Help:Templates

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If you have standard texts you want to include on several pages, the MediaWiki template feature comes into play.

Creation

Templates are standard wiki pages whose content is designed to be transcluded (embedded) inside other pages. Templates follow a convention that the name is prefixed with "Template:", assigning it to that namespace; besides this, you can create them like any other wiki page.

The simplest use of templates is as follows. If you create a page called "Template:Welcome" with contents:

Hello! Welcome to the wiki.

you'll have created your first template! If you then insert the code:

{{Welcome}}

in any other page, when that page is viewed the text "Hello! Welcome to the wiki." will appear instead of {{Welcome}}. The template content is "transcluded" into the other page, i.e. it is integrated in the page.

You can then insert {{Welcome}} at any point of any page where you wish to welcome someone. Suppose it is used in 100 pages. If you then change the template contents to:

Hi there! Welcome to this wonderful wiki.

and revisit any of the 100 pages where the template was used, you'll see the new text instead of the original one. In this way, you have changed the content of 100 pages without editing them, because the template is transcluded into these pages.

This is the basic mechanism. There are several additional features of transclusion that enrich this mechanism and make templates very useful.

Usage

Templates can be used in other pages in these ways:

• {{Name}}, described above, 'transcludes' (i.e. includes a copy of) the content of the template (stored in the page [[Template:Name]]) whenever the page containing the template transclusion is fetched and displayed; i.e. if the template is later changed, the displayed transcluding page will automatically change too
• {{subst:Name}} replaces that string with the contents of the template, in the source of the transcluding page, when you save that page; the copy of the template contents can then be edited normally (and separately from the original in the template page). Note: don't use this if you are looking to continually propagate changes from the source template to the page(s) that references it.
• {{safesubst:Name}} was introduced in rev:61710 to allow for substitution that doesn't break transclusion, see wikipedia:Help:Substitution#The safesubst: modifier.
• {{msgnw:Name}} includes the template in a form that displays it as raw wiki syntax (the way <nowiki> does) when the page containing it is fetched.

In fact, an ordinary wiki page can also be used as a template, simply by specifying the namespace it resides in, so:

• {{Template:Pagename}} includes [[Template:Pagename]]
• {{Foo:Pagename}} includes [[Foo:Pagename]]
• {{:Pagename}} includes [[Pagename]]
  • {{subst::Pagename}} replaces itself with the contents of [[Pagename]]

If no such namespace exists, the full title is assumed to be a template:

• {{Foo:Bar}} includes [[Template:Foo:Bar]]

Parameters

To enrich the mechanism of transclusion, MediaWiki allows parameters to be passed to a template when it is transcluded. Parameters allow the template to produce different contents or have different behaviors.

Suppose you wish to insert a little thank you note in the talk page of other users, such as:

Template:Thankyou The thank you note will have a reason (in this case, "all your effort") and a signature ("Me"). Your objective is that any user is able to thank any other user, for any reason whatsoever.

So that the note will look similar everywhere it is used, you can define a template called Template:Thankyou, for example. Although the note should look similar whenever a user thanks another user, its specific contents (i.e. the reason and the signature) will be different. For that reason, you should pass them as parameters. If we ignore the remaining elements to format the box and place the image, the core content of the template will be this:

'''A little thank you...'''
for {{{1}}}.
hugs, {{{2}}}

Notice the use of {{{1}}} and {{{2}}}. This is the way to identify, within templates, the parameters that will be passed in when the template is used. Note that, within the template, each parameter is surrounded by three braces: {{{ }}}. This is different from normal template name usage.

When using the template on a page, you fill in the parameter values, separated by a pipe char (|). MediaWiki allows parameters to be passed to the template in three ways.

Anonymous parameters

To pass in anonymous parameters, list the values of those parameters sequentially:

{{Thankyou|all your effort|Me}}

In this case, template {{Thankyou}} receives parameters {{{1}}}=all your effort and {{{2}}}=Me and produces:

Inverting the order of the parameters:

{{Thankyou|Me|all your effort}}

causes template {{Thankyou}} to receive parameters {{{1}}}=Me and {{{2}}}=all your effort and inverts the result:

Template:Thankyou So, the order in which anonymous parameters are passed in is crucial to its behaviour.

Numbered parameters

To pass in parameters by number, identify each parameter when passing it:

{{Thankyou|2=Me|1=your friendship}}

This time, template {{Thankyou}} receives parameters {{{1}}}=your friendship and {{{2}}}=Me, though they have been supplied in inverse order, and produces: Template:Thankyou

Named parameters

The third way of passing parameters is by name, instead of numbers. In this case, the template contents would be changed to:

'''A little thank you...'''
for {{{reason}}}.
hugs, {{{signature}}}

Within the template, we use {{{reason}}} and {{{signature}}} to identify each parameter, instead of a number. To pass these parameters by name, identify each parameter when passing it:

{{Thankyou|signature=Me|reason=being who you are}}

In this case, template {{Thankyou}} receives parameters {{{reason}}}=being who you are and {{{signature}}}=Me and produces:

Template:Thankyou The advantage of using named parameters in your template, besides also being flexible in the order parameters can be passed, is that it makes the template code much easier to understand if there are many parameters.

