Template talk:News

How are we to use this? What's the directions for the numbers, Jan Van? BoArthur 16:41, 23 January 2006 (PST)

In fact, you are not really supposed to use it at all. ;) This set of templates was created in order to facilitate linking to Padraic's news pages. It should nót be used for new news items, or for news items that aren't on Padraic's page yet.

How it works? Simply: the numbers are parameters without a name. They have the advantage that instead of {{news|page=...|nametag=...|header=...|text=...}}, you can simply write {{news|...|...|...|...}}.

The meaning of the numbers:

1 - the name of the page in question. Padraic always uses something like "news2006a.htm" for those pages. The template knows the stable parts of the link, so all you need to write is 2006a.

2 - the date of the article, which on Padraic's page has the form of a name tag (<A NAME=20060107>, f.ex.). For "2" you write therefore 20060107.

3 - the header, which in the wiki will be displayed in boldface. For example ILL SUL, January 7 - Elections in Kemr.

4 - the text of the article. Preferably the first one or two lines only, or in the case of a longer article, the first paragraph. As much as is necessary to give an idea what the article is about, without giving it away entirely.

When applied, the article is automatically followed by a Read More..., which links automatically to the full article as displayed on Padraic's page.

There is also the {{keywords|xxxxx}} template. You can use it for important keywords in the news article itself, which are not displayed in the "short version" in the wiki. It is invisible, however, it turns up the page in question when a search for that keyword is done.

As you may have noticed, there are a few similar templates as well. {{news2}} and {{news3}} for articles with more than one header, and a few {{news Jan}}'s that produce links to my own pages instead of to Padraic's.

But as you understand, using them for new news items is pretty pointless, since they point to something that isn't there yet. Therefore I suggest that you don't use the templates in those cases, but simply display the article entirely. As soon as Padraic has added it to his page, he, or I, will shorten the wiki version into a short version with a "Read More". —IJzeren Jan ^Uszkiełtu? 03:28, 24 January 2006 (PST)