wp:Wrapper templates

{{t|Wikibreak}} is a template used to indicate that someone is taking a wikibreak from editing. With 10 different parameters, it can be customised in a number of ways, but the base template is rather generic ({{tq|User:Example is taking a short wikibreak and will be back on Wikipedia soon}}). To avoid needing to type out custom messages for every possibility, wrapper templates such as {{t|exams}} were created. These templates hard-code the {{para|message}} and other parameters for ease of use. Consider the following example:

{{wikibreak

| message = User:Example is taking a short wikibreak to get ready for exams and will be back on Wikipedia once the exams are over.

| image = Nuvola apps bookcase.svg

}}

If a user is a student and wants to place this message frequently, it is a lot of text to write and/or remember! However, if they use {{tlc|exams}} on their userpage, it will show the same message, because the code above is — while slightly formatted for ease of reading — what is coded into that template. Other wikibreak templates can be found at :Category:Wikibreak templates.

When substitution is used on a template, the original template call is replaced by its code. This is no different for a wrapper template, though there are certain things to keep in mind when creating one if substitution is expected.

Sometimes if a wrapper is substituted, the intention is to subst both the main wrapper template and the original it surrounds, leaving only the internal wikitext of the base template. In this case, a subst: call will need to be added. For example, Template:Don't ping inserts a message on a talk page that one is following the page and doesn't need to be pinged in replies. It calls Template:Please ping with the no parameter specified (i.e. {{tlc|please ping|no}}). To avoid having this inner template code show up when it is substituted, the code of {{t|don't ping}} is {{safesubst:Please ping|no}}. When subst, the code inside {{tlc|please ping}} will be displayed in the wikitext.

There are two ways of placing the subst code into a wrapper template, with little functional difference:

• Place a {{tag|noinclude|single}} in between a subst: call and the template, e.g. {{safesubst:please ping|no}}
• Use safesubst: in front of the template, e.g. {{safesubst:please ping|no}}

Some subst'able wrapper templates are designed as convenience templates, either to pre-fill certain types of code in the main template or otherwise reduce the amount of text needed to be entered by the user. An example of this is in WikiProject banners for task forces; for example, inserting {{tls|WP Eclipses}} on a talk page will result in {{WikiProject Astronomy|eclipses=yes}}, saving the user a fair number of keystrokes.

These convenience templates may offer the option for many parameters to be entered and passed to its parent template; for example there are 9 optional parameters that can be given in a {{tlc|WP Eclipses}} call that can be passed to the main template. However, it is not always desired to insert that many blank parameters into the final template, especially if many are rarely used. In such cases, any parameters to leave out of the final code can be hidden on substitution with the following steps:

• Start with the original parameter/text that needs hiding, e.g. |class={{{class{{!}}}
• Convert the | and = into their template versions ({{t|!}} and {{t|1==}} respectively); this avoids messing up the template used in the next step → {{t|!}}class{{t|1==}}{{{class{{!}}}}}
• Use {{t|ifnotempty}} to return a blank value if {{para|class}} is not used/blank → {{tlc|ifnotempty|{{{class{{!}}}}}|{{t|!}}class{{t|1==}}{{{class{{!}}}}}}}
• Add a safesubst: before each template call (e.g. immediately after the opening {{((}} for each template):
• :→{{safesubst:ifnotempty|{{{class|}}}|{{safesubst:!}}class{{safesubst:=}}{{{class|}}}}}

When substituted, if {{para|class}} has a value it will be passed through to the base template.

Note: when hiding parameters using this method, they cannot be the first item after the base template name; the safesubst template call will interfere with the actual transclusion of the base template and the template will simply show up as code, e.g. {{WikiProject Astronomy|eclipses=yes}}, without actually showing the template proper. Always add any hard-coded parameters first, followed after by the potentially-unused parameters. In the case of the Eclipses wrapper, this means starting the template as {{WikiProject Astronomy|eclipses=yes... with the other parameter code following the "yes".

If both the wrapper and base template code are complex, such as creating a subst'able wrapper template to convert one infobox into another infobox, there may be issues with using safesubst:; it can interfere with parser functions or subtemplates in the base/target template. In such cases it may be more appropriate to use the following code:

{{SAFESUBST:#if:{{{{{subst|subst:}}}ns:0}}

|

Many templates, such as {{tl|if empty}} or {{tl|infobox}}, are just simple wrappers around Lua modules, in this case Module:If empty and Module:Infobox. This is straightforward to implement as the frame:getParent().args table in Lua, which is accessed from the module, can directly read the arguments passed to the wrapper template. The template can then be as simple as {{#invoke:If empty|main}} (although there is slightly more code to make it substable and add documentation). Two of the main points of this are to avoid needing the "{{#invoke:" syntax in articles, and backward compatibility.

• {{tl|uses infobox person}}
• {{tl|wrapper}}
• {{tl|wraps infobox}}
• {{tl|CS1 wrapper}}

• :Category:Citation templates that wrap CS1 templates
• Help:Advanced text formatting
• Wikipedia:Advanced article editing
• Wikipedia:Advanced table formatting
• Wikipedia:Infobox consolidation