Ta‌̱mpi‌̱let:documentation/documentation

This template automatically displays a documentation box like you are seeing now, of which the content is transcluded from another page. It is intended for pages which are transcluded in other pages, i.e. templates, whether in the template namespace or not.

Usage

template code
...<noinclude>{{documentation}}</noinclude>

or

<onlyinclude>template code . . .</onlyinclude>
{{documentation}}

The most common practice is to place the {{documentation}} template in <noinclude> tags. Alternatively, the template code itself can be wrapped in <onlyinclude> tags and the {{documentation}} template should be outside of those tags. Both of these methods ensure that the documentation is not transcluded onto other pages as part of the template.

If the template itself should be placed in a category, or should have interwiki links, those should be placed on the documentation page, inside <includeonly> tags. If the documentation page contains includeonly or noinclude tags as part of the documentation, use {{wikitag}} or replace < with <.

Functions

If the documentation page doesn't exist, the "edit" link includes a preload parameter so that clicking it will pre-fill the edit form with a stub documentation page.

Rationale

Use of this template allows templates to be protected where necessary, while allowing anyone to edit the documentation, categories, and interwiki links. In addition, modules strictly require documentation pages as they cannot be categorized or documented any other way, so it makes sense to handle templates likewise.

See also

• Help:Documenting templates