Wikipedia:WikiProject Flag Template

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WP:WPFT

This WikiProject is responsible for the template system used to create flag icons, with or without associated wikilinks. This project is only concerned with the implementation of these templates.

Contents

[edit] Main templates

[edit] Template:Flagicon

Produces a small image of the named flag.

Example: {{flagicon|Japan}} → Flag of Japan

[edit] Template:Flag

Produces a small image of the named flag, plus a wikilink to the associated article.

Example: {{flag|United Kingdom}} → Flag of the United Kingdom United Kingdom
Note that this wikicode sequence: {{flagicon|name}} [[name]]
can be (and should be) replaced by the simpler: {{flag|name}}.

[edit] Template:Flagcountry

Similar to flag, but always uses the preferred display text for the wikilinked article, even if alias names (e.g. country codes) are used.

Example: {{flagcountry|USA}} → Flag of the United States United States

[edit] "Shortcut" flag templates

Many countries also have individual flag templates, named using standard three letter country codes so as to offer "shortcut" alternatives to the standard templates. This is a mixed blessing; some country codes (like "USA") are widely known and the corresponding shortcut templates (i.e. {{USA}}) offer convenience, but some country codes are relatively obscure, so wiki markup would likely be clearer if the country names were spelled out in full. Also, the shortcut templates do not offer the ability to use historical flag variants (described below), and are therefore less flexible.

Example: {{AFG}} → Flag of Afghanistan Afghanistan (equivalent to {{flag|Afghanistan}})

See Wikipedia:Inline templates linking countries for a complete list.

[edit] Flag names

The first (positional) parameter for these templates specifies the country (or other entity) to be used for the flag image. These actually identify additional templates that individually store information specific to that country. For example, the image name and main article name used by {{flag|Cuba}} (to produce Flag of Cuba Cuba) is stored in Template:Country data Cuba. The complete set of these "country data" templates is found in Category:Country data templates.

Note that there are country data templates for many entities that are not considered countries, such as international organizations or sub-national entities. The use of "country" in these template names is only because the original implementation of the flag template system was built upon Template:Country A better name might have been "flag data", but it is likely too late for that change now.

Some examples of non-country flag templates are:

Many country data templates also exist for historical nations, and these can be used to produce the historical flags with wikilinks to the appropriate articles. Some examples are:

[edit] Alias names

For added convenience, many flags can be identified by an alias name, typically a three-letter country code. For example, instead of {{flagicon|United States}}, you could simply use {{flagicon|USA}} to produce Flag of the United States.

Alias names are available for almost every nation listed in ISO 3166-1 alpha-3, the list of IOC country codes, and the list of FIFA country codes. For example, {{flagicon|DEU}} (ISO) and {{flagicon|GER}} (IOC and FIFA) both produce Flag of Germany. A small handful of other well-known abbreviations are also available (such as UK, EU, and USSR).

Alias names are implemented as redirects in the template namespace. For example, Template:Country data FRA is a redirect to Template:Country data France. The complete set of these redirects is listed in Category:Country data redirects, and the available alias redirect(s) for a given country data template (if any) are also documented on that template's page.

Please do not create redirect aliases with uncommon abbreviations, especially for countries or regions that do not have standard country codes. Wikicode is much easier to read if the full name is used. Even some of the standard country codes are not widely known!

When using country code aliases, template flag will display this value for the wikilink's display text. For example:

  • {{flag|USA}} → Flag of the United States USA
  • {{flag|UK}} → Flag of the United Kingdom UK
  • {{flag|CHN}} → Flag of the People's Republic of China CHN

Note that in each case, the target wikilink points to the correct article name (i.e. United States, United Kingdom, and People's Republic of China, respectively) but the display text matches the input parameter to template flag. This may be the desired effect, such as in column headings of a large table, but if the full name is wanted, then use Template:Flagcountry instead:

Alias names have a second purpose, which is to provide alternate display text for target wikilinks. For example, the main article linked by Template:Country data East Germany is East Germany, but Template:Country data German Democratic Republic is a redirect alias. Therefore, you can use {{flag|German Democratic Republic}} for Flag of the German Democratic Republic German Democratic Republic. Again, note that the target article name for the generated wikilink is still East Germany.

[edit] Flag variants

Many countries have had different flag variations at various periods in their history. The flag template system can accomodate this by storing multiple flag variants inside country data templates. A specific flag variant is selected by specifying an additional parameter to any of the standard flag templates. This parameter is usually given as the second positional parameter to the template, but may also be given as the variant named parameter.

Examples
  • {{flag|Germany|empire}} → Flag of Germany Germany
  • {{flag|Germany|variant=empire}} → Flag of Germany Germany
  • {{flagcountry|CAN|1921}} → Flag of Canada Canada
  • {{flagicon|CAN|1921}} → Flag of Canada

The set of available flag variants (if any) for a specific country data template are documented on the country data template page itself. Each variant is identified by a short text label, such as empire or 1921 in the examples above. Usually, the label identifies the year in which the flag was introduced, but this is not a mandatory style convention.

