Manual:Creating pages with preloaded text

Preloading wikitext presents the user with a partially created page rather than a blank page, possibly with inline instructions for content organization.

This technique is especially useful when:
 * wiki users are willing to read and write simple wikitext (sometimes an issue on intranet installations of MediaWiki)
 * the wiki contains one or more categories of articles with lots of pro-forma text
 * the information that needs to be collected for such articles is a mix of structured data and free form text

Creating pages with preloaded text is a three step process:
 * 1) Design the preload file and its supporting templates
 * 2) Create pages for the preload files and supporting templates
 * 3) Set up the trigger to load the preload file

Designing the preload file
The preload file is often an article with an embedded template. For example, if you wanted one article for each customer or marketing contact, you might want to preload text that looks something like this:

Naming and documenting the preload file
Some extensions (see Extension:Boilerplate) have specific expectations as to where the preloaded text should be stored. Others leave that decision entirely up to the system administrator.

Naming and documenting the preload file takes some care because preload files don't always show up on "What links here" and so are at risk for accidental deletion (no info/no links - hard to tell from an article that got created and abandoned). For template based preload files, the following naming conventions may help avoid accidental deletion:


 * place template in
 * place preload file in

Note: before the fixing of bug 5210, preload templates could not contain documentation, categories, interlanguage links etc - all content would affect the preload output. With bug 5210 fixed,   tags now work as expected.

Loading the preload file
FACING REPOSSESSION CALL            (800) 827-4853       CAN'T AFFORD CAR PAYMENTS? Behind or Late on Car Payments-Facin­g Repossession Call            800 827-4853 DO NOT VOLUNTARILY SURRENDER YOUR CAR! CALL US NOW!! (800) 827-4853      or Visit cardebtsolutions.com Are you behind on Car Payments? Ar­e you Facing Repo,"Repossession" CONTACT CAR DEBT SOLUTIONS            (800) 827-4853       WEBSITE: cardebtsolutions­.com Do you owe more than the car is worth? We Can Sell Your Car Even If You Owe More Then It's Worth. Are You behind on your payments? W­E HAVE HELPED THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE WHO WERE BEHIND ON THEIR CAR LOANS OR LEASE We specialize in negotiating with all types of Automotive Financial Lenders, "Banks, Credit Unions, In house financiers & etc." We Can Help You With Your Automotive Financial Needs. Contac­t Us At:            800 827-4853       or visit cardebtsolutions.com We specialize in finding SOLUTIONS for people who are behind on their car payments. If you are behind just one month there is a 90% chance that your financial lender is trying to repossess "REPO" your car. LEGALLY IF YOU ARE 1 DAY LATE ON YOUR CAR PAYMENT, YOU ARE IN DEFAULT, WHICH MEANS THE BANK OR LENDER CAN START A REPOSSESSION ORDER. A LENDER IS NOT GOING TO LET YOU KNOW THE EXACT DAY THEY ARE GOING TO START TRYING TO REPO YOUR CAR. IF YOU ARE MORE THEN 1 DAY PAST A MONTH BEHIND "32 DAYS",THEY ARE LOOKING FOR THAT CAR, WE DON'T CARE WHAT THE BANK OR LENDER TELLS YOU, SO IF YOUR ARE LATE CALL US NOW!! (800) 827-4853     Don't lose out on all of the money you have spent, there are SOLUTIONS, that will make you happy. We Are The Leaders in What We Do

Extensions
Extensions that trigger a preload file include:


 * Extension:Preloader
 * Extension:Inputbox, Extension:CreateBox,Extension:CreateArticle offer the most control over the loading process. Each of these extensions let you place a button somewhere in an article, typically in a user help page or the category page corresponding to the article.  You specify the name of the preload file as part of the button definition.
 *  Extension:MultiBoilerplate
 * Extension:BoilerplateSelection - preloaded text selected by pattern matching on article title. To set this up you create an array in your Manual:LocalSettings.php file.  This array associates regular expressions with preload article names.
 * Extension:Boilerplate - preloaded text for all articles irrespective of name or category. The preloaded text must be stored in the MediaWiki article  .  It will be loaded automatically whenever an article is created.
 * Extension:PreloadManager - Provides per-namespace specific text preloading upon page creation.

A few extensions also handle all three steps for you:


 * Extension:Add Article to Category - puts an add-an-article button on each category. When an article is created using this extension it will automatically contain the wiki text for including the article in that category, i.e.


 * Extension:Semantic Forms - Can simply preload an article page, in addition to its form features.