Help:Contents

MediaWiki has a form of markup text behind it that does '''bold''' and [[hyperlinks]] and so on). It also allows you to call Templates– which are a special type of page – by using {{double}} curly brackets for notation.

Example

Let's say Template:Example1 contains the text:

The cat sat on the mat.

To call the content of Template:Example1 on another page you insert {{Example1}}. This renders on the main page as:

The cat sat on the mat.

Enhanced things you can do with Templates

Embedding named or numbered variables in templates

You can do this by enclosing them in {{{triple}}} curly brackets. So, if Template:Example2 reads:

The {{{1}}} {{{2}}} on the {{{3}}}.

Inserting {{Example2|Frog|stood|Hippopotamus}}, will render as:

The Frog stood on the Hippopotamus.

Embedding templates in templates

You can do this by using curly quotes on a template page to call another template. So, if Template:Example3 reads

The {{{1}}} rolled over and lit a {{{2}}}. {{Example2|{{{1}}}|sat|sofa}}

Inserting {{Example3|dog|cigarette}} will render as:

The dog rolled over and lit a cigarette. The dog sat on the sofa.

Auto-taxonomising templates

Say I want to create a series of templates with a given naming convention, I can make a template to do this with dynamic inputs that WSD could specify to get the right one. For example, I can create Template:ISDAclauseTest which contains the following: [[Template: {{{1}}} {{{2}}} {{{3}}} {{{4}}} {{{5}}} {{{6}}} {{{7}}} {{{8}}}]] where

{{{1}}} is Publisher
{{{2}}} is Edition;
{{{3}}} is Document;
{{{4}}} is Client (e.g. Barclays)
{{{5}}} is Counterparty type;
{{{6}}} is eligible jurisdiction;
{{{7}}} is clause reference; and
{{{8}}} is status

Therefore, writing: {{ISDAclauseTest|ISDA|2002|Schedule|Barclays|Corporate|All|5(a)(vii)|Preferred1}} will render as Template:ISDAclauseTest.

From there it is a snip to create compound templates to further enforce/ease workflow:

{{BarclaysISDA2002SchedulePreferred|COUNTERPARTY|CLAUSE}} is {{ISDAclauseTest|ISDA|2002|Schedule|Barclays|{{{1}}}|{{{2}}}|Preferred}}

and so on.