Template:Fmbox/doc

This is the Fmbox ([F]ooter and header [m]essage [box]) metatemplate.

It can be used to build message boxes for system messages such as MediaWiki:Sp-contributions-footer-anon. It can also be used for footer and header boxes on user pages and for editnotices.

This template works similarly to Ambox and mostly uses the same parameters. The main differences are that this box is 100% wide and has different colour styles.

Usage
Simple example produces:

Complex example produces:

Footer and header message box types
The following examples use different type parameters but no image parameters, i.e. they use the default image for each type.

Non-default images
The default images shown above are mostly for testing and demonstration. In most cases, it is more appropriate to use a more specific image or no image at all. The following examples use the image parameter to specify an image other than the default.

Parameters
List of all parameters:

name
 * (Optional) Name of the template. This adds a CSS class with name  to the HTML element, for use by bots or scripts.

type
 * If no type parameter is given the template defaults to type system. That means it gets a light grey background.

image
 * No parameter = If no image parameter is given the template uses a default image. Which default image it uses depends on the type parameter.
 * An image = Should be an image with usual wiki notation. 40px - 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. 40px - 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.

id
 * Optional CSS id used by the entire message box table. Without quotation marks . Mostly meant to be used to tag a message box with its name, to make it easy to detect the presence of the message from javascript. For instance MediaWiki:Sp-contributions-footer would use:

class
 * Optional CSS class names used by the entire message box table. Without quotation marks . Mostly meant to be used to tag a message box with its name so it can be individually skinned. For instance MediaWiki:Sp-contributions-footer would use:

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:

plainlinks
 * Normally on Wikipedia, external links have an arrow icon next to them, like this: Example.com. However, in message boxes, the arrow icon is suppressed by default, like this: Example.com . To get the normal style of external link with the arrow icon, use no.

text
 * The message body text.

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 make a box that is less than 100% wide, then do not use this box; instead, use Ombox. Since this box doesn't have the "1px empty image cell" code that makes it so the other mboxes get proper box flow in all browsers when less than 100% wide.

If you need to use special characters in the text parameter, then you need to "escape" them like this: This produces: . And now a pipe and end braces |}}. }}

To avoid potential difficulties with e.g. parser functions or special characters, this metatemplate uses HTML rather than wiki markup to produce the table carrying its output.

As some older browsers have difficulty rendering SVG transparency, the default images for this metatemplate are in PNG rather than SVG format and have been optimised by hand to ensure they work across a wide range and age of browsers. (SVG icons only look somewhat bad in older browsers, thus such optimisation is only worthwhile for very widely used icons.)

Admins: MediaWiki's parsing and converting HTML markup for system messages is not the same as for normal pages:  for instance, is not automatically converted to  and missing  and  tags are not added automatically. Any HTML code used in system messages, therefore, must already be valid (include all complementary close tags, etc.).

For more details, see the talk page. Since this template works in almost the same way as Ambox, Tmbox, Imbox, Cmbox and Ombox, further information found on their talk pages may also be relevant.