Simple Templates

I view simple templates as those which do not use variables.

For the mh370wiki.net site I have a lot of useful components in the Template namespace. When these are transcluded into a page there is no need to include the namespace.

A Short Line

I frequently use a short line to separate parts of a page. The html horizontal line

is full width by default and has no significant white space before or after.

My ShortLine is simple and reusable:-

<includeonly><div style="margin-left:20%; margin-right:20%; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em;"><hr></div></includeonly>

If there was nothing else on the source page then the includeonly tags would not be needed. But I have kept a few previous versions, where I adjusted the white space, between noinclude tags.

To use the ShortLine I just transclude it with this instruction:-

{{ShortLine}}

And the result is this:-

Sub-page List

I have used sub-pages a lot. Sometimes it is helpful to get a list of sub-pages somewhere on the top page, so I can see what exists; to easily link to and open a sub-page; to check that each sub-page is linked from a parent page.

To display the list of subpages I can just place this code at a suitable place on a parent page:-

{{SubpageList}}

The template looks like this:-

<hr>
<h5>Note: This article has sub-pages:-</h5>
<p>{{Special:PrefixIndex/{{FULLPAGENAME}}/}}</p>

FULLPAGENAME is a variable in MediaWiki. There is a list of 'magic words' and variables at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Magic_words

A Signature

To 'sign' an article with my name I just write:-

{{Signature}}

The template is simple:-

<p style="width:90%; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; font-size:1em;  text-align:right;"><u>Grant</u></p>

The result is at the end of this page.

Category Pages

Category pages only need to belong to a parent category, but on the mh370wiki.net site I have used templates to provide extra information on each category page.

I have adapted the idea here and created a simple template named CategoryPage in the Template namespace:-

<onlyinclude>
   <h2>Category: {{PAGENAME}}</h2>
      <div class="header">
         <p>This page lists matches for the category <i>{{PAGENAME}}</i>. To navigate to a higher level in the category hierarchy, use the link below the list of sub-categories or pages.</p>
      </div> <!-- end header -->
   <div style="margin-left:4.5em; margin-right:4.5em;">
      <p style="margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; text-align: justify;">{{{CategoryDescription| }}}</p> 
   </div>
</onlyinclude>
<includeonly>[[Category:{{{ParentCategory| }}}]]</includeonly>

For each template I also create instructions, like this:-

<h5>Usage</h5>
<p>Copy this code into each category page.</p>
{{CategoryPage
   |ParentCategory=
   |CategoryDescription=
}}

How it works

When the section between the {{ }} brackets is copied into an empty category page all you have to do is fill in the blanks after the =. Add the name of the parent category, and provide a description of what this current category is for.

The {{ }} brackets indicates that the enclosed section is to be transcluded. By default if a namespace is not stated then MediaWiki looks in the Template Namespace. There it will find the Template:CategoryPage and use the values for ParentCategory and CategoryDescription.

Grant

Simple Templates