User:Refractor/TemplateMoss

This is the template manual of style. This documents describes how to make a proper template consistent with the wiki and usage. Templates are pages that contain certain kinds of things that can be reused and customized with fields.

Template images

It's recommended to use CP images whenever possible. In the case that you can't, an icon from or in the Tango style is OK.

Documentation

Templates, on their pages, should have information on how to embed it, the parameters (and defaults) it takes, example usage, and any sub-templates that can be used. Documentation is wrapped inside of a <noinclude> tag.

Types of templates

Amboxes

Amboxes are boxes intended for articles and usually placed at the top of the page. An ambox should usually be in the 'large' (default) style, but exceptions can be made. An ambox should have:

• An appropriate image (52px for large, 40px for small)
• Bold text indicating the purpose concisely as possible, in title case (e.g: "Candidate for Deletion", "Biased", "No Categories")
• On a new line, text elaborating what's with it.
• Ideally, amboxes should not convey information that can be expressed in an infobox.

Styles

Amboxes can come in a variety of colours and styles. These are the types available:

• ■ Speedy deletion (speedy) - used for spam, vandal pages, etc.
• ■ Deletion (delete) - used for non-urgent deletion
• ■ Content (content) - used for issues with page content such as neutrality
• ■ Stylistic (style) - used for issues with page style such as formatting and page layout
• ■ Information (notice) - used to convey other information about a page
• ■ Movement (move) - used for page moves, merges, splits, etc.
• ■ Protection (protection) used for page protection requests or information

Infoboxes

Infoboxes are boxes on the top-right of a page describing the basic facts of something in a consistent manner. They should:

• Have different colours depending on what kind of infobox it is.
• Hide fields that aren't filled in.
• Have fields relevant to the item type that can be filled reasonably for any article using it.

Navboxes

Navboxes are placed at the footers of a page. They group links of a certain type for easy navigation. The simplest navboxes may have one row, but they can have multiple, and those rows can have children rows. Large navboxes should be collapsible.

Userboxes

Userboxes are placed on userpages to associate yourself with something. For example, you can identify as a male Canadian Linux user.

As they are intended for user pages that can be customized at will, their usage and style is more flexible. Regardless, we suggest, especially for prefabricated ones:

• Try to use text in the main part. Images should be square and if possible, obey the template image guideline.
• Keep the colours readable.
• Keep descriptions brief.
• Don't violate the personal information policy!