Thismodule is rated asready for general use. It has reached a mature state, is considered relatively stable and bug-free, and may be used wherever appropriate. It can be mentioned onhelp pages and other Wikipedia resources as an option for new users. To minimise server load and avoid disruptive output, improvements should be developed throughsandbox testing rather than repeated trial-and-error editing.
This module produces a list of links to search engines to help editors find sources about a given subject. It implements{{find sources}} and other similar templates. It is highly extensible; new templates and new link types can be added easily and by any user.
Usage
From wikitext
Usually, from wikitext this module should be used via a template, e.g.{{find sources}}. However, it is also possible to use it directly from #invoke, like this:
{{#invoke:Find sources|template|search term 1|search term 2|...}}
template is the name of the template that should be called. It must be the full page name of the template, without the namespace, and with the correct capitalisation. So, forTemplate:Find sources, the template name should be "Find sources"; "find sources" with a lower-case "f" would cause an error. This parameter is required.
search term 1,search term 2, etc., are the terms to be searched for in each of the search engine links. The first search term will appear in quotation marks, and subsequent search terms will be added without quotation marks. Each term will be separated by spaces. These parameters are all optional. If no parameters are given, the current page name will be used as a search term.
Alternatively the following can be used, which will convert any title to a search query, with the main portion of the title in quotation marks, and any parenthetical disambiguator outside quotation marks.
{{#invoke:Find sources|template|title=title}}
template as above, is the name of the template that should be called. It must be the full page name of the template, without the namespace, and with the correct capitalisation. So, forTemplate:Find sources, the template name should be "Find sources"; "find sources" with a lower-case "f" would cause an error. This parameter is required.
title the title to be converted to a search query. This is processed in the same way as the subpage name of the page if no parameters are used.
From Lua
Load the module with the following code:
localmFindSources=require('Module:Find sources')
You can then produce the list of search links like this:
mFindSources._main(template,searchTerms)
template is the template name, as outlined in the#From wikitext section above. This parameter is required.
searchTerms is an array of search terms. Each item in the array corresponds to a numbered search term as outlined in the#From wikitext section above. Alternatively, an empty table with thetitle key set will automatically generate a query as described above. This parameter is optional.
There are two basic ingredients to making a new source-finding template. The first is the template configuration module, and the second is the template invocation on the template page.
Template configuration page
To find the name of the template configuration page, take the page name of your proposed template without the namespace prefix, and add it to the base page of "Module:Find sources/templates/". For example, forTemplate:Find sources, the configuration page is located atModule:Find sources/templates/Find sources. Note that the template must be capitalised exactly as the page name is, otherwise the arguments will not be passed through from the template page to the module.
The template configuration page should look something like this:
return{blurb="Find sources for $1 – $2",introLink={code='google'},links={{code='google news',display='news'},{code='google newspapers',display='newspapers',tooltip='Search newspapers with Google Books'}},separator=', ',isUsedInMainspace=true,class='custom-class',style='color: green; font-size: 110%;'}
blurb - the text presented to users. There are two parameters available in the blurb, $1 and $2. $1 is the intro link, if specified, and $2 represents the other links. This field is required.
introLink - an optional introductory link. If specified, this must be alink table. If the display value in the link table is not set, the search terms that the user entered will be used instead.
links - an array oflink tables defining the main links to be used by the template. This field is required.
separator - the text separating the search engine links. This field is optional; the default value is taken fromMediaWiki:Dot-separator.
isUsedInMainspace - set this to true if the template will be used in the main namespace. If this is not set, when the template is used in the main namespace it will produce an error and be put inCategory:Pages with templates in the wrong namespace.
class - a custom HTML class to apply to the template text. The "plainlinks" class is added by default. This field is optional.
style - custom CSS to apply to the template text. This field is optional.
Once you have created your template configuration page, you need to add the template toModule:Find sources/templates in order for it to show up in the table of templates on this documentation page.
Link tables
Link tables are used in the "introLink" and "links" fields of the template configuration. They can contain three fields, "code", "display", and "tooltip". The "code" field is required, and must be one of the link codes listed in the table below. The "display" field is optional, and specifies a custom display value for that link to be used by the template. If the display field is not set, a default value is set by the module. The "tooltip" field is also optional, and specifies a custom tooltip for the link. HTML reserved characters are escaped by the module. If the field is absent, no tooltip is displayed. For the "introLink" field, the default value is the search text entered by the user; for the "links" field, the default value is defined in the link configuration modules.
