Template:Dmbox/doc

This is the dmbox or disambiguation footer message box meta-template.

It is used to build disambiguation and set index article boxes, such as disambig and shipindex.

This template works similarly to ambox and mostly uses the same parameters. The main differences are that this box uses the disambig style and only has two "type" settings.

Usage
Simple usage example:

Complex example:

Some other parameter combinations:

Parameters
List of all parameters:

type
 * If no type parameter is given the template defaults to type disambig.
 * disambig = Makes it so the disambig editintro is displayed when editing a page with this template on. (Means that this template internally sets the CSS id "disambig". The id is used by the javascript in MediaWiki:Common.js to determine if a page is a disambiguation page or not.)
 * setindex = Does not trigger the disambig editintro when editing a page. (Because this instead sets the CSS id "setindexbox".)

image
 * No parameter = If no image parameter is given the template uses the default disambig image.
 * An image = Should be an image with usual wiki notation. 30px - 50px width are usually about right depending on the image height to width ratio. (But the message box can handle images of any size.) For example:
 * none = Means that no image is used.
 * none = Means that no image is used.

imageright
 * No parameter = If no imageright parameter is given then no image is shown on the right side.
 * An image = Should be an image with usual wiki notation. 30px - 50px width are usually about right depending on the image height to width ratio. (But the message box can handle images of any size.) For example:
 * Anything = Any other object that you want to show on the right side.
 * Anything = Any other object that you want to show on the right side.

style
 * Optional CSS values used by the entire message box table. Without quotation marks  but with the ending semicolons  . For example:

textstyle
 * Optional CSS values used by the text cell. For example:

text
 * The message body text. This message box has italic text as default, thus no need to manually set that.

Technical details
This template currently uses hard coded styles and class names. Later it will only use CSS classes making it easier to skin. (In the meantime it can be skinned by using the " " keyword.)

If you need to use special characters in the text parameter then you need to escape them like this:

&lt;/nowiki>. And now a pipe and end braces &lt;nowiki>|}}&lt;/nowiki>. }}

. And now a pipe and end braces |}}. }}

Internally this meta-template uses HTML markup instead of wiki markup for the table code. That is the usual way we make meta-templates since wiki markup has several drawbacks. For instance it makes it harder to use parser functions and special characters in parameters.

For more technical details see the talk page. Since this template works almost exactly like ambox, tmbox, imbox, cmbox and ombox their talk pages and related pages might also contain more details.