Template:Tlc/doc

This page provides documentation for tlc, tld and tlf.

Purpose and naming
When a template name with braces is to be shown in documentation, the braces have to be escaped in some way so it doesn't become an actual call to the template. Instead of using  tags you can write it more simply and concisely by using the, , or  templates.

These templates work similarly to and, but don't make the template name into a link. When writing documentation you might want to avoid a lot of unnecessary links, since they can decrease readability. So on the first occurrence of a template name use or, and then use ,  or  thereafter.

The three names were based on template link, despite the fact that, unlike the actual  template, these three don't include an actual link. The mnemonics for and  were invented after the fact, since the template creator used the single letters still available rather than the preferred  (using  ) and  (using "normal", non-coded text style) monikers.

Basic operation
Here is how these templates look. Code is to the left; actual rendering to the right:



Use with editprotected templates
Most Wikipedia users and even editors will have little or no need for use (or knowledge) of these templates. You will find them of more use if you are a writer or documenter of templates. However, editors may be pointed here when attempting to deal with edit requests on pages which have been protected in some way.

Pages which have been protected can't be edited by every user, but would-be editors can request specific changes on the corresponding Discussion page. An editor requesting a change to a semi-protected page, for example, would add the editsemiprotected template, followed by their request, to the Talk page. The template expands to a texty notice which includes the instruction "Replace the  template with  when the request has been accepted or rejected." An empowered editor acting on the request would then change the template per this instruction.

The desired effect is to replace the template (with its big, eye-catching box of information) by the name of the template, merely showing that the template had been there, and acted upon. The use of the template means that the template should appear in a normal, proportional font-face, as in "".

Functional details

 * This template takes another template-name and some associated pipe-tricked (numbered) parameters (or 'pass parameters'), and displays them as an 'example demonstration' of how the template-name template could be coded, literally. Its primary use is in instruction and documentation.
 * Specifics here???
 * Features of, and :
 * They show a template name and up to eight parameters.
 * They also show empty parameters. (See examples hereafter.)
 * They prevent line wraps in their output.

Usage
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Examples
Note: A different background color was used in the following table to make the " " visible.

An alternative to using constructs such as  and   to prevent characters from getting interpreted syntactically is to use , which will prevent all characters from being interpreted. For example, in place of you can use Both render as

If a vertical display with parameters on their own lines is desired, this can also be laid out manually in this manner, or more rapidly done with.

Here are the codes to emulate, and  using  :

Limitations
As documented at Help:Template, template arguments starting with one of the four MediaWiki magic characters      or   are interpreted as if they were at the beginning of a line, and are formatted as HTML lists. To avoid this, references to or  must have the first character escaped. You can either use or an escape like.