The following table contains all the available link codes, with descriptions and examples.
MEDRS: Ideal sources for biomedical material include recent literature reviews and medical guidelines; learn how to identify reliable sources for medical content.
StatPearls: the largest provider of healthcare continuing education worldwide, providing peer-reviewed practice-guiding knowledge authored by clinical experts.
This activates the template code and also provides automatic documentation.template is the name of the template without the namespace prefix, and must be correctly capitalised.
If you want to use custom documentation from a /doc subpage instead of the automatic documentation, use this invocation instead:
{{#invoke:Find sources|template}}<noinclude>{{documentation}}<!-- Categories go on the /doc subpage, and interwikis go on Wikidata. --></noinclude>
Adding new links
New links are added toModule:Find sources/links. Link codes should be short but descriptive, and should be in lower case. For example, the link code for Google search is "google".
The link configuration page should look something like this:
return{url='//www.google.com/search?as_eq=wikipedia&q=$1',display='Google',description='[[Google]], the flagship search engine from Google Inc.',}
Parameters
Parameter
Description
url
The url to perform the search. This field takes a parameter $1, which is the URL-encoded search text entered by the user. This field is required.
display
If a display value is not specified in the template configuration, this value is used instead. This field is required.
separator
This is used to separate the search terms entered by the user. This is optional, and defaults to "+" (a URL-encoded space).
description
a brief description of what the search engine link does. This is used in the template documentation to generate the list of link descriptions, and also to make the descriptions in thetable of link codes above. This is optional, but recommended.
notes
notes about the search engine link. These are put in thetable of link codes above, but they are not put in the template documentation for individual source-finding templates. This field is optional.
Automatic documentation
Automatic documentation is provided for templates based on this module; the documentation is generated byModule:Find sources/autodoc. The autodoc module uses the following pages:
This page is located at the "/autodoc" subpage of thetemplate configuration page. It is only used to generate the documentation, not to generate any of the actual template output, so it does not need to be protected. It should look something like this:
return{shortcuts={'shortcut1','shortcut2'},description='This template is used to provide source links on [[WP:AFD|AfD]] pages',docIntro='This template produces a series of search-engine links to be used on [[WP:AFD|AfD]] pages.'}
shortcuts - an array of shortcuts that redirect to the template page. These are displayed on the template documentation page using the{{template shortcut}} template.
description - a brief description of what the template does. This is displayed on this documentation page in thetable of available templates.
docIntro - text to be used instead of the first sentence of the template documentation for individual source-finding templates. This is optional, and the default value is "This template produces a series of links to various search interfaces to help find additional reference material for articles."
Configuration
The messages used in this module can be found atModule:Find sources/config andModule:Find sources/autodoc/config. This can be helpful for translating this module for use in other languages. Note that any template and link configuration used must also be translated.
