-[[if test="enabled(template)" then="""
-This wiki has templates **enabled**.
+[[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="""
+
+## Available templates
-[[if test="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]]
"""]]
-"""
-else="This wiki has templates **disabled**."
-]]
+
+## 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.
+
+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 page will
+provide a link that can be used to create the template. The template is a
+regular wiki page, located in the `templates/` directory.
+
+The template uses the syntax used by the
+[cpan HTML::Template](http://search.cpan.org/search?mode=dist&query=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:
+
+* To insert the value of a variable, use `<TMPL_VAR 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 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.