Help:Wiki University Wikitext--Infobox - If functions

Infobox Content

 * In our example from the last lesson, we had limited the items shown for our organization for illustration purposes.
 * But, as you know, many organizations have more offices and other items that would be worth knowing that should be included in these infoboxes.
 * It would be better to create an infobox with more items to cover all possibilities; however, the problem with this is the posted infobox would have a lot of blank spaces if the organization was small.
 * What we would like to happen is if a parameter is not filled in, it does not appear in the infobox. In other words, if the organization does not have a phone number, there will not be a line or a blank space for it.

If functions
|President | |  We know there are a lot of curly brackets here but pay close attention:
 * It is possible to code the infobox so an item like "phone" does not appear if there is none.
 * We will now introduce you to an attribute called if functions.
 * It is a small bit of coding added to the title of the item in the first column.
 * This is an example of adding the if function code to the row for naming the President:
 * We go from this:
 * to this:
 * NOTICE the |{{#if:{{{president|}}} added ahead of the text in the first cell.
 * NOTICE the pipe after the first word "president."
 * NOTICE the two closing curly brackets at the end of where the name actually goes in the second cell.
 * This coding looks a bit intimidating but with a little practice, you will have it down pat. For more information than you will probably ever want to know about if functions see: if functions

You can create long infoboxes
With this coding, you can create a more complete infobox that has the ability to shrink down if not all the items are present, such as a vice president or a web site address.

If function infobox

 * Our finished infobox should look like this:

Problem with coding
But there is a problem with this coding. The Wiki gets a little confused by all the pipes and has a hard time figuring out which ones are for the cells and which are part of the if function. Here is the coding; We know that this looks like a real mess and may be difficult to follow. But this is what it takes to get this kind of infobox to work.
 * To solve this problem you can substitute this little template: | for some of the pipes.
 * The | template is a built-in mini template which was created to eliminate this confusion by Wikitext over pipes.
 * In our infobox above we need to replace the pipes that introduce the cells with our | so our infobox will work.

Embedding template
This is what the infobox looks like before we add information:

We embed our template as normal with the parameters:
 * NOTICE except for the name of the organization, the infobox is blank.

Here is what the finished infobox looks like without the hours entered:
 * NOTICE no hours were entered.


 * NOTICE no hours appear in the infobox and there is no space to indicate something is missing.

Try these out


 Exercises This will be a repeat of the last exercise with the addition of the material in this lesson. Try not to look back on the previous lesson to complete this exercise:; Use this coding for this exercise: Lets make this into a infobox with the addition of the if function material: Check your answers
 * 1) Put a border around the infobox, limit the width to 190 pixels and make it so that will always be on the right side of the page.
 * 2) Put borders around each of the cells.
 * 3) Have the cells containing the words organization and image span both columns.
 * 4) Center the name of the organization and the image in their cells.
 * 5) Make the items in the right hand cells into parameters.
 * 6) Place the "if function" coding on the appropriate cells.
 * 7) Place the | where required.

 Quick Quiz
 * If nothing is entered for a parameter, there will still be a space where the parameter would normally appear.
 * A. True
 * B. False


 * The "If function" allows you to create more complete infoboxes, but you do have to worry about them being too large and take up a lot of space if the subject to be posted in the infobox is small.
 * A. True
 * B. False


 * It does not matter whether you use regular pipes or | in infoboxes with if functions.
 * A. True
 * B. False

Check your answers