This template produces formatted text, following the guideline for a Wikipedia hatnote:
{{Hatnote|Example hatnote text.}} →
Example hatnote text.
Broadly speaking, a hatnote should answer a reader's question (maybe preemptively): Am I on the right page?
Function
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.
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.
Example
{{hatnote|Example hatnote text}} →
Example hatnote text
Errors
If no hatnote text is supplied, the template will output the following message:
If you see this error message, it is for one of four reasons:
No parameters were specified (the template code was {{hatnote}}). Please use {{hatnote|text}} instead.
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.
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}}.
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.
Template for creating a standard Wikipedia hatnote. A hatnote is a short note placed at the top of an article to provide disambiguation of closely related terms or summarise a topic, explaining its boundaries.
This field should contain the text that will be displayed in the hatnote.
String
required
Extra classes
extraclasses
Extra CSS classes to be added to the <div> tags surrounding the hatnote text.
Line
optional
Self reference
selfref
Set to "yes" if the hatnote text is a self-reference to Wikipedia that would not make sense on mirrors or forks of the Wikipedia site. (E.g. "For the Wikipedia Sandbox, see [[WP:SAND]]".)
Line
optional
Category
category
Set to "no", "n", "false", or "0" to suppresses the error tracking category (Category:Hatnote templates with errors). This only has an effect if the hatnote text is omitted.
