Any contributor may edit the template's sandbox. Functionality of the template can be checked using test cases.
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Using <small> </small> is a kludge, putting it mildly, but the proper   is translated to UTF-8 by the server on the fly, and it doesn't work with old browsers.
The code column in the example shows this effect - there is of course no such thing as a monospaced  , neither emulated nor real.
Another trick used by {{Template talk:Template link expanded}} is <tt>|</tt> for the pipe symbol (vertical bar), a monospaced | adjacent to other text is better visible in the output for
proportional fonts. I hope you like it, it's not ideal for text mode browsers. -- Omniplex21:57, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Space should not show up in copy/paste
Resolved
– Requested edits made.
The extra space between the braces and the name of the template seems like a problem to me. This template is showing up in the main lists of templates (WP:Templates). It is important that editors be able to copy and paste from these lists directly. The extra spaces mess this up. Some css code is needed to insert spacing, without inserting a character. If this "breaks" on older browsers such that the see output similar to {{tl}}, that's fine.--Srleffler05:57, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No spaces
Resolved
– Requested edits made.
I really don't see any need for them. They look hideous; they make the output take up much more space; they're inconsistent with {{tl}}; and they cause the output to break across lines. Λυδαcιτγ04:03, 30 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Now virtually illegible in Safari
Resolved
– Requested edits made.
The template name is so small, and bold, as to be nearly unreadable in the Safari web browser (actually unreadable, for many people with poorer eyesight than I have). Please just make it look like {{tl}}. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib]ツ02:04, 6 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The original change fixed the template to enforce lower-case initial letters if and only if all the other letters of the template name were lowercase; this seems to have been deliberate. Do you think that the template should be changed to preserve the case of all letters in all circumstances instead? --ais523 19:26, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
I think so. I would like to be able to control how the text displays. I don't see other templates doing this sort of thing. Is there some advantage I'm missing? Libcub (talk) 20:07, 10 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
– Someone actually needs to do this, probably the nominator.
The "empty really doesn't work" and "empty really won't work" stuff is referring, from what I can tell, to tlx's own internal "2, 3" parameter logic, which I don't think is how most people use this template, so it's a bit confusing. As noted, "=" can be made to work with an escape, so empty does in fact work just fine, but only if you are using the target template's parms, not tlx's: {{WPBiography|living=yes|class=|importance=}}
I would suggest splitting the doc table into two tables, one about passing other template's parms to tlx, and one about tlx's internal "2, 3" parm logic.
Also, as the =-escaping hint suggests, effectively empty would work just fine with tlx's own parms, with " ": {{tlx|x2|2= |3=two}} yields the intended {{x2| |two}} instead of the mangled {{x2|two}} in the documentation.
This still isn't resolved, after months and months. Please copy the formatting (CSS and such) from {{tl}} into {{tlx}} so that they have a mutually consistent appearance (or vice versa; an argument can certainly be made that the monospaced font helps distinguish between otherwise similar-looking characters (in some fonts), like 1, l and |, or 0 and O). The only difference between these templates should be tlx's handling of additional parameters. Some samples to compare (bigger than those in the Reqimage sample template above: {{reqdiagram}} vs. {{reqimageother|type of request}}
