Template:About

From The Richterian History Collective


Template documentation
Note: portions of the template sample may not be visible without values provided.
View or edit this documentation. (About template documentation)
Editors can experiment in this template's sandbox and test case pages.

The hatnotes used for adding links between articles where more context is important. Broadly speaking, a hatnote should answer a readers' question: Am I on the right page?

Usage[edit source]

Basic usage
{{hatnote|text}}
All parameters
{{hatnote|text|extraclasses=extra classes|selfref=yes|category=no}}

Parameters[edit source]

This template accepts the following parameters:

  • 1 - the hatnote text (required)
  • extraclasses - any extra CSS classes to be added.
  • selfref - If set to "yes", "y", "true" or "1", adds the CSS class "selfref". This is used to denote self-references.
  • category - If set to "no", "n", "false", or "0", suppresses the error tracking category (Category:Hatnote templates with errors). This has an effect only if the leftmost parameter (the hatnote text) is omitted.

Example[edit source]

  • {{hatnote|Example hatnote text}}Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Dev:Hatnote' not found.

Typical types[edit source]

{{Main}}, {{Further}} are very similar, but indicate either the primary page for a topic or more detailed related topic. They have a nearly identical set of parameters.

{{Main}}
When an article is large, it often has a summary and a link to a main article. This template is used after the heading of the summary, to indicate a link to the subtopic article that has been summarized.
{{Further}}
Used to link to articles containing further information on this topic.
{{See also}}
Used to link to additional articles on related topics.
{{Main|<Main Page>}} →
Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Dev:Hatnote' not found.
{{Main|<Main Page>|<Main Page>}} →
Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Dev:Hatnote' not found.


  • 1, 2, 3, ... – the pages to link to. If no page names are specified, the current page name is used instead (without the namespace prefix). Categories and files are automatically escaped with the colon trick, and links to sections are automatically formatted as page § section, rather than the MediaWiki default of page#section.
  • l1, l2, l3, ... orlabel 1, label 2, label 3, ... – optional labels for each of the pages to link to (this is for articles where a piped link would be used). Note that the extra parameters use a lower case 'L', for example, l1, not L1.
  • selfref – if set to "yes", "y", "true" or "1", adds the CSS class "selfref". This is used to denote self-references.


Disambiguation[edit source]

Templates such as {{About}} and {{For}} are to be used in cases where a disambiguation is not needed. In general, disambiguation pages should only be used for 4 or more titles that are mostly or entirely identical, except for a qualifier.

{{About}}
Links the reader to other articles with similar titles or concepts that they may have been seeking instead. The template has several formats, including:
{{About|<Use1>}} →
Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Dev:Hatnote' not found.
{{About|<Use1>|<>|<Main Page>}} →
Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Dev:Hatnote' not found.
{{About|<Use1>|<>|<Main Page>|<and>|<Main Page>}} →
Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Dev:Hatnote' not found.
{{About|<Use1>|<Use2>|<Main Page>}} →
Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Dev:Hatnote' not found.
{{About|<Use1>|<Use2>|<Main Page>|<and>|<Main Page>}} →
Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Dev:Hatnote' not found.
{{About|<Use1>|<Use2>|<Main Page>|<other uses>}} →
Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Dev:Hatnote' not found.


Alternately, a section=yes parameter can be added to the {{About}} template for use at the top of a section. When using this parameter, the wording in the template changes to specify that it is being used in a section:

{{About|<Use1>|<section=yes>}} →
Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Dev:Hatnote' not found.
{{About|<Use1>|<>|<Main Page>|<section=yes>}} →
Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Dev:Hatnote' not found.
{{About|<Use1>|<Use2>|<Main Page>|<section=yes>}} →
Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Dev:Hatnote' not found.
{{About|<Use1>|<Use2>|<Main Page>|<and>|<Main Page>|<section=yes>}} →
Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Dev:Hatnote' not found.
{{About|<Use1>|<Use2>|<Main Page>|<other uses>|<section=yes>}} →
Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Dev:Hatnote' not found.


A text option adds text to the end; note that this should be only used when truly necessary, and the other hatnote templates listed below don't suffice. This template also supports selfref.

{{For}}
Provides links to up to four articles or disambiguation pages. It accepts zero to five parameters.
If used without parameters on a page named Foo, the result is
Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Dev:Hatnote' not found.
The first parameter changes the hatnote itself and should be plain text, e.g. {{For|<similar terms>}} yields
Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Dev:Hatnote' not found.
The second parameter is used to change the resultant link, e.g. {{For|<similar terms>|<Main Page>}} yields
Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Dev:Hatnote' not found.
The third, fourth and fifth parameters are used to give one, two, or three supplementary links
  • Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Dev:Hatnote' not found.
  • Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Dev:Hatnote' not found.
  • Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Dev:Hatnote' not found.
the last being produced by e.g. {{For|<similar terms>|<Main Page>|<Main Page>|<Main Page>|<Main Page>}}.

Errors[edit source]

If no hatnote text is supplied, the template will output the following message:

  • Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Dev:Hatnote' not found.

If you see this error message, it is for one of four reasons:

  1. No parameters were specified (the template code was {{hatnote}}). Please use {{hatnote|text}} instead.
  2. Some parameters were specified, but the hatnote text wasn't included. For example, the template text {{hatnote|extraclasses=seealso}} will produce this error. Please use (for example) {{hatnote|text|extraclasses=seealso}} instead.
  3. The hatnote text was specified, but that text contains an equals sign ("="). The equals sign has a special meaning in template code, and because of this it cannot be used in template parameters that do not specify a parameter name. For example, the template code {{hatnote|2+2=4}} will produce this error. To work around this, you can specify the parameter name explicitly by using 1= before the hatnote text, like this: {{hatnote|1=2+2=4}}.
  4. You tried to access Module:Hatnote directly by using {{#invoke:hatnote|hatnote|text}}. Use of #invoke in this way has been disabled for performance reasons. Please use {{hatnote|text}} instead.

Pages that contain this error message are tracked in Category:Hatnote templates with errors.


Technical details[edit source]

This template uses the Lua templating language, and more information can be found on the Global Lua Module page. For a traditional wikitext version of this template, see Hatnote on Templates Wiki.

The HTML code produced by this template looks like this:

  • <div role="note" class="hatnote">hatnote text</div>