A navigational template is often a small list for use in several related articles, without the usual disadvantages of duplication; in particular, editing is done in a central place, the template page. See also "Related topics" (navigational lists).
Examples: Articles linked by {{israelites}} and {{Seven Summits}} or groups of images by either {{1632 covers}} or the animated list {{US growth maps}} shown below and left.
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To learn how to create navigational templates quickly, see Navbox generic. To learn how to create more advanced ones or edit existing ones, see Help:Template.
Since their number is ever-increasing, this page attempts to keep track of them in a structured manner. When you create a new MediaWiki element of this kind, please add it to this page. Templates ought to be categorized as well: see Category:Navigational templates.
- Some editors deprecate large, colorful, list-based templates on small articles.
- When the navigation is between the members of a category, using {{otherarticles}} will place the article in a category, and provide links to that category and to a general article or list.
- For succession in office, including wikipedia:peerages, consider {{succession box}} unless the office in question clearly needs its own template. Variant templates for persons who have held several notable offices are discussed on its talk page.
- For relating articles across different categories in a logical sequence, use {{step}}.
- For examples of consistent formatting, see wikipedia:Template:Navbox generic#Additional examples
Some general advice: Try to avoid navigation templates that are too large. For example, {{EMD diesels}} lists all of the models of diesel locomotives built by one manufacturer, but this template is too large to be included on every locomotive article that is referenced in it. Instead, the individual sections of {{EMD diesels}} were split out into their own templates such as {{EMD GPs}} or {{EMD SDs}}. The smaller templates retain a more tightly focused relationship between the articles and allow the reader to navigate to other related content quickly.
Section tagging templates: Like the ubiquitous {{Main}} and {{inuse}} are useful for article links best kept in an article section, and generally link to related main articles, up from subpages created to split an article into a set of more manageable and desirable length, or down to such sub-pages. They are also useful and prevalent in making cross links to articles covering an aspect the section covers in part to a more in depth article on that topic.
Special purpose children of 'see also' have been developed to link across daughter sub-categories in category pages ({{cat see also}}) to related categories in Wikimedia Commons ({{cat see also commons}}), and link either to parent categories or across the interwiki divide to other sister projects category pages at need ({{catlst}}). This latter template will from February 2007 on, increasingly head category pages to just list the parent categories at the head of a category because they appear way down on a page bottom to Wikipedia readers who do not have a choide of skins--most non-editors and all anoms.
Side boxes and headers
History and timelines
Universities
- wikipedia:Template:California State University - California State University (USA)
- wikipedia:Template:Drexel University - Drexel University (USA)
- wikipedia:Template:Ivy League - The Ivy League (USA)
- wikipedia:Template:Ohio Wesleyan University - Ohio Wesleyan University (USA)
- wikipedia:Template:UNC System - University of North Carolina System (USA)
- wikipedia:Template:University of California - University of California (USA)
- wikipedia:Template:UChicago - University of Chicago (USA)
- wikipedia:Template:University of Cambridge - University of Cambridge (UK)
- wikipedia:Template:University of London - University of London (UK)
- wikipedia:Template:University of Oxford - University of Oxford (UK)
- wikipedia:Template:WUSTL - Washington University in St. Louis (USA)
- wikipedia:Template:Rutgers - Rutgers University (USA)
Science
- Main article: wikipedia:Wikipedia:Navigational templates/Science
Other
- Calendars: wikipedia:Template:Months
- Emotions: wikipedia:Template:Emotion-footer - Emotion and emotion theory series
- Ethnic groups: wikipedia:Template:CEG - Chinese ethnic groups, wikipedia:Template:Castes and Tribes of the Punjab- Castes and Tribes of the Punjab region, wikipedia:Template:The seven Mohyal clans - Mohyal clans
- Learned societies: wikipedia:Template:Swedish Royal Academies - Royal Swedish Academies
- Philosophy: wikipedia:Template:Philosophy, Template:Presocratics, wikipedia:Template:Integral theory
- Subcultures: wikipedia:Template:Skinhead - Articles relating to Skinheads
- Technology: wikipedia:Template:Technology-footer - Major fields of technology, wikipedia:Template:TimeSig - Time signal stations
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