Help:Templates

Our MEpedia software includes special pages that are called template pages, even though they are nothing like templates in the usual sense of the word. A template page can contain calculations, add extra formatting, call special programming code, (e.g. to categorize pages) and perform complex functions that change the way a page works. Template pages can add the same content to multiple pages- some of that content may be hidden and some may be extremely complex.

Template pages vs. Template tags
You will probably never have to deal with template pages directly, but you will need to deal with them indirectly by using template tags. Template tags are notes that can be inserted into a page to signify many different things: that a page is a stub, that a page needs cleanup, that a statement needs a reference, etc. In addition to acting as notes, template tags can also be used for transclusion.

How to add a template tag to a page
To insert a Template tag in the Visual Editor, see MEpedia's Visual Editor guide.

To insert a Template tag in the Source Editor, see MEpedia's Source Editor guide.

Common template tags
The following table lists the most important template tags you may need to use.

How to integrate a new template page into the Visual Editor
A new template page is often copied from www.mediawiki.org or from similar sites. Often, the new “Template:” page is copied along with other pages, such as a “/doc” subpage that contains documentation for the new template page. For more information on copying new template pages from Wikipedia, see MediaWiki’s manual page on the subject.

If you want the new template page to be accessible from the Visual Editor, you must first define the “TemplateData” for the template page. Often, this TemplateData is found in the “/doc” subpage. Due to a bug in our software version, this TemplateData must be moved to the main “Template:” page instead. (See here) For more information on TemplateData, see MediaWiki’s TemplateData help page.

Learn more

 * How to supply TemplateData for the Visual Editor
 * How to copy templates from Wikipedia