Talk:Mediawiki template guide

Help Installing Templates in Mediawiki

Mediawiki seems to be lacking a decent guide to installing templates and the method of doing so. It took nearly an hour for me to even figure out what I needed to start with. This is why I am posting this guide on how to get Mediawiki templates on your wiki locally (not 'transcluded' from wikipedia).

The basis of templates in mediawiki is the ability to include message or infoboxes in your wiki, without having to edit the full code each time you want it on a new page. Templates are included (transcluded is the wiki word) into the other page with empty information.

Contrary to what it may look like, to get templates on your Mediawiki you must have every single template that is used by the template you want. In other words, templates have MANY dependencies, and you also have to meet the dependencies for each of the templates included. To use an example, the template named Infobox used on wikipedia etc is a single template, but it depends on 17 other templates also. Each of those 17 templates ALSO has other templates it requires.

On top of having code for each template there are some requirements for your wiki in order to use these templates. As of Mediawiki 1.14, you must download the 'Parser Functions' extension that allows your wiki to use the code included in most templates. The parser extensions clear up the problem of templates displaying lots of variables instead of the infobox. This also fixed (more like bypassed) the problem where templates will display 'Template:PROTECTIONLEVEL'. This is a function I am told comes out in Mediawiki 1.15, but I am still using it in 1.14.