NNot done This change requires more consensus before it's appropriate for an admin to do it immediately; maybe you could start a discussion about it somewhere like WP:VPR? --ais523 16:46, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm skeptical there was ever consensus to change it in the first place; I remember a time when {{tl}} and {{tlx}} looked identical as to their output formatting. But rather than fight about this, I suggest a code fork, {{tlx}} and {{tlxcode}}, with the latter being monospaced, since the only reason to have it look that way is when giving code examples. It would probably be wise to do this in a metatemplated fashion so that all code other than this difference is transcluded, and that way the two versions stay 100% in synch at all times. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)›18:47, 27 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Rescinded. One can use {{tlx}} as if it were {{tl}} when ones wants to use both side by side and have them be consistent with each other; and there really isn't any reason to use {{tlx}} at all unless giving code examples, so my objection didn't make much sense. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)›09:49, 29 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There are size limits - for those rare cases why not just do the markup by hand? (leaving template in case someone more knowledgeable than me thinks this will work well).—Random83201:47, 29 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, of course there are size limits. I didn't say it needs 100 parameters. :-) Why not do it by hand? It's a pain in the neck, esp. if you need to illustrate 10 different complicated uses of a multip-field template. The entire point of {{tlx}} is that is it useful for very quickly illustrating the use of complex templates, so it is defeating itself by having so few fields. The case mentioned is only one of many; this too-small limitation of {{tlx}} bites me in the soft bits about 3x a week. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)›09:46, 29 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'll increase the capability of this template to 10 parameters (that is, the template will have 11 parameters, since the first is devoted to the example template's name), but beyond that (as an arbitrary limit, rather than a reasoned one) it seems ridiculous, especially considering that templates with so many parameters are usually laid out vertically, and {{tlx}} does not support vertical layout. If you want a template for displaying the syntax of templates with more than 10 parameters, they should probably should be laid out vertically for the sake of readability. After upgrading this template, I'll check if such a template exists - if not, I will create it. Nihiltres{t.l}15:29, 29 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If the need ever does arise, create a separate template like {{tlxtra}} to handle templates with more than 10 parameters, so this one doesn't have to do a bunch of unnecessary #if's. –Pomte16:28, 20 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Could someone please explain in plain English at the top of the documentation what this template is for? The current explanation baffles me. Thanks. --Dweller (talk) 10:14, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Change format to easily stylable and more semantic
{{editprotected}} I suggest that this template would be changed from <span style="font-family:monospace;"> to <code>, because this way, it could be changed by user styles and is also more semantic. {{tlc}} uses this way. I personally would like to see this change, because in Vector, all monospaced texts are too small, so I created user styles for myself, but they don't work for this template. Svick (talk) 23:05, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I reverted the edit. This template has been used for years, is transcluded onto 100,881 pages, and is used in many different Wikimedia projects. Its style should not be changed, it should stay compatible with the other tl templates both here and at the other Wikimedia projects.
But when I reverted I didn't use the old <span style="font-family:monospace;">, since that breaks in some browsers (see discussion at MediaWiki talk:Common.css#Teletype style fix for Chrome) and as Svick pointed out, can not be styled. I instead used <tt>...</tt>, which causes the same look as the span tag on all non-broken browsers, and causes better output than before on the broken browsers.
If by compatibile, you mean consistent, then {{tlc}} should probably be changed to <tt> too, as it currently uses <code>. I thought that <code> would be better, because it is more semantic, but <tt> works for me too. Svick (talk) 20:28, 27 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Haha, it was I who made the {{tlc}} template, and yes it uses <code>. But it also has two sister templates: {{tld}} that uses <tt>, and {{tlf}} that uses normal text. So there is one for every taste in that group. Here are links to them if you want to take a closer look: {{tld}} and {{tlf}}.
If you want code colour for most of the other {{tl}} related templates then you have to manually surround them with <code>...</code>, sorry. Unfortunately we can not do the other way around, that is, we have no tag to put around something that has code colour to reverse it to normal text.
