Template:Hatnote/doc

This template produces formatted text, following the guideline for a Wikipedia hatnote.
 * &rarr;

Broadly speaking, a hatnote should answer a reader's question (maybe preemptively): Am I on the right page?

Function
This template is primarily used to add a correctly formatted hatnote to a page. Often, but not always, this is a disambiguation link at the top of article pages. It places an HTML  /   block around the text entered as its only argument, which provides standardized formatting (contents are indented and italicized in most displays); it also isolates the contained code to make sure that it is interpreted correctly.

This template is also used as the "meta-template" for additional specialized disambiguation link templates; see Category:Hatnote templates for a list.

The template does not automatically create links of any kind. Links and other desired formatting must be explicitly added, using normal Wikipedia markup.

Usage
&#123;{hatnote|text}}
 * Basic usage:

&#123;{hatnote|text|extraclasses=extra classes|selfref=yes|category=no}}
 * All parameters:

Parameters
This template accepts the following parameters:
 * - the hatnote text (required)
 * - any extra CSS classes to be added - For example, the see also template adds the classes "boilerplate seealso".
 * - If set to "yes", "y", "true" or "1", adds the CSS class "selfref". This is used to denote self-references to Wikipedia. See Template:Selfref for more information.
 * - 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.

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

If you see this error message, it is for one of four reasons:
 * 1) No parameters were specified (the template code was  ). Please use   instead.
 * 2) Some parameters were specified, but the hatnote text wasn't included. For example, the template text   will produce this error. Please use (for example)   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   will produce this error. To work around this, you can specify the parameter name explicitly by using   before the hatnote text, like this:.
 * 4) You tried to access Module:Hatnote directly by using  . Use of #invoke in this way has been disabled for performance reasons. Please use   instead.

If you see this error message and are unsure of what to do, please post a message on Template talk:Hatnote, and someone should be able to help you.

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

Technical details
The HTML code produced by this template looks like this:


 * hatnote text

The code is produced by Module:Hatnote.