-- This module implements {{find sources}} and other similar templates, and-- also provides a mechanism to easily create new source-finding templates.-- Define constantslocalROOT_PAGE='Module:Find sources'localTEMPLATE_ROOT=ROOT_PAGE..'/templates/'-- for template config moduleslocalLINK_CONFIG=ROOT_PAGE..'/links'-- for link config moduleslocalCONFIG_PAGE=ROOT_PAGE..'/config'-- for global config-- Load required moduleslocalcheckType=require('libraryUtil').checkTypelocalcfg=mw.loadData(CONFIG_PAGE)localp={}localfunctionmaybeLoadData(page)localsuccess,data=pcall(mw.loadData,page)returnsuccessanddataendlocalfunctionsubstituteParams(msg,...)returnmw.message.newRawMessage(msg,...):plain()endlocalfunctionrenderSearchString(searchTerms,separator,transformFunc)-- This takes a table of search terms and turns it into a search string-- that can be used in a URL or in a display value. The transformFunc-- parameter can be used to transform each search term in some way (for-- example, URL-encoding them).localsearchStrings={}fori,sinipairs(searchTerms)dosearchStrings[i]=sendiftransformFuncthenfori,sinipairs(searchStrings)dosearchStrings[i]=transformFunc(s)endendreturntable.concat(searchStrings,separator)endfunctionp._renderLink(code,searchTerms,display,tooltip)-- Renders the external link wikicode for one link, given the link code,-- a table of search terms, and an optional display value and tooltip.-- Get link config.locallinks=maybeLoadData(LINK_CONFIG)locallinkCfg=links[code]ifnotlinkCfgthenerror(string.format("invalid link code '%s'; no link config found at [[%s]]",code,LINK_CONFIG))end-- Make URL.localurldolocalseparator=linkCfg.separatoror"+"localsearchString=renderSearchString(searchTerms,separator,mw.uri.encode)url=substituteParams(linkCfg.url,searchString)endiftooltipthenreturnstring.format('<span title="%s" style="border-bottom: 1px dotted;">[%s %s]</span>',mw.text.encode(tooltip),url,displayorlinkCfg.display)elsereturnstring.format('[%s %s]',url,displayorlinkCfg.display)endendfunctionp._main(template,args)-- The main access point from Lua.checkType('_main',1,template,'string')checkType('_main',2,args,'table',true)args=argsor{}localtitle=mw.title.getCurrentTitle()-- Get the template config.localtemplateCfgPage=TEMPLATE_ROOT..templatelocaltemplateCfg=maybeLoadData(templateCfgPage)ifnottemplateCfgthenerror(string.format("invalid template name '%s'; no template config found at [[%s]]",template,templateCfgPage))end-- Namespace check.ifnottemplateCfg.isUsedInMainspaceandtitle.namespace==0thenlocalformatString='<strong class="error">%s</strong>'ifcfg['namespace-error-category']thenformatString=formatString..'[[%s:%s]]'endreturnstring.format(formatString,cfg['namespace-error'],mw.site.namespaces[14].name,cfg['namespace-error-category'])end-- Get the search terms from the arguments.localsearchTerms={}fori,sinipairs(args)dosearchTerms[i]=sendifnotsearchTerms[1]then-- Use the current subpage name as the default search term, unless-- another title is provided. If the page uses a disambiguator like-- "Foo (bar)", make "Foo" the first term and "bar" the second.localsearchTitle=args.titleortitle.subpageTextlocalterm,dab=searchTitle:match('^(.*) (%b())$')ifdabthendab=dab:sub(2,-2)-- Remove parensendiftermanddabthensearchTerms[1]=termsearchTerms[2]=dabelsesearchTerms[1]=searchTitleendendsearchTerms[1]='"'..searchTerms[1]..'"'-- Make the intro linklocalintroLinkiftemplateCfg.introLinkthenlocalcode=templateCfg.introLink.codelocaldisplay=templateCfg.introLink.displayorrenderSearchString(searchTerms,' ')localtooltip=templateCfg.introLink.tooltipintroLink=p._renderLink(code,searchTerms,display,tooltip)elseintroLink=''end-- Make the other linkslocallinks={}localseparator=templateCfg.separatororcfg['default-separator']localsep=''fori,tinipairs(templateCfg.links)dolinks[i]=sep..p._renderLink(t.code,searchTerms,t.display,t.tooltip)..(t.afterDisplayor'')sep=t.separatororseparatorendlinks=table.concat(links)-- Make the blurb.localblurb=substituteParams(templateCfg.blurb,introLink,links)localspan=mw.html.create('span')span:addClass('plainlinks'):addClass(templateCfg.class):cssText(templateCfg.style):wikitext(blurb)returntostring(span)endsetmetatable(p,{__index=function(t,template)-- The main access point from #invoke.-- Invocations will look like {{#invoke:Find sources|template name}},-- where "template name" is a subpage of [[Module:Find sources/templates]].localtname=templateiftname:sub(-8)=='/sandbox'then-- This makes {{Find sources/sandbox|Albert Einstein}} work.tname=tname:sub(1,-9)endreturnfunction(frame)localargs=require('Module:Arguments').getArgs(frame,{wrappers=mw.site.namespaces[10].name..':'..tname})returnt._main(template,args)endend})returnp
