Template:Han rad/documentation

Usage

This template is a sub-template of {{Han char}}. It is not intended to use it from elsewhere.
It is used to link to one of the 214 categories Radical ###-0 on Wikimedia Commons, from the ~300 pages "※" (※ stands for any of the 214 radical glyphs and its variants).

The template takes two mandatory unnamed parameters:

1. the radical character "※" itself,
2. the number between 1 and 214 (with or without leading zeroes).

Example: {{Han rad|米|119}}

Purpose

At Commons, each Chinese radical (and each other glyph) category has a direct link to the character entry at English Wiktionary, where it is well explained. The back link from each Wiktionary radikal article to its equivalent Commons category eases the browsing of Chinese characters.

Format

The box for the link is kept rather small, with a small Commons logo and a short text note, saying See images at …, instead of full text like Wikimedia Commons has more media related to: …. It is thought that this will be sufficient and enough informative for this purpose. The place where the box appears is often crowded with other pictures showing stroke orders and other infos (compare 干), a box too large disturbs more than it will be helpful.

Even if not immediately, a user will know after the first or second try how to use the link. The box contains two different links: via the Commons logo to an overview about the radical in question, and via the text to a gallery showing all images of that radical itself. However an unexperienced user may link to the Commons, they will get plenty of graphical information about the radical.

The Chinese character shown in the link is (at the moment) always the character of the page, that differs from the main radical character in the case of a variation. No special action is done (at the moment) when this appears.

Expansion

For further expansions, a third parameter (variation) is passed from {{Han char}}; it should pass a numeric value, where 0 means main radical and other numbers may specify variations in the ascending order of their Unicode codepoints.

For possible further expansions, a fourth parameter (position) can be passed from {{Han char}}; controlled by its value, the position of the box can be altered for each page; see {{template talk:Han rad}}.

Categorizing

All pages of radicals "※" are categorized into Category:Han character radicals.

See also

{{commonsrad}}, for equivalent links from the pages Appendix:Chinese radical.
{{commonsrad}} may also be used for links of non-radical characters pages to their Commons category, as shown in 囍.