Help:Wiki template
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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 include templates using double braces around the template's name, like this:
{{needswork}}
or like this, if the template allows named arguments:
{{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}}}
Advanced features
You can use special markup for:
- Things that appear only in the template definition page but not where the template occurs (<noinclude>...</noinclude>).
- Vice-versa (<includeonly>...</includeonly>).
The former is useful things such as displaying usage information about the template on the template's page; the latter is useful for things such as putting an article into a category when the template is used in the article into a category, but not putting the template itself into the category.
See Template:Disambig for examples of this markup
Optional arguments
You can include optional arguments using the $if: parser function. For example:
{{ $if: {{{company|}}} | Company name is {{{company}}} | No company name supplied}}
which displays "Company name is foo" if a company argument is present, or "No company name supplied" if it isn't.
For more information: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/ParserFunctions
Additional features
There are additional features that are useful in templates, including predefined variables that do such things as calculate the name of the current article. These are documented elsewhere; see "External links."
Currently defined templates
To see descriptions of defined templates and examples of usage (if someone has provided it):
To see just the names of all templates that currently exist in this wiki:
- Either:
- Use the Special pages link in the left navigation bar and click Prefix index.
- Go directly to the special "article" Special:Prefixindex.
- Select the Template namespace and click Go.