Template:Navbox/doc

Usage
This template can be used to make a standard navigation box. It is intended for use within another template that standardises the title and contents of the box. This template should not be used directly within articles, as it creates a maintenance burden to do so whenever the contents of the box have to be updated.

The purpose of this template is to standardise the attributes of all navigation boxes, for example, their colours and other CSS attributes. The template is fairly simple, and could be extended to add other features in the future. Using this template allows changes to be implemented much quicker and easier than editing each template separately.

Syntax

 * Groups: Currently there is no technical limit to the maximum number of groups.
 * Groups of items can be added as parameters: group1, group2, group3, ... up to groupN.
 * Group title: Each group has its own title parameter: gtitle1, gtitle2, gtitle3, ... up to gtitleN. Note that the default width for the first column is 15%.
 * Group style: Style may also be customised to each group in: style1, style2, style3, ... up to styleN.
 * Note that neither the title nor the items have any wiki-links built into the template. As a result, users of the template are free to use wiki-links as they wish.
 * Line breaks: Line-breaks are unnecessary, as text wrapping is done automatically by the template. This also includes links and text in gtitleN and groupN.
 * Bullets: Create unordered lists with lines beginning with *. The use of Template:* is deprecated

States

 * Autocollapse: By default, the state of a navbox is "autocollapsed". This means that if the number of navboxes in a page exceeds the maximum allocation of the collapsible navboxes, then the remaining navboxes are collapsed automatically. For more information (or to change the setting), see MediaWiki:Common.js.
 * Currently, the autocollapse allocation is  2  (see MediaWiki:Common.js). This means that if there are 3 navboxes in a page, the third and subsequent navboxes will be collapsed automatically.
 * Uncollapsed: Forces the navbox to be displayed.
 * All of the navboxes in this documentation are in the uncollapsed state.
 * Collapsed: The reverse of uncollapsed. Forces the navbox to be hidden instead.
 * Navboxes with a height of more than 300 pixels will also be collapsed automatically. For more information (or to change the setting), see MediaWiki:Common.js.
 * Plain: Removes the "show/hide" link.

Sub-groups

 * For larger navboxes, it may be necessary to include sub-groups within a particular group of items. It is also possible to collapsible navboxes within the parent navbox, see Collapsible sub-groups.
 * To create sub-groups within, certain parameters are to be included:
 * The parent navbox group (i.e. group2 in the example below) requires the type parameter (gtype2 = subgroup).
 * The nested navbox (sub-group) requires the inclusion of the sub-group parameter (subgroup = yes). This enables the template to differentiate between the sub-group and the parent navbox.

Collapsible sub-groups

 * For extremely long navboxes, it is recommended to use collapsible navboxes within the parent navbox. Further sub-groups can then be added to these collapsible navboxes.
 * To create collapsible sub-groups within, these parameters need to be included:
 * The parent navbox is almost always uncollapsed (state=uncollapsed).
 * The parent navbox group (i.e. group1 in the example below) requires the type parameter (gtype1 = subgroup).
 * The nested collapsible navbox requires the inclusion of the collapsible parameter (collapsible = yes). This enables the template to differentiate between the collapsible navbox and the parent navbox.
 * The nested collapsible navbox is forcefully collapsed (state=collapsed).

Use of images

 * The use of images in navboxes is permitted, but please resize the images to keep them small. Inventory-sized images (25-30 pixels) are recommended.
 * Please use plink to create links with images. Use plinkp for any case where text is not desired after the link. It functions the same as plink, but it does not produce a wikilink in text. Use chatl to link chatheads. These templates create links for both the image and text (except for plinkp) using far less wikicode than the standard syntax. Use Emote link to link emote icons.

Link and file share the same name

File name differs from the link

Link and file share the same name, but different text is desired to display

File name differs from the link and different text is desired to display

Categorising
Navboxes are very useful for transcluding categories onto a large number of pages that share both a trait and the navigation box.

There are 2 methods of categorising pages with navboxes:

The first way is with Ctg. This is the preferred method, and can be used in most cases. The rules and operations for the Category handler template are very simple; however, they are enough to produce the desired results on most pages.

The other method is using rules and providing more complex rules with parser functions. Template:Potions is an example of this:

This code tells the template to add Category:Barbarian mixes to pages only if their title ends with the string "mix". would not work here, because several pages include the substring "mix" in other locations, and they would be improperly categorised.

Categorisation should only be used on a template for large-scale addition. It is unhelpful, for example, to use a rule that only applies to 1 page.

Preventing unwanted documentation
The Navbox template's documentation is automatically transcluded under the navbox on any Template namespace page. It is not transcluded when used as a sub-group or collapsible sub-group template (subgroup= yes or collapsible=yes).

Should the documentation appear when it is unwanted, it can be hidden by setting the doc parameter doc=no on the template. In most cases, the doc parameter is not used and the parameter is removed completely.

On a similar note, the automatically-added category Category:Navigational templates can be suppressed by adding hidecat=yes.