Help:Templates

Templates are pages shown in Portal:Template index. This means any page whose name begins with "Template:", such as "Template:Documentation", can be used as a template. The content of a template can be added to a page by typing {{templatename}} while editing the page. When the page is later viewed, {{templatename}} is replaced by the content of the page "Template:templatename". If the page "Template:templatename" is later altered, all the pages with {{templatename}} in them will change automatically.

Amongst other things, templates are used to add recurring messages to pages in a consistent way, to add boilerplate such as template {{stub}} which indicates that the article is a fledgling.

When a template is automatically expanded and appears on a page, it is said to be "transcluded".

Templates are documented (or should be) at their pages. See Help:Template Documentation

General

Most templates are pages in Portal:Template index

Templates can contain any desired Wikitext, including calls to other templates. They have some limited programming capacities: customizable values (called parameters), calculation and branchings (using parser functions), and access to wiki-specific variables (magic words), such as dates, times, and page names. They may also contain tags which define which parts of the wikitext are to be included when the template is transcluded or substituted. This means that the appearance of the template page itself need not be the same as that of the transcluded content (for example, it can contain documentation, categories, etc. for the template).

How to do it: To transclude a template to an article or page, type {{template name}} in the wikitext at the place where the template is to appear. The prefix "Template:" need not be included, and an initial capital is not necessary.

Note: Attempting to transclude a template that does not exist produces a red link, just like linking to any other nonexistent page. Following the link allows one to create that particular template.

Also see: Help:Templates for beginners

• TEMPLATES are just blocks of saved text that have been given names. Some are ordinary text paragraphs and some contain wikitext to make headings, indents, tables, and the like. In a simple case, by typing a template's name in the work, an entire block of text is added to the page with all of its formats and other parts, just as if it had been typed by the user. This behavior can be repeated at any point that the user wants, and almost any work that is found on a wiki page could be placed within a template to do this. The main effort as you might suppose, lies in its initial design.

• NAMES of templates are assigned when they are first saved. The name must be unique, and it is used when a template is called for use. Sometimes other text is also used along with the name; it can include any options and parameters.

• OPTIONS allow the user to vary the template's usual behavior.. The usual behavior suits most situations but the designer builds-in ways of changing things just in case. Option values are usually limited to a short list so these are described in a template's documentation. For example, option values for an option called align might include only left, right, or center, and no others. Templates do not always need options, since their default behavior is often enough.

• DEFAULTS are the values used by a template when the user did not say. Default values are specified in design, and they could apply to formats or to user text inputs. For example, in the alignment example above, if the align option was not used, the template could use left, provided that left had been specified in design as its default. In the same way if the user forgets to type a text input, the template could use a pre-planned default input instead of the missing parameter; sometimes just a code to say something was forgotten.

• PARAMETERS are usually bits of text that a user enters for a template to process. For example, if a template makes text red, it still needs to know the text to color; this text is called a parameter, and the text is included by the user when the template is called for use. Sometimes parameters contain text like code to insert an image, or even a gallery or a table; it just depends what the template is designed for. A template can even be the parameter of another template; for example, a template to insert a test paragraph might occupy the parameter space of a template to make a text box. The new paragraph would then appear in a new text box.

• MORE GENERALLY, templates let us do much of the preparation in advance of making a page, and let us insert a block of typing, be it code to make tables, boxes, and other structures, or just a paragraph of text that is used a lot.

Usage syntax

Parameters

The basic transclusion syntax given above can be extended by the addition of parameters, which are used to control the template's output. The syntax for this is

• {{template name|parameter|parameter|...}}

where each "parameter" may either contain just a value (these are called unnamed parameters) or be of the form name=value (named parameters). The first, second, etc. unnamed parameters are equivalent to parameters named "1", "2", etc.

Whitespace characters (spaces, tabs, returns) are stripped from the beginnings and ends of named parameter names and values, but not from the middle: thus {{ ... | myparam = this is a test }} has the same effect as {{ ... |myparam=this is a test}}. This does not apply to unnamed parameters, where the whitespace characters are preserved.

