Template:Short description/doc

This is a documentation subpage for Template:Short description (see that page for the template itself).
It contains usage information, categories and other content that is not part of the original template page.

This template uses Lua:

Template:Short description is used to add a short description (which can be edited from within Festipedia) to a Wikipedia page. These descriptions appear in Festipedia searches and elsewhere, and help users identify the desired article.

Usage[edit]

{{Short description|''Write your short description here''}}

This should be limited to about 40 characters.

Parameters[edit]

TemplateData for Short description

Creates a short description, for a Wikipedia article, which is used in the Visual Editor to provide context on wikilinks.

Template parameters
This template has custom formatting.
Parameter		Description	Type	Status
Description	`1`	The short description of the article or 'none'. Example Chinese encyclopedia writer (1947–2001)	Content	required
No replace?	`2`	Should be unused or 'noreplace'. Templates with noreplace will not replace a short description defined by an earlier template. Mainly for use within transcluded templates. Auto value `noreplace`	String	optional
pagetype	`pagetype`	The type of page. This puts it in the appropriate category - Things with short description. Normally unneeded, since handled through namespace detection. Example Redirect, Disambiguation page	String	optional

About writing good short descriptions[edit]

This page is about the short description template; it does not provide guidelines for writing a good short description.

Template information[edit]

Eventually all articles should have a short description:

by directly using this template, in which case the short description will be unique to the article
transcluded in another template, such as a disambiguation template, where a generic short description is adequate for a large class of pages
where the short description is assembled from data in an infobox

Automatically generated descriptions within templates should set the second parameter as noreplace so they do not override any short descriptions specifically added to the transcluding article.

Short descriptions are not normally needed for non-article pages, such as redirects, but can be added if useful.

If the article title alone is sufficient to ensure reliable identification of the desired article, a null value of {{short description|none}} may be used.

Example[edit]

At Oxygen therapy, add the following at the very top of the article, above everything else:

{{Short description|Use of oxygen as medical treatment}}

Testing[edit]

For testing purposes, the display of this template can be enabled by adding a line to your Special:MyPage/common.css:

.shortdescription { display:block !important; }

This can be easily removed or disabled when testing is finished.

If you want to always see short descriptions, you may prefer a more utilitarian layout, such as:

.shortdescription {
  display:block !important;
  white-space: pre-wrap;
}
.shortdescription::before { 
  content: "\A[Short description:\0020";
}
.shortdescription::after { 
  content: "]\A";
}

Pagetype parameter[edit]

If {{{Pagetype}}} is not set, then this template adds the article to a category based on the namespace:

Category:Articles with short description (1)
Category:Redirects with short description (0) — for redirects in any namespace

If {{{Pagetype}}} is set, then this template adds the article to a category matching the parameter. For example:

Category:Redirects with short description — pagetype = Redirect

Aliases[edit]

Aliases must not be used, because other templates and gadgets attempt to extract short descriptions from pages by explicitly searching for the transclusions of the {{Short description}} template.

Do not start the template with a space: {{ Short description.... While this does create a valid short description, the space will prevent searches for the {{Short description... text.

Tracking categories[edit]

Maintenance categories[edit]