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Wikipedia:Helpbox

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Wikid77 (talk | contribs) at 06:03, 4 August 2013 (created, as a Wikipedia essay, to explain use and format of helpboxes to act as reference cards about a topic). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
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This essay, wp:Helpbox, explains the use of "helpboxes" to display a concise overview of a topic in a small box on the screen. A helpbox acts as a condensed reference card (or "crib sheet") to quickly summarize a topic.

The use of helpboxes provides rapid, brief information to users, especially to long-term users who might have forgotten some of many options encapsulated into the condensed helpbox. Newer users might prefer to read the full help-pages, or tutorials, with numerous examples of each option.

An example of detailed helpbox, summarizing many template parameters, is Template:Convert/help, as shown below. Note the numerous options: Template:Convert/help Because Template:Convert supports over 350 measurement unit-codes, only the major options could be listed within the small size of a helpbox; however, the {convert} helpbox links to the full page, {{Convert/list_of_units}} to provide the user the option to see all 350 units in a large, detailed list.

Each helpbox is limited, in size, to act as a concise reference card, rather than as a full tutorial with extensive explanations of each feature. When a topic is very large, then the helpbox could link to other sub-helpboxes, to keep each helpbox relatively short, but cover most aspects of a large topic.