What parameters (if any) can or should be passed to a template, and how they are to be named, depends on the coding of that template. Named parameters can be defined in any order. Superfluous or misnamed parameters will be ignored; undefined parameters will be assigned default values. If a parameter is defined more than once, the last value takes effect.

The value of a parameter can be the empty string (pipe or equals sign followed immediately by the next pipe or the closing braces). This is different from leaving the parameter undefined (although templates are often coded so as to behave the same in both cases).

Other details

Template names are exactly like other page names case-sensitive except for the first letter, with spaces indistinguishable from underscores. If the symbol # (normally used to link to a section of a page) appears in a transclusion, then it and any characters that follow it are ignored.

Notice that the same double-brace syntax is used for many MediaWiki variables and parser functions (see Help:Magic words). For example, the code {{NAMESPACE}} may look like a template call, but it is actually a variable whose value is the namespace prefix of the current page.

Usage hints and workarounds

The following points may be worth noting when using templates:

• An unnamed parameter cannot contain an ordinary equals sign, as this would be interpreted as setting off a named parameter. (This does not apply if the equals sign comes within another template call or other item which the parser handles separately.) To pass an equals sign in an unnamed parameter (for example in a URL with key/value pairs), replace the equals sign with the special template {{=}}, which returns an equals sign that will not be specially interpreted. Another method is to replace the unnamed parameter (and any subsequent unnamed parameters) with named parameters — the first unnamed parameter is equivalent to a named parameter with the name "1", and so on. So to call template

{{done}} with the parameter "a=b", type either {{done|a{{=}}b}} or {{done|1=a=b}}.

• Similarly, it is not possible to use an ordinary pipe character | in template parameters, as it will be interpreted as a separator. (Again, this does not apply if it comes within another separately parsed item, such as a piped wikilink.) This time the problem can be solved by using the special template {{!}} in place of the pipe, or (if the pipe is not intended to be parsed specially at a higher level) using the HTML entity |.
• Remember that whitespace characters (spaces, tabs, carriage returns and line feeds) are not automatically stripped from the start and end of unnamed parameters (as they are from named parameters). Including such characters (or any other non-visible characters in any parameters) may in some cases affect the template's behaviour in unexpected ways. (Template designers can use

{{StripWhitespace}} to remove unwanted whitespace in unnamed parameters.)

• In documentation and discussions it is often convenient to be able to produce the template call syntax, with a link to the template in question, but without actually calling the template. This can be done easily using the "

{{tl}}" template (the template link template). For example, using the text "{{tl|tc}}" produces " {{tc}}". There is an extended version, {{tlx}}, which also supports parameters.

• When a template is changed (when the template or one of its subtemplates is edited), the change will be reflected on all pages on which the template is transcluded. However the change may not become visible on all pages immediately — a previously cached version of a page, based on the previous version of the template, may continue to be displayed for some time. Use the purge function to force a page to be displayed using the latest versions of templates. (This includes the template page itself, if it contains usage examples.)
• When viewing old versions of pages, remember that templates will be transcluded as they are now, not necessarily as they were when the old page version was active.
• To list all pages onto which a template is transcluded, use What links here on the template page. (This will not include pages where the template has been substituted.)
• To get a list of templates transcluded on a page, click "Edit", and find the list below the edit window. This list also includes the sub-templates used by the templates that are directly transcluded. To get such a list for a page section, an old version of the page, or your newly edited version prior to saving, click "Show preview" on the appropriate edit page. (For an old version, the subtemplate tree will be constructed according to the templates' current state.)
• There are limits to the number and complexity of the templates that an article may have. See the "Expand limits" section for help in resolving this.

Creating and editing templates

Templates are created and edited in much the same way as any other page: choose an appropriate name, navigate to that page, then click the Edit tab or create a new page as needed. As mentioned above, templates are normally placed in the Template namespace, though templates intended for your own personal use or for experimentation can be created in your own user space. Anything that can be included on a normal page or article can be included on a template, including other templates (called subtemplates). Templates often make use of programming features — parameters, parser functions and other magic words — which allow the transcluded content to vary depending on context. There are also special tags to control which information is transcluded and which is not.

