User:Adaz: Difference between revisions

Dans la documentation du modèle, il y a aussi une liste des paramètres et comment ils sont censés être utilisés. Il y a souvent des exemples pour illustrer les différentes façons dont les paramètres peuvent être utilisés.

Two important things to add to your template is template documentation, preferably using {{tl|informative template}} and if possible to put the template in a more fitting category than [[:Category:Templates]].

Unless it is a very simple template it can be a good thing to start by writing the documentation as this might help you figuring out the last few things in what you want the template to do and how you want it to do that, and then more or less use the documentation as reference when typing the template itself.

Do remember that you can, and should use the preview button now and then, or at least one before saving, in order to catch any errors before saving.  One way of debugging a template is to add obvious clues as to where in a template something got wrong, for example 1?, 2?...  This can be really helpful in some cases,  though in other cases it will be obvious.  Some common mistakes are the same ones as on article pages:  Missing end markers in tables and missing end tags or end tags with missing slashes.

While the template always can be fixed if there are errors it is better to have an extra preview than an extra edit.  Do note that the template will be lost if you do not save it.

Editing a template is often as easy as editing a normal wiki page.  Lets say you want to edit a template with the name ''what you always wanted to know''. Either search for the template using the template namespace like ''Template:What you always wanted to know'' or click on a link to get you there.

Always try to add documentation to templates missing that, preferably using {{tl|informative template}}.

Passing parameters to templates make them a lot more useful.  Unnamed parameters can be used in the order they are passed, in essence <tt><nowiki>{{{1}}}</nowiki></tt>, <tt><nowiki>{{{2}}}</nowiki></tt> etc.  Consider the following template, ''Template:Hello'':

<pre>Hello, {{{1|}}}{{{2|stranger}}}!</pre>

Hello, Dr. Falken!

You might wonder what that vertical stroke and the text following, <tt><nowiki>{{{</nowiki>1'''|'''<nowiki>}}}{{{</nowiki>2'''|stranger'''<nowiki>}}}</nowiki></tt>, in ''Template:Hello'' does.  Most of you will already have guessed that they are default values.  Having at least an ''empty'' default value is a good practice, as templates otherwise will break when passed an empty parameter.  Here is what happens when the above template is used without parameters:

  <pre>{{hello}}</pre>

<nowiki>Hello, {{{1}}}{{{2}}}!</nowiki>

While using a template with named parameters can be a bit more of typing, they are not that much extra typing when editing a template.  They are however practical some other ways, they can be passed to a template in any order and, more important, they are named (as in not numbered).  That last thing makes them immensely more useful in complex templates.

Hello, Dr. Falken!

Sometimes you have content in a template that you do not want to be transcluded or that you want to have transcluded but not included in the template.  Consider for example the template documentation, of course you would not want it to be on every page the template is used on, also, sometimes you want a template to add a category to the page it is used on, but not to the template itself. This can be done using the <tt><nowiki><noinclude></nowiki></tt> and <tt><nowiki><includeonly></nowiki></tt> tags.

  <nowiki>Hello, {{{1|}}}{{{2|stranger}}}!<includeonly>[[Category:Pages that says hello]]</includeonly><noinclude>

Sometimes it is helpful if a template suppresses categorisation and only categorizes some of the pages it is put on.  There is a few templates that can be used for that in [[:Category:Namespace templates]].  Most of them uses the namespace of the page the template is put on. For example '''''Help talk:'''Templates'' is in the ''Help talk'' namespace.

  <nowiki>

Apart from '''demospace''' some templates will have a '''nocat''' parameter that when not empty or set as '''nocat = yes''' will suppress categorisation altogether.

Templates are translated in a different way than [[Help:Translate|normal articles]].  Instead of creating another page for each translation, all translations are written within one template.  To do that one can use the {{tl|LangSwitch}} template, for example like below.

  <nowiki>[http://{{LangSwitch

  <nowiki>{{LangSwitch

{{note|Many templates use tables and have to start from the beginning of the line, like in the above example.}}

  <nowiki>{{LangSwitch

The templates can contain some very advanced and often complex code, but even easier code can do great things to make life easier for you as an editor using it later.

While this page will not go into details, there is a few secrets to more advanced templates:

A good hint on getting more readable template source is that well placed HTML comments (<tt>&lt;!-- Comment --&gt;</tt>) will help a lot.   

[[Category:Help]]