Template:Austroboss/doc

is a template for building tables of Austrian government ministers and other office holders quickly and with few keystrokes.

Articles on ministries
Simple example from the Ministry of Civil Service: 

As you can see, the template will automatically
 * link to the article on the cabinet;
 * show the party symbol in the correct party color and make it link to the party article;
 * link to the article on the office holder.

For every parameter denoting a value there is an optional companion parameter specifying a rowspan number for the table cell in question. Names of value parameters end in ; names of rowspan parameters end in. What are the rowspan parameters good for? Look at this example from the Ministry of Education:



Mr Hurdes was minister in two consecutive cabinets. Plenty of people are ministers in two or more consecutive cabinets. Christian Broda was appointed Minister of Justice five consecutive times, took a short break, and then served for another four consecutive terms. Heinrich Drimmel was Minister of Education six times in a row. Hans Schüff and Anton Proksch both lead Ministries for seven consecutive terms. Printing someone's name and party symbol on seven consecutive table rows would neither look nice nor make the table easier to read. So therefore rowspans.

Articles on cabinets
The Streeruwitz government:



Formal documentation
Each invocation of the template creates one table row, usually containing four cells.

Technically, no parameters are required, but a row without either a  or a   will not render.