Before creating a template, do a quick search for existing templates (e.g. by exploring Portal:Template index) to see if there's already a template that does what you want, or a similar template whose code can be copied and modified (or left in place and expanded). Look for generic templates on which the new template can be based (for example, navbox templates can be easily created by calling the generic Template:Navbox).

There is no hard rule about what name to choose for a template — make it short but reasonably descriptive. If similar templates exist, try to follow a consistent naming pattern. Templates can be renamed without breaking existing transclusions, provided a redirect to the new template name is left behind.

Be extremely careful when editing existing templates — changes made can affect a large number of pages, often in ways you might not expect.

To propose the deletion of unused or inappropriate templates, or other changes in the way particular templates are used, go to Templates for discussion (TfD).

Handling parameters

The values of the parameters which can be fed to a template are represented in the template code by items enclosed between triple braces:

• the code {{{xxx}}} will be replaced by the value of the parameter named xxx
• the codes {{{1}}}, {{{2}}} etc. will be replaced by the first, second etc. unnamed parameter (or the value of a parameter named 1, 2, etc.); these are sometimes known as positional parameters

If a parameter is not assigned a value, then the above replacements will not take place — the form "{{{xxx}}}" will remain as the effective value of the parameter. To change this behaviour, define default values using the pipe syntax. For example, {{{1|default}}} will be replaced by the first unnamed parameter if there is one, or otherwise by the text "default". Similarly, {{{xxx|}}} will be replaced by the parameter named xxx if it exists, or otherwise will be left blank. Though if a template is called with the parameter specified as empty (e.g. {{Example|}}), the default for the parameter will be ignored; if that is undesired one can use {{#if:{{{1|}}}|{{{1}}}|default}} instead to get the text "default" even if the parameter is specified as empty.

Parameters do not get expanded when they are inside nowiki tags or XML-style extension tags. Thus, the following will not work within a template — <myextension xparam={{{tparam}}}> ... </myextension> — because the parameter is not expanded.

Because of the multiple uses of double-brace and triple-brace syntax, expressions can sometimes be ambiguous. It may be helpful or necessary to include spaces to resolve such ambiguity, for example by writing {{ {{{xxx}}} }} or {{{ {{xxx}} }}}, rather than typing five consecutive braces. However, watch out for unwanted whitespace appearing in template expansions.

System variables and conditional logic

Template code often makes use of the variables and parser functions described at Help:Magic words, in order to make the template's behaviour depend on the environment (such as the current time or namespace) or on the parameter values which are passed to it. They can also be used for arithmetical calculations. Notice that full string manipulation is not available (although templates have been created which provide such functionality, though very inefficiently and imperfectly), nor are certain standard programming features such as loops and variable assignment.

Some of the most often used variables and functions are listed hereafter. For more, see Help:Magic words.

Examples of core parser functions

Description	Text entered	Result
Uppercasing text	{{uc: Heavens to BETSY! }}	HEAVENS TO BETSY!
Lowercasing text	{{lc: Heavens to BETSY! }}	heavens to betsy!
Getting a namespace name	{{NS: 1 }}	Talk
Getting a Wikipedia URL	{{fullurl: pagename }}	https://www.boywiki.org/en/Pagename

The ParserFunctions extension gives more programming-oriented parser functions.

