Template:Search prefixes

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Purpose

Creates a search box, targeting multiple subpages at once. If one page is enough, you can use {{search box}} or {{search archives}}.

Template:Search deletion discussions uses this template, specializing in search deletion discussions.

Syntax

{{Search prefixes
| small = Optional. See below.
| header1 = The title of the search box
| description = Optional long description.
| searchbuttonlabel = Optional. Defaults to "Search".
| header2 = Caption of the target pages list. 
            Defaults to "click show to see which wikipedia areas are searched"
| target page 1 
| target page 2
| target page 3 
...
| target page 30
}}

The search scope will be target pages and their subpages. If you want to search only subpages, excluding the target pages themselves, append a slash.

Setting the "small" parameter to "yes" creates a smaller box to the right. It only have effect when the template is on an article, talk page or an "other" page. For documentation on the small parameters see {{ambox}}, {{tmbox}} and {{ombox}}. Using the small parameters when they are not valid has no effect, but also does no harm.

"description" and the list of target pages are hidden by default, and user can see them by clicking. Setting header2 to no completely hides the list of target pages.

limits

• a limit of 30 prefixes/areas can be specified.
• the prefixes must be in title form, not URL form - spaces, not "_" between words (this is the only form recognized by the prefix search parameter)

examples

example with header1 specified, but no description

{{Search prefixes
| header1 = Combined search for Romania noticeboard and WikiProject archives
| searchbuttonlabel = Search archives
| header2 = areas searched
| Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Romania
| Wikipedia:Romanian Wikipedians' notice board 
| Wikipedia talk:Romanian Wikipedians' notice board 
}}

produces:

example with header1 and a description, but header2=no which suppresses the archive list

{{Search prefixes
| header1 = Combined search for Romania noticeboard and WikiProject archives
| description = Discussion of Romania-related topics has been split between this page and [[WP:RWNB]] plus its talk page. This box searches the archives of all those pages.
| searchbuttonlabel = Search archives
| header2 = no
| Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Romania
| Wikipedia:Romanian Wikipedians' notice board 
| Wikipedia talk:Romanian Wikipedians' notice board 
}}

produces:

example with header1 and a description, as well as header2

{{Search prefixes
| header1 = Combined search for Romania noticeboard and WikiProject archives
| description = Discussion of Romania-related topics has been split between this page and [[WP:RWNB]] plus its talk page. This box searches the archives of all those pages.
| searchbuttonlabel = Search archives
| header2 = areas to be searched
| Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Romania
| Wikipedia:Romanian Wikipedians' notice board 
| Wikipedia talk:Romanian Wikipedians' notice board 
}}

produces:

example with small=yes

{{Search prefixes
| small = yes
| header1 = Short Title
| description = Discussion of Romania-related topics has been split between this page and [[WP:RWNB]] plus its talk page. This box searches the archives of all those pages.
| searchbuttonlabel = Search archives
| header2 = areas to be searched
| Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Romania
| Wikipedia:Romanian Wikipedians' notice board 
| Wikipedia talk:Romanian Wikipedians' notice board 
}}

produces:

Templates for searching Wikipedia

Search links

A search link stores a query in a link that takes you to live search results for that stored search. They're found on user pages and talk pages. Use one to bring the full feature set of MediaWiki Search, or features of external search engines, to bear on users unfamiliar with their search parameters.

One type of search link is a wikilink with all the capabilities of Search (search box), and with standard wikilink syntax: [[Special:Search/query| label]]. So this search link will (1) navigate: [[Special:search/Wales]] → Special:search/Wales or (2) search: [[Special:search/~Wales | search/~Wales]] → search/~Wales if you prefix a ~ tilde character.

All other search links are made from a template that will build a URL instead of wikilink. A URL can for example can call off-site search engines to search Wikipedia.

• {{Search link}} offers all the capabilities of Searching (search box), plus extra (URL) parameters for combinations of namespaces, and where you can escape the 20-results-per page-limitation, shareable: {{search link | et al | ''label'' | ns4 | ns5 | limit = 123}} → label.
• {{Regex}} – develop an advanced regex search. {{regex | \<--.*--> | label = Articles with comments missing the ! bang character | prefix=0}} → Articles with comments missing the ! bang character
• {{Template usage}} – develop a template regex search, and pinpoint specific template-call details. {{Template usage | Convert | \{{!}}C\{{!}}F | 0 | Articles that convert Celsius to Fahrenheit}} → Articles that convert Celsius to Fahrenheit
• {{ShortSearch}} – create three search links: {{ShortSearch | system operations research}} → WP GWP G (search Wikipedia, "Google" Wikipedia, and Google search)
• {{wpsearch}} – create five search links: {{wpsearch|collaborative search}} → collaborative search – Wikipedia search | Google search | Bing search | DuckDuckGo search | Yahoo search
• {{Wikidata search link}} – creates a Wikidata search link for descriptions, entities, items, properties, etc. → https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?search=Universe&title=Special:Search&fulltext=1

Search boxes

• {{Search box}} – Simple search box with choice of button below or to the right
• {{Search prefixes}} – Multiple pages' subpages are searched at once.
• {{Archive banner}} – For searching archives. It is of banner-style, like many other archive templates.
• {{Search lists}} – For searching from lists of lists.

Search boxes are made by <inputbox> tags. See mw:Extension:InputBox.

Page title searches

• {{Canned search}} – Link to automated search results for a given term
• {{In title}} – Search for pages whose name contains given words
• {{Look from}} – Search for pages whose name begins with a given word

For searches with exact matches, exact in upper and lower cases, or in punctuation marks, see Help:Searching § grep.

Other Wikipedia editor help

• {{Linksearch}} – Searches for external links matching a URL
• {{dabsearch|term}} – External tool to find page titles containing a (term) in parentheses; useful for Wikipedia:disambiguation study
• {{Help desk searches}} – Navbox with list of links to Google pages, specialized to search for example user pages, village pump, etc.; useful for Wikipedia:Help desk tasks
• {{Spamsearch}} – Searches user pages for common spams, e.g. "we service", "leading manufacturer", etc.

See also

• Help:Searching
• Category:Search templates
• MediaWiki:Extension:InputBox § General syntax - how to create your own search box using <inputbox>...</inputbox>

The above documentation is transcluded from Template:Search prefixes/doc. (edit | history)
Editors can experiment in this template's sandbox (edit | diff) and testcases (edit) pages.
Add categories to the /doc subpage. Subpages of this template.