Template:Term/doc

Usage
The template is used in template-structured glossaries to create terms to be defined, that are properly structured, have semantic value, and can be linked to as if independent sections. It is a wrapper for , the description list term HTML element. The template has a mnemonic redirect at.

Basic usage:

Inline templates, reference citations, wikimarkup styles, etc., can be applied to the term in the second parameter (content or 2) as long as it remains without markup in the first parameter (term or 1). Technically, the explicit parameter names are optional if the term or content does not contain the "=" character, but as any editors can add material, including templates or URLs with this character in them,.
 * This will work:
 * This will work:
 * This will fail:

More complex usage is typically:

or

or

Wiki-styling and linking of the term
If the second or content parameter is styled with wikimarkup, linked, or otherwise altered inside the template, the term must also be retained in unstyled form as the first or term parameter. Failing to do so will cause the template to malfunction, since it must have a "clean" term name to use as the  of the element, for linking purposes, among other reasons. The order intentionally mirrors that of piped wikilinking. Style cannot be applied around the template, either, as it is a container for content (the term), not content itself (and doing so will produce invalid markup that will have unpredictable results depending upon browser):
 * Correct:
 * Wrong:
 * Wrong:

For the same reasons that links to other pages are discouraged in headings, :
 * Preferred:, and use of a hatnote in the  definition to link to the main article Esprit de corps.
 * Preferred:, and use of a hatnote in the  definition to link to the main article Esprit de corps.

Again, as with the first parameter (the term) itself, if the " " character (equals sign) is used in the content of this second parameter, the syntax that the parameter be explicitly specified (and because many URLs, e.g. in reference citations, can contain this character, it is always safest to number or name the parameters):

numbered:

or named:

Linking to the term
automatically creates a link anchor point (an HTML ) from an  conversion of the original term (term or 1) or id. About 90% of the links to glossary entries are going to be mid-sentence, and thus will start with a lower-case letter, except for proper names. The template (and its derivatives like ) will auto-lowercase any input they're given as a link target for you. So, the only catch is if you manually create a link like  and do not lower-case the   part. Thus, you should use.

If your glossary has an unusual case in which one entry and another share the exact same name except for case (thus would get the same lower-cased HTML ), then the upper-case one must be given a unique id value,  prevented from conflicting with the lower-case one's HTML. This can be done by changing its id to a variant (e.g. with a number), then manually injecting a second HTML id (with upper-case) by using the = parameter and an anchor template:

foo: {{defn|Definition of lower-case version here ... {{term|term=Foo |id=Foo_2 |content={{vanchor|Foo}} }} {{defn|Definition of proper-name version here ...

You can then link to them as  and , respectively. (Technically the second can also be addressed as, which will have been lower-cased by the template code, but this would not be very intuitive and is just an artifact of the work-around.)

The template {{tlx|anchor}} can also be used in the {{para|content}} a.k.a. {{para|2}} parameter, e.g. to provide the plural of the term (the most common usage), an alternative spelling, the old name of an entry that was linked to but has since changed, or a shortcut link anchor name.

As with styled terms, the first parameter must be used to provide the "bare" term, the second to provide this extra markup. It is not necessary to add the term itself to the {{tnull|anchor}} template when using {{tnull|term}}: {{block indent|1={{tnull|term|1{{=}}shortstop |content{{=}}shortstop{{bxt|1={{tnull|anchor|shortstops|short-stop|short stop|sslink}}}}}} }}

By contrast, when using semicolon-delimited terms in unstructured glossaries, the term does need to be added explicitly as an anchor if link anchorage is desired (which is almost always the case):

{{block indent|1= {{tnull|anchor|{{bxt| }}|shortstops|short-stop|short stop|sslink}} }} or use {{tlx|vanchor}} {{block indent|1= {{tlx|vanchor|{{bxt| }}|shortstops|short-stop|short stop|sslink}} }}

(Strictly speaking, this fact has nothing to do with this template, but may be of use to editors who are converting from one glossary style to the other.)

Multiple terms sharing a definition
Two or more can be used for synonyms with a shared definition, though keep in mind that people looking for one and not finding it where they expect it to be alphabetized are liable to assume it is missing if you do not create a cross-reference entry. The parameter y is used on second and subsequent terms to visually group the terms close together so it is clear that they share a definition:

Example:

aspirin: A mild analgesic of the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) family... heroin: diacetylmorphine: diamorpine: A synthetic narcotic drug of the opiate family... ranitidine: An antacid of the proton pump inhibitor family...

Languages
To indicate the language of a non-English term, use the template and the ISO 639 language codes as documented at that template:

This shows no visual change for most languages:

For all non-English languages this provides many metadata features, but it is for those that do not use the Latin alphabet, so that the content displays properly in various browsers.

If it is useful to indicate the name of the language, there are individual templates for most languages, with names based on the ISO codes, and which automatically italicize the foreign content:

which renders as:


 * When two or more language variants of a term share the same definition&#58;:

As detailed above, two or more terms, as variations or alternatives, can share definitions. The most common use case for this is presenting the term in two variants of English. Example: tyre: tire: A resilient wheel covering usually made of vulcanized rubber. Note the use of y in the second term; this groups the two terms together.

Result:

In a different format, more appropriate for alphabetical glossaries:

tyre: tire: A resilient wheel covering usually made of vulcanized rubber.

Result:

That example uses the template with language codes as the first parameter, rather than the  templates.

The template has no lang parameter of its own (and shouldn't – there are too many pitfalls).

Applying CSS styles to the term
The style parameter will pass CSS styling on to the element, e.g. font-family:serif;. I.e., this styles the term itself, not the definitions of it, other term entries, or the glossary as a whole. This feature is uncommonly but sometimes importantly needed in articles (usually for formatting the appearance of an specific entry for some reason, e.g. certain mathematical constants and the like that are always given in a serif font). It can also be useful outside of articles, for things like matching custom projectpage or userpage style.

Other parameters
The id parameter can be used to assign a one-word, case-sensitive ID name to term. It must be unique on the page. This can be used as another #link target, and could have other metadata uses. Usually the template is used to add more link targets to an entry. Note that providing an empty  (such as with HTML comments) will emit an empty   parameter to the tag, which is invalid HTML.

The noid parameter, if given as true / y / yes, will suppress generation of the  field entirely. This is usually undesirable, except in the case where the anchor text of the generated term is to another Term defined in the article.

The class parameter will pass one or more space-separated CSS classes on to the element, in addition to the automatically included class.

Examples
This shows both a very simple then a rather complex instance:

Images, hatnotes, and other content
Images, hatnotes and other "add-in" content intended to immediately follow the  They  be placed between the  and  or it will break the glossary markup. Images can, of course, be placed elsewhere within the, and bottom-notes like more can be placed at the end of, but , a. When used with a multi-definition term, the definition in which the appears must be manually numbered (usually , as shown in the example below).

Technical details
What this template does on the technical level is wrap the term in the  HTML element to semantically mark the term as the on the page of the defined term, and puts this marked-up content inside a  term element of a  description list (a.k.a. definition list, association list; the list is generated by the  and  templates), and gives CSS   to the  element. That class isn't doing anything yet, but it could later, like a slight font size increase.

Do not specify a null ID (such as ). Empty or null id HTML parameters produce invalid HTML5 output.

=See also=