Examples of extension parser functions

Description	Text Entered	Result
Testing between options	{{#ifeq: yes | yes | Hooray...! | Darn...! }} {{#ifeq: yes | no | Hooray...! | Darn...! }}	Hooray...! Darn...!
Testing if a parameter is set	{{#if: {{{param|}}} | Hooray...! | Darn...! }}	Darn...!
Making a calculation (mathematics) [area of circle of radius 4, to 3 decimal places]	{{#expr: ( pi * 4 ^ 2 ) round 3 }}	50.265
Testing the result of a calculation [is 1230 even or odd?]	{{#ifexpr: 1.23E+3 mod 2 | Odd | Even }}	Even

Examples of System Variables

Description	Text Entered	Result (for this help page)
Page names	{{PAGENAME}} {{FULLPAGENAME}}	Templates Help:Templates
Name of the current namespace	{{NAMESPACE}}	Help
Number of registered users	{{NUMBEROFUSERS}}	222
Number of pages in a given category	{{PAGESINCATEGORY:"Weird Al" Yankovic albums}}	0
Current software version	{{CURRENTVERSION}}	1.41.0
Timestamp of last revision	{{REVISIONTIMESTAMP}}	20121226145422

Finding and Using Templates

There are already several thousands of templates within the WikiBooks templates namespace. That is another way of saying that the templates list is already long. At first sight, this may seem to avoid the need for template-making, but things are not so simple.

If the name of the template is known, then it can be found easily, but if the name is not known, it can take a long time to find a template similar to the one that you are looking for. Templates have their functions described on their own pages but many do not include notes, so the task of knowing which is which, and what they do even when they are found, becomes doubly difficult.

Templates made in Wikipedia and Wikibooks are not interchangeable, since they exist on separate servers. Although the code to make them is identical, this description applies to finding things in Wikibooks.

• To view lists of templates listed alphabetically within WikiBooks, follow the link to the All Templates Namespace.
• To find templates listed in various template categories, for example, drop-control templates, follow the link to the page Category:Templates.
• If you know a template's name, then find the template page by using the search box on any Wiki page. For example, to find Dropimage just type;

Template:Block then enter.

When a template page is found, the code to make the template can be seen by viewing its editing window. Many pages have their documentation on the same page as the template code, isolated from it with <noinclude></noinclude> tags.

If after searching, you still need to make a template, as many no doubt do, then read on.

Put it on the Page

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Templates are called for use in pages by typing a line of Wikitext, and so the user needs to know the correct spelling of the template's name, options, and parameters. Even when these are known it is all too easy to disrupt a page with a template error, especially during trials, so consider using the sandbox for testing. Some templates have all of the documentation and details on the same page and this makes them easy to use. See templates Plainlist, and Codebits as examples.

To call up any template for use in a page, the code is typed within double curly brackets. {{}}. Included within the curly brackets is the template name, then, if required, a sequence of options, followed by a sequence of parameters. All entries are separated by pipe symbols. (|). For example, the general form to use for a template with two options and one parameter is as follows:
Template:Block
and a typical example of its use is:
Template:Block
The above code has only one parameter; it is numbered 1 by default. Parameters are given numbers or names to identify them in their design code, and examples will be seen in the sections that follow. The template-call in the example uses a so-called unnamed parameter, because it is not preceded by a term like 1= (numbered parameter), or content= (typical named parameter). When templates have several parameters then the parameter numbers or names help to make clear to the template which is which. Alternatively, the template can manage with unnamed and unnumbered parameter entries provided that they are in any case listed in their correct number sequence. When in doubt, use names or numbers. At times, especially when the first character of a parameter is a symbol, the use of named or numbered parameters avoids the corruption that would otherwise result with the unnamed entry.

The sequence of options is unimportant, since all options must be named in any case. Using named values just means adding the name of the option and an equals sign before the option's value. This of course requires a knowledge of the template's details.

Template names are sensitive to case except for the first letter, so a useful convention is to use lower case for template name, parameters, and options all of the time; that way you will never be in doubt.

Parameter names are quite sensitive to case in every way, so a capital letter makes all the difference. As a general rule, do not mix unnamed and named parameters in a template call, since the method used by the program to interpret their meaning becomes confused. Either use all unnamed with special attention to their sequence, or all named in any order that you like.

Making Templates

There are many template types, but those used for inserting and modifying text are the most numerous. Boxes feature next; whether they are information boxes, so-called user boxes, or simple text boxes, they all have common constructs. Some templates have dynamic functions, like drop-controls, though once their basic outlines are clear, they can be shaped for many purposes. At least one example of each will be considered.

