Help:Wiki template
This wiki software allows us to define templates, which are the same concept as macros in some languages.
Overview
A template can define standard text that you'd like to appear in more than one place. For example, you could define a template named needswork that, when inserted into a page, displays text like this:
This page needs more work to make it look good.
Furthermore, templates can have arguments (parameters) that allow you to specify repetitive data in a standard and more easily understandable way. For example, you could define a template named plug-in that provides space for someone to type the basic information about a COLLADA plug-in and then displays the info in a nice format as defined within the template, rather than making the editor do all the work over and over.
Template usage
When editing an article, you see templates like this:
{{needswork}}
or like this:
{{plug-in|name=My Plug In|web=http://www.mycompany.com|version=1.4}}
Template definition
To create a template, just create an article titled "Template:nameofyourtemplate"; for example, Template:needswork or Template:plug-in. Whatever you put into that article then appears whenever you insert the template (as shown in "Template usage") into another article.
For example, perhaps you want the plug-in template shown above to display text like this:
- Plug-in name: My Plug In
- Web site: http://www.mycompany.com
- Current released version: 1.4
In this case, the template definition (Template:plug-in) looks similar to this:
*'''Plug-in name:''' {{{name}}}
*'''Web site:''' {{{web}}}
*'''Current released version:''' {{{version}}}
Complexities
There are additional features that are useful in templates, including
- Predefined variables that do such things as calculate the name of the current article.
- Special markup to have things appear only in the template definition page but not where the template occurs, or vice-versa.
These are documented elsewhere; see "External links."
See also
- Special:Prefixindex where you can select the Template namespace and see the names of all templates that currently exist in this wiki.