This is a documentation subpage for Template:Sidebar. It may contain usage information, categories and other content that is not part of the original template page.

This template uses Lua: Module:Sidebar (sandbox)

This template is a metatemplate for the creation of sidebar templates, i.e. boxes that are vertically aligned navigation templates. Sidebars, like infoboxes, are usually positioned on the right-hand side of a page.

((Sidebar with collapsible lists)) is a version of ((Sidebar)) that adds collapsibility to its sections, i.e. the means to show or hide sections by clicking links beside their headings.

Templates using the classes class=navbox (((navbox))) or class=nomobile (((sidebar))) are not displayed on the mobile web site of English Wikipedia. Mobile page views account for approximately 65% of all page views (90-day average as of May 2023^[update]).

Note that MOS:LEAD discourages the placement of sidebars in the lead section of articles.

Usage

((Sidebar
| name = ((subst:PAGENAME))
| class =            
| wraplinks =        <!-- "true" otherwise (default:) omit -->
| float =
| templatestyles = 
| child templatestyles = 
| grandchild templatestyles = 

| outertitleclass = 
| outertitle = 

| topimageclass = 
| topimage = 
| topcaption = 

| pretitleclass = 
| pretitle = 

| titleclass = 
| title = 

| imageclass = 
| image = 
| caption = 

| headingclass = 
| contentclass = 

| aboveclass = 
| above = 

| heading1 = 
| heading1class = 
| content1 = 
| content1class = 

| heading2 = 
| heading2class = 
| content2 = 
| content2class = 

| heading3 = 
| heading3class = 
| content3 = 
| content3class = 

<!-- (omitting infinite heading/content parameters) -->

| belowclass = 
| below = 
| navbar = 

))

Note that Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section § Elements discourages the placement of sidebars in the lead section of articles, though they may be included on a case-by-case basis.

Parameters

No parameters are mandatory. If ((navbar)) links are to function correctly (unless their appearance is suppressed; see the navbar parameter below), the parameter name needs to be set (to the name of the sidebar's page). (This does not apply if the Lua module that produces ((Sidebar)), Module:Sidebar, is being used directly.)

TemplateStyles

The TemplateStyles parameters |templatestyles=, |child templatestyles=, and |grandchild templatestyles= take the pagename of a TemplateStyles page and turn it into a TemplateStyles tag. The TemplateStyles tag is a much more powerful way to add styling to a sidebar.

Some rules of use:

1. Always add a template-specific class in |class= so that the styles added to one sidebar will not "leak" into another sidebar. For example, Template:DYK tools has |class=dyk-tools and the Template:DYK tools/styles.css page targets .dyk-tools for all of its added styling.
2. Do not assume Template:Sidebar will continue to have a table structure (i.e., do not target table or any other table HTML in the TemplateStyles page). The table structure is soft-deprecated and will go away at some point in the future.

These tags are loaded in this order: Core templatestyles (Module:Sidebar/styles.css), templatestyles, child, and then grandchild, which can be used to 'cascade' the styles.

|templatestyles=

This parameter is intended for a template or module calling ((sidebar)) directly.

|child templatestyles=

This parameter is intended for a template or module which calls a sidebar with |templatestyles=.

|grandchild templatestyles=

This parameter is intended for a template or module which calls a sidebar with |child templatestyles=.

The canonical list of classes output with each kind of element of a sidebar (i.e. output for all |contentn=, or all cases of |above=) can be found in Module:Sidebar/configuration in the "class" table. The below is a non-authoritative but otherwise sufficient list for most generic styling:

Example TemplateStyles parameter use

For an example of a sidebar which does not need to support children templates of its own (whether because it has no children or because it wants no children):

((Sidebar
| title                = Child Example
| class                = sidebar-example
| templatestyles = Template:Sidebar/example/styles.css
))

For an example of a sidebar which does have its own children and an example of one of the children (grandchild templates have a similar use):

((Sidebar
| title                     = (({title|Title Child Example))}
| class                     = sidebar-example (({class|))}
| templatestyles      = Template:Sidebar/example/styles.css
| child templatestyles = (({child templatestyles|))}
))

((Sidebar/child example
| title                = Title Grandchild Example
| class                = sidebar-child-example
| child templatestyles = Template:Sidebar/child example/styles.css
))

Handling long links

((Normalwraplink)) may be used to handle individual links that should wrap within the sidebar or otherwise need to be made to wrap, in order to prevent the sidebar from becoming too wide. Use ((normalwraplink|longlinkname)), where |longlinkname is the long link without its square brackets.

Use the |wraplinks=true parameter to enable link wrapping (disabling nowraplinks CSS class) for the whole template.

Nesting

One sidebar template can be nested (embedded) into another one by using the |child= parameter. This feature can be used to create a modular sidebar, or to create more well-defined and logical sections.

((Sidebar
| title = Top-level title
| content1 =
 ((Sidebar |child=yes
  | title = First subsection
  | heading1 = Heading 1.1
  | content1 = Content 1.1
 ))
| content2 =
 ((Sidebar |child=yes
  | title = Second subsection
  | heading1 = Heading 2.1
  | content1 = Content 2.1
 ))
| below = "below" text
))

Note in the examples above that the child sidebar is placed in a content field, not a heading field. Notice also that the section subheadings do not appear in bold if this is not explicitly specified. To obtain bold section headings, move the titles to the heading field, using

((Sidebar
| title = Top-level title
| heading1 = First subsection
| content1 = 
 ((Sidebar |child=yes
  | heading1 = Heading 1.1
  | content1 = Content 1.1
 ))
| heading2 = Second subsection
| content2 = 
 ((Sidebar |child=yes
  | heading1 = Heading 2.1
  | content1 = Content 2.1
 ))
| below = "below" text
))

Deprecated parameters

The following parameters are deprecated in favor of TemplateStyles and templates/modules using them are categorized into Category:Sidebars with styles needing conversion. The category page has further conversion information.

A specific real conversion example is Template:DYK tools where the styles were moved to Template:DYK tools/styles.css.

Tracking category

• Category:Pages using sidebar with the child parameter (3,339)
• Category:Sidebars with styles needing conversion (4,319)