Template:Mbox

Usage

Simple usage example:

{{Mbox
| text      = Some text.
}}

Some text.

Complex example:

{{Mbox
| type      = style
| image     = [[File:Emblem-question-yellow.svg|40px]]
| style     = width: 400px; 
| textstyle = color: red; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;
| text      = The message body text.
}}

The message body text.

Other pages message box types

The following examples use different type parameters but use no image parameters; thus, they use the default images for each type.

type=speedy – Speedy deletion templates.

type=delete – Deletion templates.

type=content – Major warnings and problems.

type=style – Minor warnings and problems.

type=notice – Notices and messages of any kind, both permanent and temporary.

type=move – Merge, split, rename and transwiki messages and proposals.

type=protection – Protection templates.

Examples

Some examples using the "notice" style:

No type and no image given (default)

No type and image=none – No image is used and the text uses the whole message box area.

notice type with custom image

This page in a nutshell: This template is used to build message boxes.

Parameters

List of all parameters:

{{Mbox
| name = name of the template
| type  = speedy / delete / content / style / notice / move / protection
| image = none / [[File:Some image.svg|40px]]
| style = CSS values
| textstyle = CSS values
| plainlinks = no
| text  = The message body text. 
}}

name

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

type

If no type parameter is given the template defaults to type notice. That means it gets a gray border.

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:

image = [[File:Crystal package settings.png|40px]]

none = Means that no image is used.

style

Optional CSS values used by the entire message box table. Without quotation marks " " but with the ending semicolons ;. For example:

style = margin-bottom: 0.5em;

textstyle

Optional CSS values used by the text cell. For example:

textstyle = text-align: center;

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 plainlinks=no.

text

The message body text.

Technical details

If you need to use special characters in the text parameter then you need to escape them like this:

{{Mbox
| text  = <div>
Equal sign = and a start and end brace { } work fine as they are. 
But here is a pipe {{!}} and two end braces <nowiki>}}</nowiki>. 
And now a pipe and end braces <nowiki>|}}</nowiki>.
</div>
}}

Equal sign = and a start and end brace { } work fine as they are. But here is a pipe | and two end braces }}. And now a pipe and end braces |}}.

This template uses the ombox CSS classes in MediaWiki:Common.css for most of its looks, thus it is fully skinnable.

The default images for this meta-template are in png format instead of svg format. The main reason is that some older web browsers have trouble with the transparent background that MediaWiki renders for svg images. The png images here have hand optimised transparent background colour so they look good in all browsers. Note that svg icons only look somewhat bad in the old browsers, thus such hand optimisation is only worth the trouble for very widely used icons.