memory alpha
Template documentation ()

This template produces formatted text, following the guideline for a Wikipedia hatnote:

{{Hatnote|Example hatnote text.}}

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 div- / div 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

Basic usage
{{hatnote|text}}
All parameters
{{hatnote|text|extraclasses=extra classes|selfref=yes|category=no}}

Parameters

This template accepts the following parameters:

Example

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 {{hatnote}}). Please use {{hatnote|text}} instead.
  2. Some parameters were specified, but the hatnote text wasn't included. For example, the template text {{hatnote|extraclasses=seealso}} will produce this error. Please use (for example) {{hatnote|text|extraclasses=seealso}} 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 {{hatnote|2+2=4}} will produce this error. To work around this, you can specify the parameter name explicitly by using 1= before the hatnote text, like this: {{hatnote|1=2+2=4}}.
  4. You tried to access Module:Hatnote directly by using {{#invoke:hatnote|hatnote|text}}. Use of #invoke in this way has been disabled for performance reasons. Please use {{hatnote|text}} 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:

The code is produced by Module:Hatnote.

TemplateData

This is the TemplateData for this template used by the VisualEditor and other tools.

Template for creating a standard Memory Alpha hatnote. A hatnote is a short note placed at the top of an article to provide disambiguation of closely related terms or summarize a topic, explaining its boundaries.

Template parameters[Edit template data]

ParameterDescriptionTypeStatus
Text1

This field should contain the text that will be displayed in the hatnote.

Stringrequired
Extra classesextraclasses

Extra CSS classes to be added to the <div> tags surrounding the hatnote text.

Lineoptional
Self referenceselfref

Set to "yes" if the hatnote text is a self-reference to Memory Alpha that would not make sense on mirrors or forks of the Memory Alpha site.

Lineoptional
Categorycategory

Set to "no", "n", "false", or "0" to suppresses the error tracking category (Category:Hatnote templates with errors). This only has an effect if the hatnote text is omitted.

Lineoptional