Help:Extension:TemplateSandbox

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This is user documentation for TemplateSandbox. Technical documentation for the TemplateSandbox extension is also available.

The TemplateSandbox extension makes it easier to test changes to templates and Scribunto modules by allowing the changes to be previewed in existing pages without making the changes live for everyone.

Testing a change to a single template

When the extension is installed and enabled, a box titled "Preview page with this template" will appear on the edit form underneath the "Save page" and other buttons in template and module pages. If you enter the title of a page in the text field and use the adjacent "Show preview" button, the entered page will be previewed as if the changes to the current template were saved.

Testing a change to multiple templates

To test changes to multiple templates, first save sandbox versions as subpages of a page somewhere. For example, to test changes to Template:Example 1 and Template:Example 2, you might save the sandbox versions to User:Example/sandbox/Template:Example 1 and User:Example/sandbox/Template:Example 2.

Next, go to Special:TemplateSandbox. Enter the title of the page to be previewed in the "Render page:" field, and the prefix used in the previous step (e.g. "User:Example/sandbox") in the "Sandbox prefix:" field.

To preview a particular revision of a page, enter the revision number in the "Render revision:" field. To preview arbitrary wikitext, fill in both the "Render page:" (for magic words such as {{PAGENAME}}) and "Render wikitext:" fields.

Note that the canonical name of the page must be used after the sandbox prefix; equivalent titles will not work. For example, User:Example/sandbox/Template:example 1 will not work, despite the fact that Template:example 1 is equivalent to Template:Example 1.