Manual:Creating pages with preloaded text

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Please note: Some techniques recommended in this article require the use of extensions. Exercise caution when using them, as the status of each extension is self-assigned by its maintainer, and does not reflect the opinion of the MediaWiki development team.

Preloading wikitext presents the user with a partially created page, possibly with inline instructions for content organization, rather than a blank page. This technique is especially useful when the wiki contains one or more categories of articles, with lots of pro-forma text or the information that needs to be collected for such articles is a mix of structured data and free form text.

Creating pages with preloaded text is a three step process:

Design the preload file and its supporting templates
Create pages for the preload files and supporting templates
Set up the trigger to load the preload file

Designing the preload file

The preload file is often an article with an embedded template. For example, if you wanted one article for each customer or marketing contact, you might want to preload text that looks something like the example below.

   <!-- Please enter your customer's contact information after the equal sign.
        If you need help uploading the business card images, please see [[Help:Uploading business card images]]
   -->
   {{CustomerContact
   |Number=
   |BizcardImage=
   |Primary phone number=
   |Address=
   }}

Naming and documenting the preload file

Some extensions have specific expectations as to where the preloaded text should be stored. Others leave that decision entirely up to the system administrator.

Naming and documenting the preload file takes some care, because preload files don't always show up on "What links here" and so are at risk for accidental deletion (no info/no links—hard to tell from an article that got created and abandoned). For template based preload files, the following naming conventions may help avoid accidental deletion:

place template in Template:CategoryName
place preload file in Template:CategoryName/Preload

Loading the preload file

Preloading can be done with a preload parameter in a URL like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Main_Page?action=edit&section=new&preload=Template:Foo which links to the edit box of a new page, preloaded with Template:Foo. There are also a number of extensions available to trigger your preload file, see below.

The wikitext of the source page is preloaded into the editbox if the page or section does not exist yet. If the page or section to be edited already exists then only its wikitext is loaded, the preload command is ignored.

‎<noinclude> and ‎</noinclude> tags are removed; if you need the preloaded text to provide noinclude tags, you can use
```
<no<includeonly></includeonly>include>
```
in your source: since the two middle tags will be stripped (see next), the preloaded text will end up with just the desired ‎<noinclude>.
The ‎<includeonly> and ‎</includeonly> tags are stripped from the source page. If you need the preloaded text to provide includeonly tags, you can use
```
<include<includeonly></includeonly>only>
```
in your source: since the two middle tags will be stripped, the preloaded text will end up with just the desired ‎<includeonly>.

Thus there is neither a complete inclusion nor a regular transclusion. See also task T7210 (since 2006-03-09).

If it is creating a new section, the initial content of the "Subject/headline" box can be provided with the parameter "preloadtitle"

http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Meta:Sandbox&action=edit&section=new&preloadtitle=New_Header

If it is not creating a new section, the summary can be set with the summary parameter (task T19002).

http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Meta:Sandbox&action=edit&summary=Doing%20some%20changes

The minor edit checkbox can be set by adding minor parameter

http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Meta:Sandbox&action=edit&minor=1

Using parameters

MediaWiki version:

≥ 1.23

You can also specify parameters to the preload text with the preloadparams[] url parameter (When linking on wiki, you may want to escape the [] to be %5b%5d.) Each parameter specified replaces a $1, $2, ... variable.

Note: $1, $2, ... variables are distinct from {{{1}}}, {{{2}}}, ... variables. In order to use preloadparams[], it appears to be necessary for the template to use $1, $2, ... variables instead of {{{1}}}, {{{2}}}, ... variables. This documentation should be improved by explaining why these two distinct template parameter notations exist, and when it is possible or necessary to use each of the two notations.

For example:

Extensions

Extensions that trigger a preload file include:

Extension:Inputbox (stable, bundled with MediaWiki) - This offers the most control over the loading process. It lets you place a button somewhere in an article, typically in a user help page or the category page corresponding to the article. You specify the name of the preload file as part of the button definition.
Extension:NamespacePreload (stable)
Extension:MultiBoilerplate (stable)
Extension:Page Forms (stable) - This can simply preload an article page, in addition to its form features.
Extension:Preloader (unmaintained)

A few extensions also handle all three steps for you:

Extension:ArticleToCategory2 (unmaintained)

All extensions related to page creation are in Category:Page creation extensions .