Template:Date series header

Example with custom values supplied:

Usage
This template is expressly intended only for numerically consecutive articles. It is a navigation aid for such things as long series of dry sports or economic statistics subarticles by month or year. It is emphatically not intended to be used for "conceptually" consecutive articles, even if they have a chronological basis (e.g. the Star Trek movies). Use of this template on such articles is a form of PoV-pushing &mdash; what seems logically "next" or "previous" to one editor who knows a lot about the subject matter may make no sense at all to another. You are probably making a mistake if you are thinking of applying this template to an article that does not have a date or other purely stepwise consecutive designator in its name (e.g. "A-D", "E-H", "I-M", etc., for the subpages of a very large glossary that has been broken up into multiple pages.) Abuse of this template to "lead" the reader in a PoV manner will be mercilessly reverted.

User and projectpage applications: The template can also be used in the Wikipedia, Talk and User namespaces as a more full-featured alternative to the simple Process header on which this template is loosely based. In such instances it can be used more broadly to "lead" the visitor between various userspace essays, or to follow a policy-driven process. This template is even backward compatible with Process header's more obscure parameters (which should not be used in articles). Another example use of Date series header outside of the main namespace would be for navigation through a long series of talk page archives.

Parameters

 * Key:
 * = The required heading title beginning (or even entirely comprising) the text in the middle of the bar. It is not wikilinked to anything.  When used with   = A section designation. If specified, it inserts a colon after  .  Thus a   of "2005-06" would (continuing with the first example above) produce a   and   of "Snooker world rankings: 2005-06".  This item is not boldfaced by default. Sane wikiformatting can be applied to this value.
 * = A bare wikilink (no brackets) to the previous page in the series, e.g. "Snooker world rankings 2004/2005". If specified, it is followed by a left/back arrow. If omitted, this indicates that the present page is the first in the series, and no link or back arrow will appear.  Either   or , or both, are required.
 * = The text to be wikilinked for the  link (i.e. what would come after "|" in a fully-specified wikilink), such as "2004-05". If omitted, it defaults to the word "previous".  Sane wikiformatting can be applied to this value.
 * = Same as  but in the other direction: A bare wikilink (no brackets) to the next page in the series, e.g. "Snooker world rankings 2006/2007". If specified, it is followed by a right/forward arrow. If omitted, this indicates that the present page is the last in the series, and no link or forward arrow will appear. Either   or , or both, are required.
 * = Same as  but in the other direction: The text to be wikilinked for the   link (i.e. what would come after "|" in a fully-specified wikilink), such as "2006-07". If omitted, it defaults to the word "next".  Sane wikiformatting can be applied to this value.
 * = A bare wikilink to the top-level or "master" article in the series.  This is usually an overview of the subject, not the first page in the numeric series, such as "Snooker world rankings".  If specified, it appears with an up arrow, spaced a bit away from the left side of the   (and , if present).  If not specified, no text or up arrow appears.  However, leaving out this parameter is strongly discouraged.
 * = Essentially the same as  and  : The text to be wikilinked for the   link (i.e. what would come after "|" in a fully-specified wikilink), such as "main article" or "up". If omitted, it defaults to the word "top".  Sane wikiformatting can be applied to this value.
 * = A valid HTML/X11 hex color or color name, such as "#E0EDFA", "#DDD", or "LightGreen". If not specified, it defaults to a familiar "Lavender".

Example
Here is an examination of the customized example illustrated above:

This creates: