This template is used on many pages and changes may be widely noticed. Test changes in the template's /sandbox or /testcases subpages, or in your own user subpage. Consider discussing changes on the talk page before implementing them.
Purpose
This template has two functions:
To provide correct formatting of film release dates and their locations within {{Infobox film}}. A citation for each date/location may also be supplied.
To automatically categorize films according to their first release date.
Usage
This template is intended to supply a result to the |released= parameter of {{Infobox film}}.
The template adds Category:YYYY films where YYYY is the year of first release, as well as Category:Upcoming films for films that have not reached their first release yet. Please note that Category:YYYY films will only be added if the category exists, and that if only the year is included as the release date, the film is considered to be "upcoming" during that entire year.
The television equivalents of these categories (Category:YYYY television films and Category:Upcoming television films) are used when the |TV= parameter is set for use on television film articles.
Syntax
This template allows up to five release dates/locations, but normally no more than two are needed. Please see WP:FILMRELEASE for a full explanation.
If no location is specified, month and day may be omitted. If location is specified, then month and daymust be supplied, though they may be left blank or empty if not known; |ref1= is an optional parameter allowing a named reference ("xxxxx") to be used to verify the date/location of the release.
More than one release date
{{Film date|year1|month1|day1|location1|ref1=<ref name="xxxxx" />|year2|month2|day2|location2|ref2=<ref name="yyyy" />}} and similarly for up to five dates/locations.
In this case, all the year, month, day and location parameters, except the last, must be supplied, but as before, month and day may be left empty or blank if not known. Note that |ref1=, |ref2=, etc. are optional named parameters, and either may be omitted without affecting the other parameters.
TV is to be used for television films. It sorts films into [[Category:YYYY television films]] in place of [[Category:YYYY films]]. Set TV=y or TV=yes to do this.
ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5 are used to supply named references. See above for detail.
Technical notes
Do not use any of the following markup in front of this template: : * #. Doing so will cause HTML errors. See for more guidance.
This template uses {{Start date}} to handle the hard work of date formatting, and {{Plainlist}} to format list items as recommended for use within infoboxes.