Help:Template types

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Template types involves classifying each template with a type, such as "info-box", "nav-box", or "quote".

Adding types to your templates is going to make your Wikia community smarter and your templates easier to manage! Information about template types is going to enhance Insights and group your templates automatically on Special:Templates. Additionally, this information will help Wikia display your articles in the best possible way on our mobile skin by emphasizing some types (quotes, context links, info-boxes) and de-emphasizing others that don't work so well (nav-boxes, for example).

Classifying a template is easy, and we have also worked on automatic (or "machine") type detection that will likely cover a lot of cases - so classification should not require much work from you. You will need to help out our machines a bit, though, they're not as smart as you are.

For more background on this feature, please read DaNASCAT's Template Types blog post!

How it works
A template's current type is shown just under the page title on a template page. This type can be changed by signed-in users who have edit permissions on that template. This requires the default Wikia layout.

Updates can be made via the template page and via the right rail of the editor when you're editing the template. Clicking the listed type or the pencil icon next to it will open a dialogue that lets you select the template type.

Additionally, a dialog will ask you for the template type when creating a new template or when publishing an edit to a template page which has no type set.

Any automated classifications - those detected by the "machine" systems - are overridden by your classification choices.

Bulk edits
Administrators can bulk edit template types via category pages. If a category contains one or more templates, an option to 'Bulk edit template type' will appear under the 'Edit' button drop-down.

When a bulk edit is saved, all previously set types will be overwritten.

If the category contains 150+ pages in any namespace, there may be a delay between saving your changes and seeing the correct type populated.

Log
Changes made to a template's classification can be seen on Special:Log and be filtered under the 'Template type' option.

Template types
The current template types are listed below. There are some overlaps between the types, so we recommend you choose the type that is most specific to each template.

Note: these may be updated in the future based on your feedback - feel free to send in your thoughts to Special:Contact/feedback.

Info-box
Info-boxes display the most essential information about an article in a box at the top of the page. These usually float to the right side of the page but sometimes they span the entire width of the page.


 * Examples
 * Template:Info-box Artefact
 * Template:Character
 * Template:Volume Info-box

Quote
Many communities use quote templates to highlight notable snippets of text such as lyrics, book passages, spoken dialogue, or extracts from interviews or news articles. These templates often contain either a quote from one source or dialogue between multiple people.


 * Examples
 * Template:Quote
 * Template:Dialogue a-b
 * Template:Quote

Nav-box
Nav-box templates display a list of organised links in a box for readers to navigate to related articles, usually at the bottom of the page.


 * Hidden by default on the mobile skin.


 * Examples
 * Template:Weapon
 * Template:Navbox characters
 * Template:Rescue Rangers

Notice
Also known as hat-notes or alerts, these templates notify the reader about the status of the article itself, such as if it is a stub, if there is an associated disambiguation page, or if the article contains spoilers.

Notice templates often appear at the very top of an article page but also appear in certain sections or at the bottom of the page.


 * Hidden by default on the mobile skin.


 * Examples
 * Template:Update
 * Template:Stub
 * Template:Speculation

Context-link
These templates suggest another page that is related to the current page or section. The two most frequent uses of this type are "Main article" or "See also" and display as italicised text. These are used at the top of an article page or at the top of a section within an article page.


 * Examples
 * Template:Main
 * Template:See also
 * Template:For

Info-icon
These templates are used for creating a link or text with a small icon. These are very popular on gaming communities to represent currency, items, or controller symbols. The icons are sometimes linked to other pages.

Info-icons can appear inside paragraph text, inside info-boxes, or in bulleted lists.


 * In the mobile skin, these templates render only the icon, with no corresponding text nor any other content beyond the image.


 * Example Templates
 * Template:Icon
 * Template:Horde Icon Small

Scroll-box
These templates display their contents in a scroll-able box. Scroll-boxes are used to conserve space on article pages for very long lists.


 * Examples
 * Template:Scroll-box
 * Template:Scroll
 * Template:Scroll

Citation or reference
These templates organise and standardise the display how sources of content on an article page are annotated. These can be either used to place a single reference in an article or to build a references list at the bottom of the article page.

These templates can optionally use tags or build in-line citations.


 * Examples
 * Template:Ep
 * Template:Crossref
 * Template:Reflist

Image, video, or gallery
The purpose of any template in the image, video, or gallery type is to standardise or modify the display of one or more images or videos on an article page.

These are often used to build a gallery or to format how an image thumbnail displays.


 * Examples
 * Template:Gallery
 * Template:I
 * Template:Icon

Data
Any templates that do not fall into the types above but add information or data to an article page should be classified as data. This includes (but is certainly not limited to) templates that are used to build tables, templates that are used to generate maths equations, or pieces of data (e.g. price of an item, release version of a game, etc.) that are inserted on multiple pages.


 * Examples
 * Template:DM card
 * Template:Item table row
 * Template:Battlepet ability row
 * Template:Season 3 Episodes

Design
If a template's sole purpose is to modify how an article page (or a piece of an article page) looks, it should be classified as design. Common uses include adding tabs, modifying the visual display of text or tables, or relocating the table of contents.


 * Examples
 * Template:Credits
 * Template:Tab
 * Template:Scroll box

Navigation
If a template's sole purpose is to help readers or other editors find another article page or category it should be classified as navigation. Example uses include page-top icons, recommended links to other websites, categorisers, or succession boxes.

The most popular types of navigation templates are nav-boxes and context links, which are listed above.
 * Hidden by default on the mobile skin.


 * Example
 * Template:Music floater

Non-article
Assign this type if a template is not used on any article (content) pages. For example, if the template is only used on talk pages, template pages, file pages, user pages, or only on your community's main page.


 * Examples :
 * Template:Talk header
 * Template:CC-BY-SA
 * Template:Main Page Character Gallery

Unknown
The 'default' type, when no other template type has been chosen.

Template Types and Categories
The Template Types feature is separate from template categories. Since the usage of such categories vary hugely across Wikia, template classification and categories do not affect each other. You can continue to use template categories exactly as the same as before.