Help:Extension:TemplateSandbox

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

The Template sandbox 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 will appear on the edit form underneath the  and other buttons. If you enter the title of a page in the text field and use the adjacent button, the entered page will be previewed as it would appear if the template being edited were saved.

Testing a change to a 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 ' field, and the prefix used in the previous step (e.g. "User:Example/sandbox") in the ' field.

To preview a particular revision of a page, enter the revision number in the  field. To preview arbitrary wikitext, fill in both the ' (for magic words such as ) and ' 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.