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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Rpclod (talk | contribs) at 13:16, 27 October 2008. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Meta:Help:A quick guide to templates authors and history

Old history
Old history of the article form meta
  • 14:14, 20 January 2006 contribs)| (simplified link and skipped redirect)
  • 14:12, 20 January 2006 contribs)| (made bold the most important links on the page)
  • 13:34, 20 January 2006 contribs)| (added alternative way to force refresh)
  • 03:44, 25 November 2005 contribs)| (Changed initial template.)
  • 06:58, 16 November 2005 contribs)| (Fixed hyperlinks that break when this page is copied to other projects.)
  • 19:45, 29 August 2005 contribs)| (→Creating, editing and using templates - readd subst)
  • 10:04, 20 July 2005 contribs)| m (Reverted edits by 221.218.36.143 to last version by 194.138.39.36)
  • 12:45, 21 June 2005 contribs)| (Full details can be found in m:Help:Template and m:Help:Template names, variable names and parameters depending on a variable or parameter.)
  • 20:53, 8 April 2005 contribs)| (oddly, w:eo:Ŝablono:El does not work, rm w:)
  • 04:47, 4 April 2005 contribs)| (Category:English documentation)
  • 03:00, 22 January 2005 contribs)| (→FAQ - Additional note on how many times the same tamplate can be used in the same page.)
  • 22:47, 17 November 2004 contribs)| (please don't use en:, cy: etc. without a qualifier - these, when copied, would point to interlanguage version of the project you copy them to)
  • 03:03, 17 July 2004 contribs)| (a one page summary of Help:Template)

From Meta:Help talk:A quick guide to templates

A question for the FAQ?

Where do i find the template i need, rapidly? (it always takes me quite a while)
--Jerome Potts 06:37, 25 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In the search box, just type in Template: followed by the title of the template. If it does not exist, the word you typed will be in red colour. --Siva1979Talk to me 13:44, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
But, isn't this article the place where there ought to be a link to the list of templates or the article that says how to use them? It's very nice to have an elementary introduction to making templates, but shouldn't we learn first how to find and use appropriate existing ones? Jim.henderson (talk) 17:37, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The list of templates varies on each mediawiki, even on each wikipedia. It might be a good to include such a list in the en.wikipedia specific portion of the page. It is important to only list lists of useful templates. There are entirely too many templates to list them all. JackSchmidt (talk) 18:10, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ah. I thought because it's found under en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ it's part of Wikipedia rather than a more general thing. Anyway, far as I see, this page is about entirely the wrong topic, or else it's pointed to by the wrong pointers.
Let me back up a bit. Half a day ago I was looking at en:Hempstead Plains which is a really crummy article on a topic that deserves better. It had three templates that all indicate it stinks and I wanted to find one that says this more precisely; perhaps one that indicates a topic in physical geography. Assuming there's no Template:This article stinks template I went to WP:HELP to see how to find a better one and sure enough there's a button for this quick guide article. Problem is, it's a quick guide to making templates. Maybe that's part of why there are so many templates. Newbies go looking for templates, discover only how to make them, and either give up the impulse or make their own instead of reusing someone else's.
Instead. the pointer in the help page should lead to an article about finding and using someone else's templates, and only incidentally mentioning that if we don't like the old templates we can make our own. As it happens I know more about the Hempstead Plains than about either making templates or making help files, but darn it, this is more important than that crummy article. I can't imagine why any of the Wikimedia projects would want the first business of a "quick guide to templates" to be about making rather than using templates. Jim.henderson (talk) 01:25, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Search or Special

I would like to re-iterate Jerome's and Jim's comments. I am trying to determine if a template to perform a certain task already exists. I looked here and also at Help:Template and MediaWiki's Templates page for a list of existing templates. I am thinking of something similar to Special:Categories -- I tried "[[Special:Templates]]", but received a "No such special page" message. Does any means of searching existing templates exist? (By the way, I am looking for a template for an information box that can be placed on an page for an individual that points to an entry for that individual's surname. I realize that I may need to create such a beast.)--Rpclod (talk) 13:16, 27 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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