Of course, if you just want to personally style them, then tell us what templates you want to style and we can add some class names to them so you can style them as much as you want. Here at the English Wikipedia we have the unofficial policy that if any one asks for a class name so they can style something, then we always add it. It's so simple to add and it keeps everybody happy. :)
Notice the difference in the nested {{inflation}}? The final pair of curly braces (not part of the nested {{tlx}}) also lacks the formatting. Just thought I'd mention this. No idea what a fix would entail, if one is even necessary or desirable. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 19:40, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed: it's not a problem with {{tlx}}per se, but a consequence of nesting one <code></code> tag inside another. The problem is replicable using raw HTML. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:53, 3 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
{{tlx}} was never intended to look like {{tl}} - tlx deliberately uses a monospace font, so that it looks like the code in an edit window; tl uses the normal proportional font, to look like normal page text. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:27, 16 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The normal text in this section appears to be weaker than the normal text in your screenshot; but the monospace text looks stronger in this section that in your screenshot. We clearly have different setups. For comparison, I have generated my own screenshot - I am using Windows XP, Firefox 3.6.13, Monobook skin. If I switch to Vector skin (which is now the default for most users), I see no significant change to the text in either font. Let's try an experiment:
These look the same for me as regards font; but <code></code> gives a grey background. However, whilst they're the same size as each other in Monobook skin, the third (span) one is absolutely tiny compared to the others in Vector; in fact, it looks the same as<code></code> used in conjunction with <small></small>:
but your problem is definitely not to do with small text. In case you hadn't already checked, {{tlx}} uses the <code></code> method, and has done since 27 October
2009. It was written this way, but periodically somebody changed the method: the longest time when another method was used was 23 March 2007 to 26 October 2009, when the span method was used. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:33, 17 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
HTML5 does not support the <tt> tag.[2] Browsers will probably support the tag forever, but as we move towards HTML5, the use of <tt> will result in validation errors. We should consider whether to migrate to <code> or CSS styling. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)talk12:05, 6 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.
For example from the guide for {{IPsock}} it has {{tetl|IPsock|username|confirmed|evidence=[[WP:SOCK|foo]]}}
But if you try to do {{tetl|IPsock|username|confirmed|evidence=[[WP:SOCK|foo]]}} it comes out like this:
Not a problem specific to this template. When the value includes an equals sign, you have to do some tricks: see the examples section for three different ways to fix this. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)talk10:29, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The ==Documentation== section of the /doc file says:
{{Template link expanded}}
is a generalization of {{Tl}}, {{Tlp}},
et cetera with arguably better readable
output. This depends on the browser, but too narrow
uses of "{", "|", "}" in conjunction
with links can be hard to read.
This documentation is transcluded by lots of tlx-family templates, and has the undesired result of substituting in the name of each of these templates in this section on their own /doc pages, when the intent seems to be to have it refer only to {{tlx}} itself. Further, the "This dependes on the browser..." material seems to be intented to refer to {{tln}} only, which has little to do with {{tlx}} at all. I'm going to WP:BOLDly just fix this, but am annotating in detail here why I'm making these changes, in case it breaks something and/or there's a better way to fix it. — SMcCandlish ☺☏¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 21:51, 16 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The option newlink=yesnolink=yes seems to be broken. It doesn't even work in the examples on the documentation page. —Kri (talk) 22:57, 8 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Gosh... I meant the nolink parameter but accidentally wrote newlink instead for some reason. No wonder it was broken :) —Kri (talk) 15:25, 13 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hm, lets see: {{tlx|foo|nolink=yes}} gives {{foo}}, but it should give {{foo}} (I guess that's what the nolink parameter is for, right?). Yes, it seems there is in fact still a problem. I thought I had misspelled the parameter all along but I must have done that only when I started this section. So good catch there.
The template's documentation mentions |nolink= exactly once - in the fourth cell of the second row of the table "Comparison of template-linking templates according to their style" in the subsection General-purpose formatting. This table is not a list of parameters recognised by {{tlx}}, but shows how the effects of the various related templates may be achieved using the {{tlg}} template - notice that the second cell in the second row says "↓ {{tlg}} options1 →". --Redrose64 (talk) 19:52, 14 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Implement as module?
