-ikiwiki uses the HTML::Template module as its template engine. This
-supports things like conditionals and loops in templates and is pretty easy
-to learn.
-
-It ships with some basic templates which can be customised:
-
-* `templates/page.tmpl` - Used for displaying all regular wiki pages.
-* `templates/misc.tmpl` - Generic template used for any page that doesn't
- have a custom template.
-* `templates/recentchanges.tmpl` - Used for the RecentChanges page.
-* `templates/editpage.tmpl` - Create/edit page.
-* `templates/passwordmail.tmpl` - Not a html template, this is used to
- generate the mail with the user's password in it.
-
-If you like, you can add this to further customise it:
-
-* `templates/signin.tmpl` - If it exists, it is used for customising the
- layout of the SignIn form and all assciated forms. The misc.tmpl is
- wrapped around this, so it should only be a template for the form.
-
- Note that the SignIn form is implemented using CGI::FormBuilder, which
- interfaces to HTML::Template, so not all of it can be customised with
- templates, although most of it can, by creating this template. Without
- the template, CGI::FormBuilder creates the page body by itself.
-
-I aim to keep almost all html out of ikiwiki and in the templates.
+[[!meta robots="noindex, follow"]]
+[[!if test="enabled(template)"
+then="This wiki has templates **enabled**."
+else="This wiki has templates **disabled**."
+]]
+
+Templates are files that can be filled out and inserted into pages in the
+wiki.
+
+[[!if test="enabled(template) and enabled(inline)" then="""
+
+These templates are available for inclusion onto other pages in this
+wiki:
+
+[[!inline pages="templates/* and !*/discussion" feeds=no archive=yes
+sort=title template=titlepage]]
+"""]]
+
+## Using a template
+
+Using a template works like this:
+
+ \[[!template id=note text="""Here is the text to insert into my note."""]]
+
+This fills out the [[note]] template, filling in the `text` field with
+the specified value, and inserts the result into the page.
+
+Generally, a value can include any markup that would be allowed in the wiki
+page outside the template. Triple-quoting the value even allows quotes to
+be included in it. Combined with multi-line quoted values, this allows for
+large chunks of marked up text to be embedded into a template:
+
+ \[[!template id=foo name="Sally" color="green" age=8 notes="""
+ * \[[Charley]]'s sister.
+ * "I want to be an astronaut when I grow up."
+ * Really 8 and a half.
+ """]]
+
+## Creating a template
+
+To create a template, simply add a template directive to a page, and the
+page will provide a link that can be used to create the template. The template
+is a regular wiki page, located in the `templates/` subdirectory inside
+the source directory of the wiki.
+
+(Alternatively, templates can be stored in a directory outside the wiki,
+as files with the extension ".tmpl".
+By default, these are searched for in `/usr/share/ikiwiki/templates`;
+the `templatedir` setting can be used to make another directory be searched
+first.)
+
+The template uses the syntax used by the [[!cpan HTML::Template]] perl
+module, which allows for some fairly complex things to be done. Consult its
+documentation for the full syntax, but all you really need to know are a
+few things:
+
+* Each parameter you pass to the template directive will generate a
+ template variable. There are also some pre-defined variables like PAGE
+ and BASENAME.
+* To insert the value of a variable, use `<TMPL_VAR variable>`. Wiki markup
+ in the value will first be converted to html.
+* To insert the raw value of a variable, with wiki markup not yet converted
+ to html, use `<TMPL_VAR raw_variable>`.
+* To make a block of text conditional on a variable being set use
+ `<TMPL_IF NAME="variable">text</TMPL_IF>`.
+* To use one block of text if a variable is set and a second if it's not,
+ use `<TMPL_IF NAME="variable">text<TMPL_ELSE>other text</TMPL_IF>`
+
+Here's a sample template:
+
+ <span class="infobox">
+ Name: \[[<TMPL_VAR raw_name>]]<br />
+ Age: <TMPL_VAR age><br />
+ <TMPL_IF NAME="color">
+ Favorite color: <TMPL_VAR color><br />
+ <TMPL_ELSE>
+ No favorite color.<br />
+ </TMPL_IF>
+ <TMPL_IF NAME="notes">
+ <hr />
+ <TMPL_VAR notes>
+ </TMPL_IF>
+ </span>
+
+The filled out template will be formatted the same as the rest of the page
+that contains it, so you can include WikiLinks and all other forms of wiki
+markup in the template. Note though that such WikiLinks will not show up as
+backlinks to the page that uses the template.
+
+Note the use of "raw_name" inside the [[ikiwiki/WikiLink]] generator. This
+ensures that if the name contains something that might be mistaken for wiki
+markup, it's not converted to html before being processed as a
+[[ikiwiki/WikiLink]].