Pikipedia:Template guidelines

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P:TEMPLATE

Templates are special pages that are inserted into normal articles, normally with content that can change dynamically. Templates on Pikipedia should adhere to the following guidelines.

Documentation[edit]

Every template page needs documentation on the template. Make sure to wrap this in <noinclude> tags. The following sections should exist, when applicable:

Info[edit]

This section explains what the template does and when it should be used.

Parameters[edit]

If the template has any parameters, this section should detail them using a table. The following is how the table should look like:

Parameter Mandatory Default Purpose Detailed description
<parameter> <mandatory> <default> <purpose> <description>
  • Parameter: The name of the parameter, or its number, in the case of parameters that are not named.
  • Mandatory: "Yes" or "No", depending on whether the template needs the parameter to work correctly or not.
  • Default: The parameter's default value, in the case that it is optional. Special content, like Template guidelines, should be displayed in italics.
  • Purpose: This column should only exist if there are unnamed parameters. All unnamed parameters can be given a name here.
  • Description: An explanation of the parameter.

When creating the parameter documentation, the following code can be copy-pasted and edited accordingly:

{| class="wikitable"
! Parameter || Mandatory || Default || Purpose || Detailed description
|-
! 
|  ||  ||  || 
|-
! 
|  ||  ||  || 
|-
! 
|  ||  ||  || 
|}

Skeleton[edit]

For templates that have parameters, a template template (a template skeleton) section should be created. This is simply a snippet of MediaWiki markup surrounded by <pre> tags, so that editors who want to add the template to articles can just copy-paste the snippet and replace the values with their own. Value placeholders should start with < and end with >. Example of a template skeleton:

{{example | <parameter 1> | <parameter 2>}}

Examples[edit]

In cases of dynamic and complex templates, it may be better to have a section with examples, that shows some of the template's behavior when presented with different parameters. The examples should be displayed inside a table like so:

Code Result
<code>
<result>
  • Code: A snippet of MediaWiki markup that calls the template.
  • Result: What the template looks like.

Be careful with calling the template itself to provide the result, in cases where the template has side effects, such as adding a category to any page that includes it.

Like before, the following code can be copy-pasted by editors to help create an example table:

{| class="wikitable"
! Code || Result
|-
| <pre>{{}}</pre>
| {{}}
|}