Template:Unichar2/doc

Like {{Unichar}}, this template produces a formatted description of a Unicode character, to be used inline or otherwise with regular text.

Usage

This template takes a Unicode character as input.

• The character {{unichar2|©}} is about intellectual property. →

  The character U+00A9 © COPYRIGHT SIGN is about intellectual property.

It otherwise behaves the same as {{unichar}} (where the primary input is a Unicode codepoint).

Parameters

Parts of this section are transcluded from Template:Unichar/doc, which is why some examples use that template. Both Unichar and Unichar2 support the same named parameters

The blank template, with all parameters, is as follows:

{{unichar2
| ulink  =
| image  =
| cwith  =
| suffix =
| size   =
| use    =
| use2   =
| nlink  =
| html   =
| note   =
| name   =
| alias  =
}}

Inline version:

{{unichar2| <!--character-->|ulink= |image= |cwith= |suffix= |size= |use= |use2= |nlink= |html= |note= }}

• First unnamed parameter or |1= (Required) The character to be displayed.
  • {{unichar2|u}} → U+0075 u LATIN SMALL LETTER U

  Note: Only the first code point is read; any subsequent characters—even combining characters—are ignored

  • {{unichar2|uͤ}} → U+0075 u LATIN SMALL LETTER U

• |nlink=name Optional hyperlink to the target article. Name of the Wikipedia page that will be linked to. If used, the Unicode name has a wikilink to the article.

  {{unichar|00A9|nlink=}} → U+00A9 © COPYRIGHT SIGN

  {{unichar|00A9|nlink=Copyright symbol}} → U+00A9 © COPYRIGHT SIGN

  Notes:

  • The form nlink= (without any detail) is the most common way to use this option, to link to the article about the symbol using its canonical name.
  • When used without a name (i.e., |nlink=, blank with no value), the link points to the article about the character itself except when that causes a problem with technical restrictions on naming, in which case the name of the character is used or an error is produced if no such name exists (see § Presentation effects).
  • The name of the page is case-sensitive as with all Wikipedia pages.
  • It is possible to give a Wiktionary page here, using the syntax nlink=wikt:<target article>, which may be appropriate if there is no suitable Wikipedia article. For example:
    • {{unichar|204A|nlink=wikt:⁊}} → U+204A ⁊ TIRONIAN SIGN ET
  • Use of this parameter to link to any article other than the one at the canonical name (even if that is a redirect) is potentially an intuitive linking violation, so such use is exceptional and must have a clear justification. ['Copyright sign' and 'copyright symbol' are used here for illustration only and nlink would not normally be used in this case.]

• |cwith= Optional. The only valid content is ◌ or (or its HTML code, ◌). It may also be used without any content (i.e., |cwith=, blank with no value). This parameter is useful when the Unicode character is combining (such as a combining diacritic). Using |cwith=◌, the character will be combined with the placeholder symbol, U+25CC ◌ DOTTED CIRCLE.

  without a |cwith=:

  {{unichar|0485}} → U+0485 ҅ COMBINING CYRILLIC DASIA PNEUMATA

  |cwith= with dotted circle:

  {{unichar|0485|cwith=◌}} → U+0485 ◌҅ COMBINING CYRILLIC DASIA PNEUMATA or

  {{unichar|0485|cwith=◌}} → U+0485 ◌҅ COMBINING CYRILLIC DASIA PNEUMATA

  |cwith= without an argument:

  {{unichar|0485|cwith=}} → U+0485 ◌҅ COMBINING CYRILLIC DASIA PNEUMATA

  • Note that cwith=◌◌ alone does not provide the desired result if the intention is to display a diacritic that spans two characters (such as those in the range U+035C to U+0362): the diacritic will be offset. In such cases, editors must use cwith=◌ together with suffix=◌ to place two dotted circles – one on either side of the codepoint for the combining diacritic.

    {{unichar|035F|cwith=◌|suffix=◌}} → U+035F ◌͟◌ COMBINING DOUBLE MACRON BELOW

  • Use of any other character except dotted circle as input to |cwith= is deprecated; this restriction is not currently enforced but if any other character is used, the output (grapheme and description) is at best misleading.
  • For scripts other than Latin, use of the parameters use=lang and use2= may additionally be needed for better rendering.
• |suffix= Optional. Its contents directly follow the character. The only supported uses of this parameter are for diacritics that span two characters (see |cwith= above) and for appending variation selectors to certain characters.

  For example, using U+FE0E ︎ VARIATION SELECTOR-15 which forces emoji to display as text, one can have:

  {{unichar|01F604|suffix=︎|note=with {{unichar|FE0E}}}} → U+1F604 😄︎ SMILING FACE WITH OPEN MOUTH AND SMILING EYES (with U+FE0E ︎ VARIATION SELECTOR-15)

  Since variation selectors change the appearance of the character, their presence should always be mentioned in a |note= or in prose.

  The Unicode Consortium has decided that it was a mistake to unify traditional and emoji forms, so the 'variation selector' method should be regarded as at best time-limited. It is already not fully functional on some plaforms such as Google Android, always preferring the emoji form. See Variation Selectors (Unicode block).