Do not change the name of an existing flag variant label unless you are absolutely certain it is not in use. These labels are not like article names, where redirects are created when an article is renamed. Changing a flag variant label will instantly break any current usage of that label.

[edit] Other common parameters

[edit] Size

The default size for all flag icons created by these templates is 22x20px, with a one pixel border. That is, the icon will be no more than 22 pixels wide, and no more than 20 pixels tall. Most flags have a horizontal orientation, so the 22 pixel width is usually the limiting dimension. These dimensions were carefully chosen to generate the best results when flagicons are used in a bulleted list with the default browser text size.

In certain situations, it might be desirable to use a larger (or smaller) size, and this is enabled with the size named parameter, available with all standard templates.

Examples
  • {{flagicon|Brazil|size=40px}} → Flag of Brazil
  • <small>{{flag|Italy|size=15px}}</small> → Flag of Italy Italy

[edit] Name

The display text of the target wikilink is usually automatically generated, but can always be over-ridden with the name parameter.

Examples
  • {{flag|South Korea|name=Korea}} → Flag of South Korea Korea (this name is used in several sports)
  • {{flag|ROC|name=China}} → Flag of the Republic of China China (China from 1912 to 1949)


Note that if the name parameter is used, then the flagcountry and flag templates are functionally identical. Use template flag for shorter wikicode.

[edit] Other flag templates

[edit] Template:Flaglink

Similar to flagcountry, but extends the wikilink by adding a suffix after the country name. This is useful when a series of per-country articles exist for a main topic.

Examples
  • {{flaglink|Serbia|in the Eurovision Song Contest 2007}} → Flag of Serbia Serbia
  • {{flaglink|AUS|at the 2002 Commonwealth Games}} → Flag of Australia Australia

[edit] Template:Navy

Displays the naval ensign of the named country (identified as the naval variant in the corresponding country data template) plus a wikilink to the main article for the country's navy.

Example: {{navy|UK}} → Naval flag of United Kingdom Royal Navy

[edit] National sport team flag templates

One of the most common instances of flag icon usage on Wikipedia is for national sport teams. Several sets of sport-specific templates have been developed to also use this flag template system:

These templates have intentionally been given terse names because they tend to be used many, many times on individual pages for match results. They completely supersede a set of previously used national team-specific templates. For example, {{fb|ITA}} replaced {{ITAf}}, {{ru|NZL}} replaced {{NZLru}}, etc.

There are often several template variations available for a given sport:

  • with a "w" suffix, links to women's national team articles instead
  • with a "-rt" suffix, renders the flag icon to the right of the nation's name instead of to the left. This formatting style is often used in match results
  • with a -big" suffix, renders the flag icon in larger size and the team name underneath the flag. This formatting style is often used in tables of tournament results.

For example, for football, the following templates are used:

Team Standard Right flag Big flag
Men's national teams {{fb}} {{fb-rt}} {{fb-big}}
Examples Flag of Italy Italy France Flag of France Flag of Italy
Italy
Women's national teams {{fbw}} {{fbw-rt}} {{fbw-big}}
Examples Flag of Germany Germany Brazil Flag of Brazil Flag of Germany
Germany

[edit] User preference to disable display of flag icons

Users that do not like flag icons can disable them with a preference setting. A CSS class is used within the internal formatting template, and the class setting can be changed from a user's personal monobook.css file.

Flag icon image rendering is disabled by:

.flagicon { display: none; }

[edit] Implementation

Three types of templates are used by the flag template system, each with a different function:

  1. User-transcluded templates
  2. Country data templates (internal)
  3. Formatting templates (internal)

For example, {{flag|Spain}}, uses:

  1. Template:Flag, to accept input parameters, such as the country name (mandatory) and the optional flag variant, size, and wikilink display name.
  2. Template:Country data Spain, to supply the image name and article name
  3. Template:Country flag2, to actually render the image icon and wikilink

This system architecture means that:

  • all country-specific data is contained within individual country data templates, improving maintainability
  • the formatting wikicode is centralized in a very small number of templates, ensuring consistency

[edit] How it works

There are three steps in each flag template invocation. In the previous example of {{flag|Spain}}, the templates expand as follows:

First, Template:Flag expands to invoke Template:Country data Spain, and ensure that all user-specified parameters are set. The first parameter to the country data template is actually the name of the formatting template. This is the mechanism by which the same country data template can be used with multiple different formatting templates. Therefore, the first step of expansion results in:

{{country data Spain | country flag2 | variant = | size = | name = Spain}}

If the variant (or second positional parameter), the size, and/or name parameters were specified in the user invocation, these would be set to the desired value. For example, {{flag|Spain|1939|name=España}} would expand to:

{{country data Spain | country flag2 | variant = 1939 | size = | name = España}}

Next, the country data template expands to invoke the formatting template, plus add all the country-specific parameters. Going back to the simpler example of {{flag|Spain}}, the second expansion results in:

{{country flag2 | alias = Spain | flag alias = Flag of Spain.svg | name = Spain}}

Lastly, the formatting template is expanded to produce:

[[Image:Flag of Spain.svg|22x20px|border|Flag of Spain]]&nbsp;[[Spain|Spain]]

[edit] Basic country data template structure

The structure of all country data templates follows a standard pattern, which is extended to include additional parameters only when necessary. The empty boilerplate for all country data templates is as follows:

{{ {{{1<noinclude>|country showdata</noinclude>}}}
| alias = 
| flag alias =
| size = {{{size|}}}
| name = {{{name|}}}
}}

There are two essential values that must be specified:

  1. The alias value identifies the name of the main article associated with the flag.
  2. The flag alias value identifies the image name of the default flag.

