Template:Archives by months/sandbox

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Purpose

This template returns navigation links to the existing talk page archives named as subpages by year and month. The three character month abbreviation is returned for each month of the year. If an archive page exists for a specific month the corresponding three character month abbreviation returned is a link to that archive page. This template is typically used multiple times within an {{archive box}} template to build a nicely formatted set of archive links by month over multiple years.

The default is to look for subpages of the root talk page with names of the /Archives/YYYY/Monthname format (e.g. Talk:YourPage/Archives/2012/December). There are several possible formats for the archive names depending on the parameters set. The possible formats include:

Archive subpage name format possibilities

Archive subpage format	Parameters
Talk:YourPage/Archives/YYYY/Month	The default
Talk:YourPage/YourText/YYYY/Month	with |archprefix = YourText/
Talk:YourPage/YourTextYYYY/Month	with |archprefix = YourText
Talk:YourPage/YYYY/Month	with |noarchprefix = true
Talk:YourPage/Archives/YYYY/Mon	with |abbrev3 = yes
Talk:YourPage/Archives/YYYY/1	with |numbers = yes
Talk:YourPage/Archives/YYYY/01	with |numbers0 = yes
Talk:YourPage/WikipediaText/01	with |archprefix = Wikipedia |year = Text |numbers0 = yes

The template returns links to the pages in Talk:YourPage/Archives/YYYY/Month even if it is located in a subpage of Talk:YourPage. Explicitly, this means that it can be used for archive navigation within your actual archive pages. It would need to be included in what you have defined as your archive header.

Intricacies

If the corresponding /Archives/year/monthname archive page does not exist the corresponding month label will be displayed without a link.

Syntax

<syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext">Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec</syntaxhighlight> or <syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext">Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec</syntaxhighlight> or <syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext">Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec </syntaxhighlight>

Parameters

Ordered parameters

The first ordered (unnamed) parameter is the year. This is appended to the root talk page name after archprefix. The second ordered parameter, if it exists, is synonymous to archiveprefix (see below).

Named parameters

year

Valid if the first ordered parameter does not exist. It is the text used to append to the base talk page name/{archprefix}/{year}/Month.

archprefix

The prefix for your archive names. For example, if the page's archives are located in Talk:YourPage/Archive/YYYY/Month then you would use archprefix=Archive/

abbrev3

If this parameter is abbrev3=yes) then instead of looking for pages with names ending in "January", "February", "March" ..., the template will find pages with names ending in "Jan", "Feb", "Mar", etc. If set to "yes", this parameter supersedes both the numbers and numbers0 parameters.

numbers

If this parameter is numbers=yes) then instead of looking for pages with names ending in "January", "February", "March" ..., the template will find pages with names ending in "1", "2", "3", ... "12". If set to "yes", this parameter supersedes the numbers0 parameter.

numbers0

If this parameter is numbers0=yes) then instead of looking for pages with names ending in "January", "February", "March" ..., the template will find pages with names ending in "01", "02", "03", ... "12".

Examples

<syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext">Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec</syntaxhighlight>

will display as: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

All the other parameters change the page names that are checked for existence and linked if existing. They do not change the display looks.

Typical usage

The most common general option is by using the {{Archives by months}} template to generate links to your existing archives. It produces a live link for each existing archive month within a year. It is commonly used in something similar to (delete the lines for the years you don't want):
<syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext"> </syntaxhighlight>

The archive box to the right is what is produced by the above code. The example here has no month names which are links because there are no archive files for this page.

If your archives were stored in pages with names of the format Talk:YourPage/Archive/YYY/mmm then you would typically use:

The most common general option is by using the {{Archives by months}} template to generate links to your existing archives. It produces a live link for each existing archive month within a year. It is commonly used in something similar to (delete the lines for the years you don't want):
<syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext"> </syntaxhighlight>

The archive box to the right is what is produced by the above code. As with the previous example, the example here has no month names which are links because there are no archive files for this page.

Similarities to {{Month-year archive nav}}

This template is a fork of {{Month-year archive nav}} except that it doesn't display the year. The months on this template do not have a CSS style either. This fork was created because {{Month-year archive nav}} is heavily used on Wikipedia and any changes to it could be disruptive.

The above documentation is transcluded from Template:Archives by months/doc. (edit | history)
Editors can experiment in this template's sandbox (edit | diff) and testcases (create) pages.
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