Documentation for Archives

The {{Archives}} template may be used to add a box containing page links to archived discussions. It will automatically detect archived pages by default if they are named appropriately, eliminating the need to manually update the box each time a new archive page is created.

Usage

{{ archives
| archivelist = /archivelist
| auto        = <short|long|no>
| index       = /Archive index
| search      = <yes|no>
| list        = 
| target      = 
| collapsible = <yes|no>
| collapsed   = <yes|no>
| style       = 
| title       = 
| image       = 
| alt         = 
| link        = 
| bot         = 
| age         = 
|
<optional additional text or list items>
}}

Archive list

archivelist

Specifies a link to a subpage, such as "/archivelist", that contains the archive list.

auto= <short|long|no>

Specifies the format of the auto-generated archive list. If left unspecified, the default is "long"; any other word (except "no") will result in "short" and "no" disables auto-detection.

list

Inline list of archives. The list parameter overrides automatic archive detection of pages named "Archive 1", "Archive 2" and so on.

(1st unnamed parameter)

Can be used in addition to automatic archiving if additional pages with other names are available.

With no explicit parameters, the archive list presented in the box is determined automatically. If a subpage called "{{PAGENAME}}/archivelist" exists, it will be used as the central content of the box. For an example, see Talk:Evolution, which [not currently] draws from Talk:Evolution/archivelist. The archivelist parameter changes the name of this subpage.

If no archive list subpage is detected, numbered archive subpages will be listed in long format. Such pages must be named as "/Archive #" because other naming styles will not be detected. The "long" auto format (the default) indicates "Archive 1", "Archive 2", and so on. The "short" auto format indicates only the archive number. See more examples below.

An additional list of archives can be passed in the first unnamed parameter, avoiding the need for a subpage.

Using "auto=no" will disable archive auto-detection. Manually specified archives will still be shown. [The archive box will also contain an "Edit" link, targeted at the archive list subpage, which can then be used to begin manually populating the list, if desired. This seems broken.]

Additional notes

The "auto" and "archivelist" parameters are not intended to be used together. (Doing so does not use the specified archive list page.)

The auto-generated archive list requires subpages to use the common naming convention. That is, "{{PAGENAME}}/Archive 1", "{{PAGENAME}}/Archive 2", and so on. The letter "A" must be capitalized, there must be a single space between the word "Archive" and the number, and there must be no leading zeros. If archive subpages do not conform to this convention, they can be renamed to conform, or a manual list can be maintained.

Specifying "auto" with any right-hand-side value other than "long" or "no" results in the short-format list; the use of "short" as the value just makes things more obvious to others.

The short and long auto lists are generated by {{archive list}} and {{archive list long}}, respectively. They are limited to a maximum of 100 and 36 subpages, respectively. Beyond those limits, additional subpages will not be listed. In such cases, a manually generated archive list subpage would need to be created and maintained.

Icon image

image 

An alternate image to be used, defaults to "Replacement filing cabinet.svg".

link 

Link for the image. This normally defaults to empty, which means no link. However, if alt is nonempty, it defaults to the image's file page.

alt 

Alt text for the image, for visually impaired readers. See WP:ALT. This defaults to empty. If a nonempty value is specified for link, alt should be nonempty too, and should indicate what will happen if the user clicks on the image.

The link and alt parameters only take effect if the image is changed from the default.

Search

search

If yes, adds a search box to the template.

root

Specify a different base than {{FULLPAGENAME}}/. Use prefix if the additional of a trailing slash is not desired.

search-break

Default:no

search-width

Default:22

search-button-label

Default: Search

Archival method

target

The title of the page (just the name, no link syntax) that threads are currently being archived to, for manual archiving.

bot 

If specified, a note about automatic archiving will be shown.

age 

If specified, the archiving delay will be provided.

Other parameters

index

Links the "Archives" title to a specified subpage, such as "/Archive index", that should be the subject index page for all archived discussions. HBC Archive Indexerbot can automatically generate such indexes.

collapsible 

If yes, makes the list collapsible.

collapsed 

If yes, makes the list collapsed.

style 

An arbitrary string of CSS can be applied to the box (use with care).

title 

An alternative title, defaults to "Archives". The title is automatically linked to the archive index page if one is specified, otherwise a wiki link may be specified here.

Examples

Default

{{archives}}

Archives

Short, index

{{archives
 |auto= short
 |index= /Archive index
}}

Archives
no archives yet (create)