The invocation of country showdata on the first line is used to automatically generate the template documentation, as described below. The size = {{{size|}}} and name = {{{name|}}} statements ensure that any user-specified size and/or name values are passed through from the outer template (flag, flagicon, etc.) to the inner formatting template. Omission of these lines from the country data template would cause the size and name functionality to be disabled.

[edit] Adding flag variants

Additional flag variants are specified by individual flag alias statements. The unique label for the variant is the suffix of the parameter name, as flag alias-label (don't forget the hyphen). For example, Template:Country data Mexico has several flag variants, one of which is specified by:

| flag alias-1934 = Flag of Mexico (1934-1968).png

Therefore, when {{flag|Mexico|1934}} is transcluded, Image:Flag of Mexico (1934-1968).png is rendered. The selection of the flag variant is coded in the formatting templates.

Country data templates with at least one flag variant (in addition to the default) must also have the following line:

| variant = {{{variant|}}}

Similar to the size and name parameters as described above, this statement is required to pass the variant value (e.g. 1934) from the outer flag template to the inner formatting template. Omission of this line will cause the flag variant selection to fail.

[edit] Alt attribute

By default, the alt attribute text for each image is set to "Flag of alias". For example, most browsers will display "Flag of Norway" when the mouse is hovered over the icon image of Flag of Norway.

Sometimes it is desirable to override the alt attribute value, perhaps if only to correct the grammar of the phrase. For example, Template:Country data Bahamas contains alt attribute = Flag of the Bahamas. Without this line, the alt attribute text would not include the "the".

[edit] Changing the wikilink display text

The best results are obtained when the template name matches the article wikilink (as specified by the alias value). For example, Template:Country data Russia contains alias = Russia, which results in a target wikilink to Russia.

However, there are instances where the main article name contains a disambiguation string. For example, Template:Country data Georgia contains alias = Georgia (country). Therefore, {{flag|Georgia}} results in Flag of Georgia (country) Georgia. Note that the wikilink is Georgia (country), but the display string is "Georgia", as expected.

In these instances, an additional statement is needed to support Template:Flagcountry properly. The shortname alias parameter should be set to the desired text string, such as shortname alias = Georgia. In effect, the resultant wikilink will be generated as [[alias|shortname alias]], or [[Georgia (country)|Georgia]] in this specific example.

[edit] National sport team template parameters

Any country data template that will be used with a national team template must include an additional "pass-through" parameter:

| altlink = {{{altlink|}}}

This parameter is used to form the suffix of the associated wikilink. For example, Template:cr appends "national cricket team" to the country name (alias value), and this process is enabled by the altlink parameter.

In most cases, the flag and display name for national teams corresponds to the same flag and display name normally used for the nation. However, in some instances these can be over-ridden by additional parameters within the country data template. The default wikilink can also be changed in cases where the common naming convention is not used.

Some examples:

In each of these examples, the over-ride parameter (name alias-football, flag alias-field hockey, or link alias-netball) is identified by a unique per-sport variable that is passed from the appropriate sport team template. For example, Template:fb includes altvar = football. Therefore, any country data template that utilizes one or more team sport over-ride parameters must also include:

| altvar = {{{altvar|}}}

[edit] Template documentation

Country data templates "self-document" themselves through Template:Country showdata. Recall that the first line of each country data template is an invocation to a formatting template, defaulting to country showdata if that parameter is missing:

For simple country data templates, nothing further needs to be done to document them. If any flag variants, redirect aliases, etc. are used with the template, they are documented by adding parameters specifically for use by country showdata. These extra parameters are enclosed in a <noinclude>....</noinclude> section as they should not be present for any other invocation of the country data template.

See Template:Country showdata/doc for more information about how to document country data templates.

[edit] Future work

[edit] Use ImageMap for clickable icons

One idea that has been proposed is to use the ImageMap extension so that clicking on the flag icon will go to the article on the country instead of the image page for the flag. For example,

<imagemap>
Image:Flag of Canada.svg|22px|border|Flag of Canada
default [[Canada]]
desc none
</imagemap>

results in:

Flag of Canada

Clicking on this icon brings up the page on Canada instead of Image:Flag of Canada.svg. Unfortunately, the ImageMap syntax currently does not allow for image names, links, etc. to be parameterized, but must be hardcoded to specific values, as in the previous example. See Bugzilla:8835 for comments. Also, the imagemap does not seem to support "inline" image placement.

[edit] See also

  • {{flagIOC}} for a similar template used exclusively for Olympic Games related articles, and uses a different internal mechanism than for these templates.

[edit] Internal project templates

[edit] Archives