Template:Automatic archive navigator/doc

Template:Automatic archive navigator provides a convenient banner for the top of archive pages that also helps with navigation. It also suppresses section editing and the new section button on the page by emitting  and   into the wikitext.

Appearance
Live working examples, using this template:
 * Talk:2009 swine flu pandemic/Archive 5
 * WT:WikiProject College football/Archive 5

Usage
This Automatic Archive Navigator template header allows you to navigate through numbered archive pages that are named in the standard "Archive n" format. The header shows the previous 3 and next 3 pages in the archives (only if they exist). The first and last navigable links intelligently search out pages 5 back or ahead and, if they do not exist, show the next nearest.

No parameters are needed for this template to work; just place near the top of each archive page (or configure as the default archive header for your archive bot). It will automatically create a navigation bar. Some optional parameters are detailed below, if you want to have more control.

The template relies on all archives from  to , to exist consecutively. If there is a gap in numbering, where some archive pages don't exist, the template may not display the links to the higher numbered archives.

For this template to work, the archives must also be named in standard "Archive n" form. If they are not, move them to the appropriate names first; see Moving a page for more information. Alternatively, you can use the prefix parameter to let the module know what prefix it should use.

Optional parameters
| 1
 * Option to use the navigation bar with no message text (this displays the number 1|one, not a lower case letter L). Example:.

 | prefix = archive prefix
 * Manually specifies the prefix of the archive page. This is useful for archives in a non-standard format. For example, for Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive902, you would use IncidentArchive. HTML entities are decoded for this parameter; for example, to insert a space at the end of the prefix, you can use.

 | links = n
 * Specifies the maximum number of links to be used. The default is 7.

 | noredlinks = yes/no
 * Normally, the template does not display red links. To display the first red link after the highest archive, you can use no.

 | style (minor warning) / notice (messages)
 * These are the same types as used by tmbox and automatically change the logo and box style. If left undefined, then the logo will default to the archives icon.

 | image = none / | imageright =
 * Use your own image, or none, as the logo in the navigation bar. Alternatively, you can place an image on the right hand side or have images on both sides.

 | text = alternative message text
 * Replaces the header message with your own message.

 | period = date range
 * Specifies a date range for the period covered, e.g. March 2006 to April 2007. This parameter is free-form, so you can use whatever format you like.

 | style = CSS box style settings | textstyle = CSS text style settings
 * Formats the box and text in any way you prefer. You may find the guidance at MOS:COLORCODING helpful.

Tracking category

 * tracks pages where archive subpages weren't properly moved together with the parent page.