If I understand what you are asking for, you can use the substitution ("subst") syntax with a template.

For example, lets says you have Template:foo with the outline you talked about. When you create a new article, you can put {{subst:foo}} in the edit box and press Show Preview. This will display the content of Template:foo at the top, but still show "{{subst:foo}}" in the edit box (but only temporarily, until you save). You can either - save, and then re-edit the article and customize the text (although this creates one extra edit, no big deal) or - copy the text from the previewed text into the edit box (which only works if there is no formatting, as that will be lost).

This is more fully explained in the template help: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Template#subst

Michael Richards

-----Original Message----- From: mediawiki-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org [mailto:mediawiki-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org]On Behalf Of Craig Hartel Sent: Tuesday, September 14, 2004 6:22 PM To: MediaWiki announcements and site admin list Subject: [Mediawiki-l] Templates - not understanding a concept

Hello, all.

I have a question about templates. I understand that they are excellent for building things that one might wish to repeat on many pages, so having the template saves a lot of extra work. Not only that, if you need to update the content, you need only update the template, and the changes show up everywhere. That part I get, but here is what I'm wondering:

If I had a page structure that I wanted people to use, would that be appropriately done with a template? For example, if I had a few sections, like "Description", "Requirements", "Download" etc., would it make sense to build a template with those pre-built as section headings? Could I then create custom stubs and include them in the template? The custom stub would be like "Add the product description here, blah, blah, blah."

I have this in mind because there will be a lot of pages that we want to look exactly alike, save for the actual content. How could I set this up so that they use the template to start a new page from scratch?

Hmm...lots of questions in this one. Thank you in advance for your assistance in clarifying my understanding of templates.

Craig Hartel http://codex.wordpress.org/