This template is to help facilitate the displaying of variable names (in mathematics, computer source code, wikimarkup in template documentation, metasyntactic variables, etc.) with the semantically correct <var>...</var> tags, which also renders the variable in italics, as is customary. This method is preferred to simply italicizing for many reasons, including accessibility, separation of presentation and content, semantic Web, and metadata; In XHTML and HTML, the <var> element has semantic meaning, while simple italicization does not. This template provides a tiny hint of kerning to compensate for the italicization and enhance readability.
"Variable" in this sense may include arbitrary or unknown names or terms, examples of human input, arithmetical variables in equations, etc. This template (and the underlying XHTML) are generally not used if MediaWiki's <math>...</math> tags (or any other stand-alone mathematical markup) are being used.
- Example
{{vargood|username}}
outputs the following HTML:
<vargood>username</vargood>
which renders as:
- username
Note that on the screen or in print, this renders as simple italicization, as does ''username'' (using pairs of apostrophes) or <i>username</i> (using HTML), yet it carries more semantic meaning than either of these methods.
This template renders the text in a green serif font which is useful when attempting to render single-letter variables like "I" (upper-case "i") and "l" (lower-case "L"), since they are nearly indistinguishable (if at all).
- {{var}} which formats its argument without color and in a sans-serif font
- {{mvar}} which makes the argument italic and formats as mathematics
- {{math}} which formats its argument as mathematics
- {{bigmath}}, the same as {{math}} but makes it bigger
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| Template | Example output | Use |
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{{strong}} | Important! | To indicate <strong> importance, seriousness, or urgency instead of just simple typographical boldfacing | {{strongbad}} | "Never use ..." | Same as {{strong}} but in red | {{stronggood}} | "Only use ..." | Same as {{strong}} but in green | {{em}} | "An emphatic phrase" | To indicate <em> stress emphasis (not just purely typographical italicization like for book titles or foreign terms) | {{var}} | strPrefix | To indicate text is a variable name. Use for any variable names except those including "I" (uppercase i) and/or "l" (lowercase L); for these, {{varserif}} should be used to ensure a noticeable distinction | {{varserif}} | strIllustratePrefix | (see {{var}} above) | {{tld}} | {{DEFAULTSORT:Y, X}} | To display wikicode variables and magic words as they would appear in code | {{para}} | |year=2008 | To display template parameters with or without values | {{param}} | {{{title|alt}}} | To display parameters as used in code (i.e. with triple braces), especially to indicate relationships between them. May be combined with {{para}} above | {{tlx}} etc. | {{Template|1|2|...|10}} | To display a template call (with or without parameters and values) as code | {{tag}} | "The <img>...</img> tags ..." | To render HTML elements ("tags") in prose | {{code}}/{{codett}} | "Ensure the alt= parameter ..." | To indicate text is source code. To nest other templates within {{code}}, use <code>...</code>. {{codett}} differs only in styling: someMethod becomes someMethod | {{subst:codenowiki}} | {{small|small text}} | To wrap example code in <code><nowiki>...</nowiki></code> | {{subst:kbdnowiki}} | {{big|big text}} | To wrap example code in <kbd><nowiki>...</nowiki></kbd> | {{syntaxhighlight}} | [this is a block template] | ( or {{sxhl}} ) Wrapper for <syntaxhighlight>...</syntaxhighlight>, but will wrap overflowing text | {{deprecated code}} | "Do not use <blink>." | ( or {{dc}} ) To indicate deprecated source code in template documentation, articles on HTML specs, etc. The {{dc2}} variant uses strike-through (<blink>) while {{dcr}} uses red (<blink>). | {{pre}} | [this is a block template] | For larger blocks of source code and other pre-formatted text | {{quote}} | [this is a block template] | For block quotations (only – never for non-quotations) | {{block indent}} | [this is a block template] | For indented blocks of material; visually identical to {{quote}} but without quote markup | {{kbd}} | user input | To indicate user input | {{key press}} | Ctrl+x | To indicate specific-keystroke input, including combinations | {{key top}} | Left shift | Similar; includes more symbols, but does not directly support combinations | {{PlayStation key press}} | □ | To indicate PlayStation-style gamepad key presses | {{button}} | Don't save | To indicate a button in a user interface | {{samp}} | example output | To indicate sample or example output |
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