This is a documentation subpage for Template:Hatnote. It may contain usage information, categories and other content that is not part of the original template page.

This template is used on approximately 691,000 pages, or roughly 1% of all pages. To avoid major disruption and server load, any changes should be tested in the template's /sandbox or /testcases subpages, or in your own user subpage. The tested changes can be added to this page in a single edit. Consider discussing changes on the talk page before implementing them.

This template should not be substituted.

This template uses Lua: Module:Hatnote (sandbox)

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?

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.

Basic usage

((hatnote|text))

All parameters

((hatnote|text|extraclasses=extra classes|selfref=yes|category=no))

This template accepts the following parameters:

• 1 – the hatnote text (required)
• extraclasses – any extra CSS classes to be added, for example, the ((see also)) template adds the classes "|extraclasses=boilerplate seealso".
• selfref – If set to "yes", "y", "true" or "1", adds the CSS class "selfref". This is used to denote self-references to Wikipedia. See Template:Selfref for more information.
• category – If set to "no", "n", "false", or "0", suppresses the error tracking category (Category:Hatnote templates with errors). This has an effect only if the leftmost parameter (the hatnote text) is omitted.

• ((hatnote|Example hatnote text)) →
  Example hatnote text

If no hatnote text is supplied, the template will output the following message:

• Error: no text specified (help).

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.

The HTML code produced by this template looks like this:

• <div role="note" class="hatnote navigation-not-searchable">hatnote text</div>

The code is produced by Module:Hatnote.

• ((For))