Template:Documentation

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Not to be confused with Template:Documentation subpage.

{{doc}}

This template is used on approximately 86,000 pages and changes may be widely noticed. Test changes in the template's /sandbox or /testcases subpages, or in your own user subpage. Consider discussing changes on the talk page before implementing them.

This template uses Lua:

Module:Documentation

This is the {{documentation}} template used on almost every template page to contain that template's documented instructions and information, including <templatedata>, on either the template page itself, or a created documentation subpage.

For detailed instructions on how and when to use this template, see Wikipedia:Template documentation (shortcut: WP:TDOC).

This template displays a green documentation box, like you are seeing now, and automatically loads the content from a /doc subpage. It can also load the content from other places, if instructed to do so.

This template is intended for documenting templates and other pages that are transcluded onto other pages. It can be used in the template namespace and most other namespaces.

Use of this template allows templates to be protected, where necessary, while allowing anyone to edit the documentation and categories.

Usage

Normally, this template is used without any parameters, and is placed at the bottom of the template page or other page being documented, within a <noinclude>...</noinclude> container:

<!--Last line of your template code--><noinclude>
{{Documentation}}
<!-- Add categories to the /doc subpage and interwikis in Wikidata, not here! -->
</noinclude>

Then, this template automatically loads the content from the /doc subpage of the template it is used on.

This template can also load the content from any other page. For example:

<!--Last line of your template code--><noinclude>
{{Documentation |Template:Other page/doc}}
</noinclude>

Note that when loading the documentation from a page other than the local /doc subpage, it becomes tricky to handle the categories.

The content can also be fed directly as text. For example:

<!--Last line of your template code--><noinclude>
{{Documentation
 | content =
<!-- template documentation -->
}}</noinclude>

When the |content= parameter is used, the doc box normally does not show the [edit] [purge] links in the top right corner. Note that if the /doc page exists, a link to it is still shown in the link box below the doc box.

Parameter |1= and the |content= parameter can also be combined, for example:

<!--Last line of your template code--><noinclude>
{{Documentation |1=Template:Any page/doc
| content =
<!-- {{Template:Any page/doc |parameters}} -->
}}</noinclude>

Then, the pagename fed as parameter 1 is used for the [edit] [purge] links and for the /doc link in the link box below the doc box. But, the content parameter is used for the content shown in the doc box. The above code means that the content is transcluded as {{Template:Any page/doc|parameters}}. In this example, a parameter is also fed to the /doc page being loaded.

Placement and tags

This code should be added at the bottom of the template code page, with no space before <noinclude> (which causes extra whitespace to show on pages where the template is transcluded):

<!--Last line of your template code--><noinclude>
{{documentation}}
</noinclude>

To automatically insert the noinclude tags, the template call and the guiding comment, you can also use this substitution code shortcut:

{{subst:doc-code}}

Which results in:

<!--Last line of your template code--><noinclude>
{{documentation}}
<!-- Add categories to the /doc subpage and interwikis in Wikidata, not here! -->
</noinclude>

Categorization

When a documentation subpage is created by using this template, then to place the template itself into a category, add [[Category:Category name]] inside an <includeonly>{{Sandbox other||...}}</includeonly> section on the /doc subpage. For example, for placement on the documentation subpage:

{{Documentation subpage}}
<!-- Add categories where indicated at the bottom of this page and interwikis at Wikidata -->
== Usage ==

<includeonly>{{sandbox other||
<!-- Categories below this line; interwikis at Wikidata -->
[[Category:Category name]]
[[Category:Category name2]]
}}</includeonly>

When a documentation subpage has not been created, and the documentation template is being used with a |content= parameter on the actual template page, then to place the template itself into a category, add [[Category:Category name]] inside the documentation template, after the content. For example, for placement on the actual template page:

<!--Last line of your template code--><noinclude>
{{Documentation
 | content =
<!-- template documentation -->

[[Category:Category name]]
[[Category:Category name2]]
}}</noinclude>

Interwiki links that apply to the template should be listed at Wikidata (more at Wikipedia:Wikidata). For more complex cases, see Wikipedia:Template documentation § Categories and interwiki links.

Best practices

If the documentation page contains <includeonly> or <noinclude> tags, as part of the visible documentation text, replace the "<" with "<" or use Template:tag.

Heading

When in the Template namespace, this template shows this heading:

Template documentation

In most other namespaces, such as "Wikipedia:", it shows this heading:

Documentation

But when on File (image) pages it shows this heading:

Summary

The heading parameter can be used to set the heading to something else. For example:

{{Documentation |heading=Infobox documentation}}

If the heading parameter is empty but defined, no heading is shown and no [edit] [purge] links are shown. For example:

{{Documentation |heading=}}

The heading-style parameter can be fed optional CSS values. Without quotation marks " " but with the ending semicolons ;. For example:

heading-style=font-size:150%;color:red;

Link box

Below the big doc box is a small link box that shows some meta-data about the documentation. The link box shows different things depending on what parameters are fed to this template, and in which namespace it is used. In some cases, the link box is not shown at all.

To hide the link box, add the parameter |link box=off.

You can also insert customised text into the link box, by setting the |link box= parameter. For example:

|link box=This documentation is automatically generated by Template:Country showdata

Automatic functions

If the documentation page does not exist, the [create] link includes a preload page so that clicking it will pre-fill the edit form with the basic documentation page format. Preload text is also used for the /sandbox and /testcases [create] links.

When this template is on a protected template page it now automatically adds {{pp-template}}, which shows the grey or red padlock in the top right corner. So no need to manually add {{pp-template}} to templates that use {{Documentation}}.

When this template is on a /sandbox subpage it automatically adds the {{Template sandbox notice}}.

Subject namespaces vs. talk namespaces

Terminology: Subject namespaces are the opposite of talk namespaces. For instance "Template:" is the subject space of "Template talk:".

This template is usually placed in a subject namespace, within <noinclude> tags. But in some cases this template needs to be on the talk page:

In the Mediawiki namespace, since <noinclude> often does not work in system messages, and since the Mediawiki namespace needs to be kept clean for performance reasons.

When placed on talk pages, this template usually is placed near the top of the page and without <noinclude>...</noinclude> tags.

The /doc, /sandbox and /testcases pages should normally be in the subject namespace, except in the namespaces that do not have the MediaWiki subpage feature enabled: Main, File, and Mediawiki. (Categories can have subpages, but documentation is created in the Category talk namespace to prevent creating empty categories.) (But currently we only show the /sandbox and /testcases links from User, User talk, Template and Template talk namespaces.) There are also a whole bunch of other technical reasons why the /doc page must be stored under the talk page for those (but only those) namespaces.

This template automatically points its [create] links for the /doc, /sandbox and /testcases to the right namespace.

Testing

You can simulate the output for a given page by using the |page= parameter. For example, if you use the code |page=Template:Edit protected, the template will behave exactly as if it were on the page Template:Edit protected, including showing the documentation from Template:Edit protected/doc, linking to Template:Edit protected/sandbox, etc. This parameter is useful for testing and is used extensively on the module testcases page.

Technical details

The preload page for the /doc [create] link is Template:Documentation/preload. The preload pages for the /sandbox and /testcases [create] links are Template:Documentation/preload-sandbox and Template:Documentation/preload-testcases. The preload page for the /sandbox [mirror] link is Template:Documentation/mirror.

For more details, see the talk page.

Full syntax

{{Documentation}}

or

{{Documentation
 | content =
}}

or

{{Documentation
| [path to documentation page]
| heading-style = 
| heading = 
| link box = 
}}