There is no longer any need for a limit on the number of parameters, since a template can be now be implemented as a Lua module. See for example {{main}}. Hairy Dude (talk) 00:37, 10 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Doesn't show second parameter
{{tlx | by whom | date= January 2016}} produces {{by whom}} It seems anything with an "=" on the parameter doesn't work. There is sort of a hint in the documentation suggesting {{tlx | by whom | 2= date= January 2016}} If this is the proper way to do this, shouldn't it be clarified in the documentation? Thanks Jim1138 (talk) 23:48, 3 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This is not specific to {{tlx}} but is normal behaviour for all templates. It is covered at Help:Template#Usage hints and workarounds (first bullet), and since the "problem" is so widespread we don't copy the "fix" to every set of template documentation. As you suggest, use {{tlx|by whom|2=date=January 2016}} which produces {{by whom|date=January 2016}} --Redrose64 (talk) 00:09, 4 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Another approach is to use {{=}}, which inserts an equals sign without it being considered part of wiki syntax, i.e. {{tlx | by whom | date{{=}}January 2016}}. Hairy Dude (talk) 10:34, 3 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Switch to Lua module
I created a Lua module Module:Tlx which can serve as a backend for {{tlx}} and related templates. The main advantages are that, in addition to supporting all the existing syntax, it correctly renders {{tlx|x0|parameter=value}} as {{x0}}, and it supports unlimited parameters. I have created sandbox versions at {{tlx/sandbox}}, {{tlxs/sandbox}}, {{tlxb/sandbox}}, {{tlxi/sandbox}}, {{tlxc/sandbox}}, and {{temt/sandbox}}. The Template:Tlx/testcases page shows the differences between the current template and the sandbox. Several previous workarounds are no longer needed, but no output should be broken. The only limitation is that parameters |LANG=, |SISTER=, and |subst=, which change the output of the template, would need to be entered the old-fashioned way (e.g. |2=LANG=). Are there any objections to copying this over to the live template? --Ahecht (TALK PAGE) 19:51, 16 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I object. You are attempting to "fix" a problem which, as I noted in the section above, is not specific to {{tlx}} but applies to all templates with positional parameters. Are you going to alter all of those as well? And why are we going to need that weird formatting for |LANG= and the others? It will not be intuitive at all. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:36, 16 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Redrose64: The problem may not be specific to {{tlx}} and related templates, but there is an increased utility to fixing this particular one in that it allows a one-to-one replacement of the template call with the display of the template. I can directly copy a template call such as {{convert|1|m|disp=flip}} and just add tlx| to the beginning ({{tlx|convert|1|m|disp=flip}}) to display it in a comment and it will display correctly as {{convert|1|m}}. This is way more intuitive than having to convert it to {{tlx|convert|1|m|4=disp=flip}} (I'm sure I'm not the only one that's screwed it up from time to time). I'm also not sure why it matters that other templates with positional parameters have this problem — doesn't fixing it have to start somewhere?
The awkward |LANG= syntax is carried over from the old template for compatibility reasons. It is not a regression introduced by this module. The module can understand {{tlx/sandbox|de:Vorlage:Vorlage|a=b}} just fine and output * {{de:Vorlage:Vorlage}}. the only problem is if you are using {{tlx}} on a template that also uses a parameter called LANG or SISTER. Given that the LANG parameter wouldn't have worked as documented (it needed a leading :), I doubt |LANG= and |SISTER= were used much and could likely be deprecated, but the Template Parameters tool only works in mainspace so I'm not sure if and where they are used. --Ahecht (TALK PAGE) 01:44, 17 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I have to take Ahecht's side in this. It would greatly simply template coding examples by not having to escape "=". Why would we using upper-case LANG and SISTER parameter names otherwise? You can do an insource search for them. If they are used, then pick new names for the special, rarely used parameters in this template then? PS: |2=LANG=whatever syntax would not be required anyway; the simpler way to do that is what we already do lots of, namely |LANG{{=}}whatever.
Template-protected edit request on 21 January 2018
This edit request to Template:Tlx has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.
