"TemplateSandbox" lets you preview a page with a change in a template it uses.
At the bottom of the edit form in the Template and Module namespaces, a new box will appear that allows you to preview other pages as they would appear if you saved the template/module you are currently editing. Example: try editing the sample "thank-you" template https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Template:Thankyou . On the edit form, under the Save button, you'll see "Preview page with this template" -- try User_talk:Example_user .
Or, go to
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:TemplateSandbox
and give it the "sandbox prefix" User:Sharihareswara (WMF)/sandbox and tell it to "render page" User_talk:Example_user . You'll see the ugly changes I made to the template in my sandbox.
More information at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:VPT#New_feature_needs_testing . You can check this out in the new version of MediaWiki, now live on mediawiki.org, but until we have more feedback and improvements we aren't pushing it live on the other sites.
We figure this will make it easier for people to hack on templates, and to develop new Lua templates to replace wikitext templates.
Update: I see that TemplateSandbox is now LIVE on Meta, Commons, and the other non-Wikipedia WMF wikis! It'll be going live to English Wikipedia on Monday 3 December and all other Wikipedias on Wednesday 5 December. Sorry for wrongly saying that it wasn't going live on most WMF sites yet.
It'd be great if you could help by translating TemplateSandbox on translatewiki https://translatewiki.net/w/i.php?title=Special%3ATranslate&taction=tran... and by spreading the word about this new feature to template editors in your community. Thanks!
Sumana Harihareswara Engineering Community Manager Wikimedia Foundation
On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 8:34 PM, Sumana Harihareswara sumanah@wikimedia.org wrote:
"TemplateSandbox" lets you preview a page with a change in a template it uses.
At the bottom of the edit form in the Template and Module namespaces, a new box will appear that allows you to preview other pages as they would appear if you saved the template/module you are currently editing. Example: try editing the sample "thank-you" template https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Template:Thankyou . On the edit form, under the Save button, you'll see "Preview page with this template" -- try User_talk:Example_user .
Or, go to
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:TemplateSandbox
and give it the "sandbox prefix" User:Sharihareswara (WMF)/sandbox and tell it to "render page" User_talk:Example_user . You'll see the ugly changes I made to the template in my sandbox.
More information at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:VPT#New_feature_needs_testing . You can check this out in the new version of MediaWiki, now live on mediawiki.org, but until we have more feedback and improvements we aren't pushing it live on the other sites.
We figure this will make it easier for people to hack on templates, and to develop new Lua templates to replace wikitext templates.
-- Sumana Harihareswara Engineering Community Manager Wikimedia Foundation
wikitech-ambassadors@lists.wikimedia.org