Template making consists of writing functional code, Wikitext or HTML, or sometimes a mixture of both. The method is to test the code in the Sandbox, until the function works well. Then the options and the parameters can be assigned to the code. These are tested again, and if all is well, the block of code can be saved as a template.

In saving the template it as well to check whether or not there is an existing template of that name already. The simplest way to save a template is as follows. First, make sure that you are logged-on in a page of WikiBooks, to avoid making a template in the wrong project. Go to the search box at the left of the WikiBooks page, and enter the wording to find the as-yet unmade template. Assume here that the intended name is to be Caption. The line to type in the search window is just:

If the template is found, then the name is already taken, and another is needed. Assuming that the name is not found, then the search results window will state that it was not found and ask whether or not you want to make the page. Click the link to make the page.

The link opens a template editing page with the name of the template already listed as its address. Copy the code from your work in the sandbox, then paste it into the empty template page. In the line immediately following the last line in the code block, add the tags <noinclude></noinclude>. All text not intended to be a part of the template code, must be placed between these tags, as is the case for the template's description.

Finally, save the page by pressing the Save page button at the bottom of the page. The template is now made, and can be called into use with its given name. Go to the sandbox and test the features of the template.

Text Paragraphs

The code for a template need not start with any special character or symbol. The main consideration is that the code performs the required action, just as if it were typed directly onto the page. At the 'end of the code block, be sure to add the <noinclude></noinclude> tags as mentioned above.

All of the existing Wikitext and HTML code that can be used in a page can be used for a text template. The user of a page does not have access to the parts associated with styles, namely the heading of the web page and their style sheets. As a result, users are limited to modifying the parts of the page that are available, the text within the body of the page. Those familiar with web page design will know that the only remaining available method is to modify the page's text with in-line styles. Working methods use the <div></div> tags and the <span></span> tags, thanks to a feature of Wikitext that allows the use of HTML coding within it. CSS, (Cascading Style Sheet), properties and values are used within these tags to modify the text styles that would otherwise apply.

It is as well to point out here the difference in use for span and div in text templates. Span should be used to format text only, noting that any formats applied to the text will not extend beyond the last text character; div, on the other hand, will apply its formats to a rectangular block of text that extends across the page. the significance of this is that div is neater for changing background colors on the page. A comparative example can be seen in the Classes and Styles in Tags section of Class and Style Notes.

The Simplest Case

Before doing any formatting, consider the method for making a template from a simple block of text. Type a block of text, with all of its formats and page layout in place, then save the block as a template. It is as simple as that. Such blocks of text find use for test text, such as Lorem Ipsum, a well-known text block of fictitious content used by printers and others in laying out their work. To use such a template just type: Template:Block at any convenient place on a page to produce the text block. This block of text is not pre formatted with hard breaks, so it will wrap within the space where it is typed, and with the default text styles of the page.

Making Boxes

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The following sections make box or table templates from Wikitext. They can also be made with HTML tables in the same way. When it comes to making such a template, wikitext is fine but when a table is needed to go into a template as its parameter, or part of its parameter, an HTML table should be used instead. The WikiBooks text [[../Tables|Making Tables]] touches on HTML table structures, and explains how to use styles. It is assumed that the reader is familiar with these concepts in the text that follows.

The Box Structure

Boxes are essentially tables, in fact table cells. The CSS property list to format tables is extensive. Simple boxes make use of the table container, and one or two cells within it.

Apart from the table container, the other structures of a table include its rows, and cells. In the case below there are two rows, each with only one cell in them. Each part of a table has properties that affect it, and an example of typical table coding can be seen in the listing below.

Parameters and Options

It is intended to provide three options along with the two parameters. The options are to be background,width, and align. The parameter names are to be 1 and 2, with the labels heading and content.

Nesting templates

Templates may contain other templates — this is usually called "nesting". As the template is processed, the wikitext produced by any nested templates is transcluded into the nesting template, so that the final product is essentially processed from the most deeply nested template out. While fairly straightforward in application, it involves some noteworthy quirks and tricks.