Template:Transclude random excerpt/doc

This is a documentation subpage for Template:Transclude random excerpt. It may contain usage information, categories and other content that is not part of the original template page.

This template uses Lua: Module:Excerpt (sandbox)

Transclude random excerpt transcludes the lead of an article as an excerpt. It is designed for use in portals. It returns the text of an article up to but excluding the first header, after removing:

• initial templates such as infoboxes, hatnotes and article improvement tags
• noinclude sections
• references and footnotes
• images, unless specifically retained

{{Transclude random excerpt | 1= | 2= | paragraphs= | files= | fileargs= | more= | errors= }}

The template accepts any number of page names as unnamed parameters. One of them is selected randomly, and the page with that title is transcluded. (If the selected page is invalid, the template will choose again.) Include a namespace where necessary. There are no other positional parameters, but there are some optional named parameters:

• A list of paragraphs such as paragraphs=1,3-5; the default is all paragraphs.
• A list of file (image) numbers such as files=1; the default is no images. Non-free images are removed.
• Arguments to pass to File: such as fileargs=left to move images to the left; the default is none.
• A link to the article itself such as more=(more); the default is no link. Short cut: more= produces Read more...
• errors= to allow Lua error messages to appear in the output

paragraphs= and files= each accept a comma-separated list containing numbers and/or number ranges in the format min-max.

Each page to be transcluded may be specified either plain or as a wikilink, possibly piped. Links to sections also work, and extract the named section rather than the lead. Examples: Article; Article#Section; [[Article]]; [[Article#Section|A section of an article]]. (Any piped text will be ignored.)

Any of the above formats may be followed by option(s) separated by pipes, e.g. Article|paragraphs=2. Such options override any global options for the given page only. Note that the characters | and = have special meaning within calls to templates but can be escaped using {{!}} and {{=}} respectively. Examples: Article#Section{{!}}files{{=}}2; [[Article|Some page]]{{!}}files{{=}}3,4{{!}}more{{=}}Click here. (= need not be escaped if the parameter is explicitly numbered, e.g. |1=Article{{!}}files=2).

• {{Transclude lead excerpt}}: specifies the article explicitly
• {{Transclude list item excerpt}}: chooses the article randomly from those listed on a page
• {{Transclude linked excerpt}}: chooses the article randomly from those linked from a page
• {{Transclude selected excerpt}}: chooses the article from a list using an index such as the week number