• |html= Optional. If a named character reference exists, like " ", it is displayed after the character name. Otherwise nothing happens. In particular, numeric character references like   are never displayed. Only the existence of an |html= parameter is checked, everything after the equal sign is ignored so you can leave it blank.
  • {{unichar|160|html=}} → U+0160 Š LATIN CAPITAL LETTER S WITH CARON (Š)
• |note= Optional. Adds a comment such as a clarification or explanatory note. For example, as the canonical names of ideographs are not generally helpful, the note= option permits an added comment such as U+4E95 井 CJK UNIFIED IDEOGRAPH-4E95 (jǐng)
• |ulink= Optional. Creates a wikilink from the U+ prefix. When used without a name (i.e., |ulink=, blank with no value), the article Unicode is used as the default value in the output: [[Unicode|U+]] producing U+. This only needs to change if you have a reason to link elsewhere than Unicode, e.g. to an article on a subset of Unicode characters.
• |use= Optional. Sets the font-hinting template to get the glyph, since the character may not be present in a regular browser font. By default no template is used; the available options are {{IPA}}, {{lang}} and {{script}}.
• |use2= Optional. When setting |use=lang or |use=script, |use2= should be used to set the language (e.g. |use2=fr) or the script (e.g. |use2=Cyrs). A glyph may still not show as expected due to browser effects. For a detailed description, see each template's documentation.

  {{unichar|0485|cwith=◌|use=script|use2=Cyrs}} → U+0485 ◌҅ COMBINING CYRILLIC DASIA PNEUMATA

  {{unichar|3099|cwith=◌|use=lang|use2=ja}} → U+3099 ◌゙ COMBINING KATAKANA-HIRAGANA VOICED SOUND MARK (If use+use2 are not used, the Japanese diacritic dakuten is not shown properly by some browsers.)

• |image= Optional. Allows for a graphic image file to represent the glyph; overrides the font completely. The filename should include the extension (like .svg or .png), but not the prefix File:.
  • Depending on the image used, class=skin-invert might be needed so the image displays correctly in dark mode. Compare:

    {{unichar|20B9|image=Indian Rupee symbol.svg{{!}}class=skin-invert}} → U+20B9 INDIAN RUPEE SIGN

    {{unichar|20B9|image=Indian Rupee symbol.svg}} → U+20B9 INDIAN RUPEE SIGN

  • This option is rarely needed: it is intended for use with characters that have been given a codepoint but have yet to be included in mainstream system fonts. It is good practice to add a (hidden) comment to explain why its use has been needed, as in time that will cease to be the case. It is no longer appropriate to use it with the Indian Rupee sign, for example.
• |size= Optional. Can be used to set the size of the glyph. The default value is 125%. For the font, all CSS font-size style inputs are accepted: 7px, 150%, 2em, larger.
  • For example, {{unichar|0041|size=2em}} → U+0041 A LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A
  • When using an image (file) instead of a font, this size can only accept sizes in px like 12px. Default for images is 10px.
• |name=. Optional; if used, the only permitted content is none. This parameter is provided for the rare cases where only the code-point and the corresponding character are wanted.
  • For example, {{unichar|a9|name=none}} produces U+00A9 © .
• |alias=. Optional; if used, the only permitted content is yes. The purpose of this parameter is to handle the very rare cases where the Unicode Consortium has identified that a name is seriously defective and misleading, or has a serious typographical error, and has defined a formal alias that applications are encouraged to use in place of the official character name. (See Unicode#Alias for details.)
  • For example, U+A015 YI SYLLABLE WU has the formal alias YI SYLLABLE ITERATION MARK. Thus, rather than {{unichar|A015}} → U+A015 ꀕ YI SYLLABLE WU, the style {{unichar|A015|alias=yes}} → U+A015 ꀕ YI SYLLABLE ITERATION MARK is preferred in most contexts.

Limitations

MediaWiki applies Normalization Form C to every edit. This means that some characters cannot be displayed using this template because they will be converted to the corresponding normalized character(s). For example, putting the character U+2126 Ω OHM SIGN into this template and saving the edit will result in U+03A9 Ω GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA. The workaround for this is to simply use {{unichar}} instead.

Tracking

• Category:Pages using Unichar2 with unknown parameters (0)

TemplateData

This is the TemplateData for this template used by TemplateWizard, VisualEditor and other tools. See a monthly parameter usage report for Template:Unichar2 in articles based on its TemplateData.

TemplateData for Unichar2

Formats a Unicode character description inline.

Template parameters

This template prefers inline formatting of parameters.

Parameter		Description	Type	Status
Character	1	A single Unicode character Example ∑	String	required
ulink	ulink	Add link to the Unicode HEX code point Example Phonetic symbols in Unicode	Line	optional
nlink	nlink	Add link to the Unicode character name	String	optional
cwith	cwith	(for combing characters only) add the following character before this combining character: Suggested values ◌ Example ◌	String	optional
size	size	Relative size of rendered character Example 200%	String	optional
image	image	no description	Unknown	optional
use	use	no description	String	optional
use2	use2	no description	String	optional
HTML code	html	When present, shows HTML named entity Example html= shows "©"	String	optional
note	note	no description	Line	optional
alias	alias	no description Suggested values yes	Unknown	optional
name	name	Hide the name of the character Suggested values none	Unknown	optional
suffix	suffix	no description	Unknown	optional