Template:Reflist/doc

This template encapsulates the tag to show the list of references defined by  tags,  with some formatting. It reduces the font size and has options for columns and groups. References can be defined within the body of the article or within the reference list.

The  and tags are part of the Cite.php MediaWiki extension.

Usage

 * Using only footnote-style references

Content
Lorem ipsum.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.

Content
Lorem ipsum.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.

Content
Lorem ipsum.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.

Lorem ipsum.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.

Font size
The font size should reduce to 90% for most browsers, but may appear to show at 100% for Internet Explorer and possibly other browsers. As of December 21, 2010, the standard tag has the same font styling. The smaller font may be disabled through Special:Preferences → Gadgets → Disable smaller font sizes of elements such as Infoboxes, Navboxes and References lists.

Columns
Using will create a two-column reference list, and  will create a three-column list, and so on. Choose the number of columns that is appropriate for the average width of the references on the page.

Using will create columns with a minimum width of 30em, allowing the browser to automatically choose the number of columns based on the width of the web browser. Choose a column width that is appropriate for the average width of the references on the page.

Columns are currently supported only by Gecko-based browsers (such as Mozilla Firefox) and WebKit-based browsers (such as Google Chrome and Safari). See below for more information.

See also bug combining grouped references and columns

List styles
Reference lists are by default numbered lists. By using the  parameter, you can control how the list is rendered. For example, using  will result in items being prefixed with roman numerals instead of decimal numbers. The parameter accepts any valid CSS value defined for  as shown below.

Multiple uses
If Reflist is used multiple times without a parameter, each instance will include all of the previously defined references. To force the parser to close previous references, each use of Reflist must be forced as a new instance by the use of any parameter. Even an undefined parameter such as will force the references to close.

Grouped references
As of June 2008, the footnotes system supports the separation of references into groups. This allows groups for explanatory notes, table references and the like. See WP:REFGROUP.

The general format for the reference tag would be:



And for the reflist:


 * Where groupname would be a group identifier such as "note", "nb" or "label".

There are three pre-defined group names that will automatically cause the link labels and this template to display other characters instead of numbers (see List styles above). These are: "lower-alpha" (a, b, c...), "lower-greek" (α, β, γ...) and "lower-roman" (i, ii, iii...).

See also bug combining grouped references and columns

List-defined references
As of September 2009, references may be defined within Reflist using refs and invoked within the content. There are new error messages associated with this update, documented at Help:Cite errors. As usual, groups can be used. Defined references must be used within the body; unused references will show an error message.

Example
This is reference 1. This is reference 2. This is reference 3.

Result
This is reference 1. This is reference 2. This is reference 3.

Browser support for columns
Multiple columns are generated by using CSS3, which is still in development; thus only browsers that properly support the multi-column property will show multiple columns with Reflist.

These browsers support CSS3 columns:
 * Gecko-based browsers such as Mozilla Firefox
 * WebKit-based browsers such as Safari and Google Chrome
 * Opera from version 11.10 onward
 * Internet Explorer 10 Platform Preview

These browsers do not support CSS3 columns:
 * Microsoft Trident-based browsers including Internet Explorer through to version 9
 * Opera through to version 11

Supporting CSS
Reflist uses a CSS rule in MediaWiki:Common.css to set the font size:



One of the following classes is assigned by the template when either column count or column width is set:


 * and  (where   is the numer of columns)

The following CSS properties are utilized using the column-count and column-width templates:


 * CSS3 standard
 * CSS3 standard
 * Mozilla CSS extension
 * Mozilla CSS extension
 * Webkit CSS extension
 * Webkit CSS extension

Customizing the view
By editing your CSS, the personal appearance of the reference list can be customized. From Preferences, select the Appearance tab, then on the selected skin select Custom CSS. After editing and saving, follow the instructions at the top of the page to purge. See Skin for more help.

The font size for all reference lists defaults to 90% of the standard size. To change it, add:
 * Font size

Change 90% to the desired size.

To disable columns, add:
 * Columns

Similarly, to force all reference lists to a number of columns, change the number.

To add dividers (rules) between columns, add:
 * Column dividers

You can alter the appearance of the dividers by changing the values.

Bugs
Note that, whereas works as expected,  (with an extra space) currently does not display in columns.

Perennial suggestions
There have been a number of requests to add functionality for a collapsible or scrolling reference list. These requests have not been fulfilled to due to issues with readability, accessibility, and printing. The applicable guidelines are at MOS:SCROLL. Links between the inline cite and the reference list do not work when the reference list is enclosed in a collapsed box.
 * Collapsing and scrolling

To display the reference list in a scrollbox or collapsed per user, see Help:Reference display customization.

For discussion on previous attempts to do this with a template, see the discussions for Scrollref and Refbox.

There have been suggestions to include section header markup such as. This is inadvisable because:
 * Including the section title
 * There is no standard section name; see WP:FNNR
 * When transcluded, the article will have an edit link that will confusingly open the template for editing