Default values

If you transclude a template that expects parameters, but do not provide them, in this way:

{{Thankyou}}

in the numbered parameters example above you would get the following:

Template:Thankyou Since no parameters were passed in, the template presents the parameters themselves, instead of their respective values. In these cases, it may be useful to define default values for the parameters, i.e. values that will be used if no value is passed in. For example, if the template contents are changed to:

'''A little thank you...'''
for {{{reason|everything}}}.
hugs, {{{signature|Me}}}

then {{{reason|everything}}} defines that if no parameter {{{reason}}} is provided, then the value everything will be used. Similarly, {{{signature|Me}}}, defaults parameter {{{signature}}} to value Me. Now, transcluding the template again without passing any parameter, results in the following: Template:Thankyou

Control template inclusion

By default, the whole content of a template will be processed and displayed both when the template page is being viewed directly and when the template is being included in another page. However, you can control template inclusion by the use of <noinclude> and <includeonly> tags.

Anything between <noinclude> and </noinclude> will be processed and displayed only when the template's page is being viewed directly, and will not be processed and displayed when it is included in another page. The application of this is to do things to the template page that should not be similarly done to the pages where it is included:

• Categorising the template.
• Placing in the template interlanguage links to similar templates in other languages.
• Presenting explanatory text about how to use the template.

Anything between <includeonly> and </includeonly> will be processed and displayed only when the page is being included, and will not be processed and displayed when the template page is being viewed directly. The application of this is to do things in the pages where the template is included that you do not want to be similarly done in the template page:

• Categorising only the pages where the template is included. Note that when you change the categories applied by a template in this fashion, the categorization of all the pages where that template is included may not be updated until some time later: this is handled by the queue job queue. To force the re-categorisation of a particular page, open the page for edit and save it without changes.
• Ensuring that the template's code is not executed when viewing the template page itself. Normally this is because it isn't receiving any parameters and its execution without parameters has an undesired aspect.

Of course, everything outside <noinclude> and <includeonly> tags is processed and displayed both when the template page is being viewed directly and when the template is being included in another page.

Organizing templates

For templates to be effective, users need to find them, and find out how to use them.

To find them, users can:

1. Click Special Pages > All Pages
2. In the Namespace list, choose Template and click Go.

To give usage information, include an example like this one on the template page:

<noinclude>
== Usage ==
Welcome users:
{{Thankyou|reason=your reason|signature=your signature}}
</noinclude>

Then, an editor can simply copy and paste the example to use the template.

Copying from one wiki to another

Templates often require CSS or other templates, so users frequently have trouble copying templates from one wiki to another. The steps below should work for most templates.

MediaWiki code

If you have import rights on the new wiki:

1. Go to Special:Export on the original wiki, and download an .xml file with the complete history of all necessary templates, as follows:
   • Enter the name of the template in the big text box.
   • Check the box "Include templates".
   • Uncheck the box "Include only the current revision".
   • Click Export.
2. Go to Special:Import on the new wiki and upload the .xml file.

If you don't have import rights on the new wiki:

1. Go to Special:Export on the original wiki, and download an .xml file with the latest version only of all necessary templates, as follows:
   • Enter the name of the template in the big text box.
   • Check the box "Include templates".
   • Check the box "Include only the current revision".
   • Click Export.
2. Open the file in a text editor and manually copy the text inside the <text> tag of each listed template into a similarly named template in your wiki. In the edit summary of each template, link to the original page for attribution.

This will copy the entire code necessary, and will suffice for some templates.

Extensions

An extension often used in templates is ParserFunctions. Visit page ParserFunctions and check if any of the functions listed there are used in the templates you've copied. If so, you have to install the ParserFunctions extension. To install it, you'll need system admin access to the server of your MediaWiki instalation.

CSS and JavaScript code

Besides MediaWiki code, many templates make use of CSS and some rely on JavaScript to work fully. If the copied templates are not behaving as expected, this may be the cause. To copy the required CSS and JavaScript to your wiki you'll normally need to have admin priviledges, because you'll be editing system messages in the "MediaWiki:" namespace.

1. Look for the use of CSS classes (text like class="foobar") in the template text. If those classes appear in "MediaWiki:Common.css" or "MediaWiki:Monobook.css" on the original wiki, copy them to "MediaWiki:Common.css" on the new wiki and check if the template is now fine.
2. If the copied template is still not working as expected, check if there is code in "MediaWiki:Common.js" or "MediaWiki:Monobook.js" on the original wiki. If so, you can try copying it to "MediaWiki:Common.js" on the new wiki. Normally, it is a good idea to only copy code from trusted sources, and first browsing the code to identify and select the parts that seem relevant. You may find comments that can serve as clues to identify the functionality of each part. When in doubt, copy all the code to the new wiki.

Specifying parameter defaults

Very often you will see parameters in this form:

{{{A template parameter|}}}

The pipe character "|" is the delimiter for a default value in the parameter. In the example above, it is empty, so the default would be an empty string if no value were passed from the template to the parameter. Of course, you may define a default like this:

{{{A template parameter|with a default value}}}

The string "with a default value" is the default value of the parameter if it is not set elsewhere.

See also

• Help:Magic words – fancy stuff you may find in some templates
• MetaWiki:Help:Template – contains a much more thorough manual on how exactly templates function
• page MetaWiki:Help:Embed page – embedding pages from namespaces other than Template:.