Thread:Project:Support desk/Wikitemplates interpretation/visualisation/reply

Is this a good idea? MediaWiki is (or at least contains) the definitive interpreter, and you are trying to do its job! Although you presumably consider it 3rd party software, it probably contains pretty much everything you need. Incidentally it is not just Wikipedia-code, that is just the best known MediaWiki application.

Of course the templates are a problem; you can find them via Special Pages - List of Pages - Namespace = Template, but there are an enormous number and they are to some extent in continual flux. Of course you can fetch all the templates you need for a given page recursively, and perhaps cache them to cut down on the bandwidth, but I still wonder if it is worth it. They are in principle defined by anyone who edits the wiki, though in practice they are mostly done by more experienced editors. There is no true coordination, just various more or less agreed best practices.

If you just want to do it for a private wiki, you might look at the newer editors and try hacking them and/or the upper levels of MediaWiki.

I hope this is not too discouraging!