To indicate an omission of material from quoted text, use an ellipsis (plural ellipses): a set of three unspaced dots: ... (The pre-composed ellipsis character (…), or three dots separated by spaces (. . .), are not recommended.)
{{tlx}} translates a pipe (|) following a url into the equivalent HTML character attribute (&7C;) in {{tlx|cite web | title {{=}} IBM OS/390 Version 2 Release 5 Availability and Release 6
| id {{=}} 298-049
| date {{=}} February 24, 1998
| url {{=}} https://www.ibm.com/common/ssi/rep_ca/9/897/ENUS298-049/index.html
| quote {{=}} UNIX System Services
| publisher {{=}} IBM
| work {{=}} Software Announcement
}}}}: {{cite web|title = IBM OS/390 Version 2 Release 5 Availability and Release 6|id = 298-049|date = February 24, 1998|url = https://www.ibm.com/common/ssi/rep_ca/9/897/ENUS298-049/index.html%7Cquote = UNIX System Services|publisher = IBM|work = Software Announcement}}. If this is a permanent restriction then the documentation should give a recommended bypass, as it does for =. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 18:07, 27 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
You don't see any evidence because of what I wrote above: "When I did a preview and saw that the rendering was broken, I changed it". There is no audit trail of changes between saves. You can, however, see the incorrectly rendered {{tlx}} right after the <nowiki>...</nowiki>: at the beginning of this section. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 18:20, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
You're misusing {{tlx}} by making it jump through hoops, stuffing it with <nowiki>...</nowiki>, {{=}} and other markup in order to get around apparent limitations for which much more elegant solutions exist. To show unprocessed markup, use <syntaxhighlight lang=moin>...</syntaxhighlight>:
*{{cite web
| url = http://www.example.com/
| title = Example web page
}}
So now we have a working demonstration of that mistranslation - which actually encodes the pipe as %7C (and not &7C; at all). Yes, it's a bug, and it is not something that can be sorted by discussion here. It should be referred to WP:VPT who may then suggest phab: per WP:BUGS. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:07, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It worked fine in the past. Something's changed about the MediaWiki software, either the template parser or the URL handler. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:39, 29 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The first of those works because the space terminates the URL. The second and third fail because the parser apparently regards the adjacent characters as continuing the URL. Are you sure that used to work?
In the tlx example above, the |2=... trims spaces around ... and that is what makes the tlx output fail. Special:ExpandTemplates shows that tlx outputs the expected wikitext, but the adjacent characters after http are regarded as part of the URL. As BrandonXLF says, nowiki will fix it.
Hi, this template supports the two named parameters |LANG= and |SISTER=. To be consistent with other templates using lowercase parameter names, I'd like to see support for lowercase parameter variants |lang= and |sister= being added. This would be a trivial change, not bloating the template's code.
The corresponding code fragment
{{{LANG|}}}{{{SISTER|}}}
would have to be replaced by
{{{lang|{{{LANG|}}}}}}{{{sister|{{{SISTER|}}}}}}
If transclusion depth would be an issue (I doubt it) even
{{{lang|}}}{{{LANG|}}}{{{sister|}}}{{{SISTER|}}}
would do a reasonably good job (but I recommend the first variant).
As a template editor I would carry out the edit myself, but the template is fully protected.
This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.
Can we see how many instances of the all caps parameters there are? Perhaps we can just make the lower case and fix existing transclusions if the number is limited. We can check by adding a Z tracker to an "if" function. We would add the following code:
Why is this template called "expanded" when the documentation says "provide stylized links to templates without expanding the template itself."? Christian75 (talk) 11:39, 21 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved
Unresolved
Done - As per my comment. Nihiltres{t.l} 15:41, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Not done for now:I'm not sure what change is being requested here.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 21:58, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
Done--Aervanath (talk) 18:14, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
Done ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 18:22, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
--Mistress Selina Kyle (Α⇔Ω ¦ ⇒✉) 09:30, 15 February 2012 (UTC)