colors based on damage type is more difficult. I don't know if there are any custom Character Sheets that already do that, but your best bet would likely be an API, so maybe check those forums.

Thanks Dakota!  I'm reviewing the D&D 5e OGL Roll Templates and I certainly suspect that the font colors would require I create a totally new card or such.  The how to's of that are going to be super fun.

Regarding the font colours, you might be able to do something clever with Styles ( have a look in the style thread ), but I have zero knowledge on these things. Style changes also only affect your own browser and will not be visible to players unless they install it themselves. Even if that's a dead end, I highly recommend Keith's Inline Links style. Totally worth the 2 minutes it takes to install Stylus and steal his code. The available templates are dictated by the Character Sheet used in the game - you would need to modify or create your own Character sheet if you want new templates.

Yeah, I've been intermittently looking over the various pages (dice reference, macros, and 5e) trying to figure thing out slowly.  I really need to make a point of just focusing one spell and I think my understanding will come a bit quicker that way.