Board Thread:Support Requests - Getting Technical/@comment-24424249-20150723235653/@comment-3474542-20151022110316

Sorry to take so long to get back to you, but Wikia kept going down when I tried to post this. If you still have questions, please reply so that we can confuse you more try to clarify things. :-)

TheRealPella is describing Importing/Exporting existing template pages (instead of creating them from scratch) via Special pages called Special:Import and Special:Export. There is a help page at Help:Exporting pages that may or may not be helpful for deciphering what we are talking about.

For example, if you like the template called Template:Triggerwarning (I am not associated with the wiki, it's just an example based on your post), and wanted to import it to your wiki called Crystal Prism...


 * 1) You would go to the page Special:Export on the wiki with the template you wanted. You would put the name of the template(s) you wanted to export in the big box, and click the button that says "Export". This will open up a download dialogue in your browser, allowing you to choose where to save the file.
 * 2) *Since the file is XML, if you know XML, you can edit this file before you import it to your wiki.
 * 3) When you are ready to add the template(s) to your wiki, you would go to the page Special:Import (because that's where we've arbitrarily picked to use as an example).
 * 4) *You need at least Admin privileges to import pages this way. So, if you can't see this page, talk to an admin about uploading the file for you. However, since you are listed as the Founder for this wiki, I'm going to assume you still have admin powers there.
 * 5) You should see a button that says, "Choose File". This is what you need to click. Navigate to wherever you saved that XML file from Special:Export, and chose the file that you saved. Add a comment to the comment box as needed (for example, "imported from http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/ on October 22, 2015"). Now we're ready to press "Upload File".
 * 6) Once the file is successfully uploaded, you should check Special:Log/import to make sure all of the pages were imported.

It may help if you think of templates like the cels that were used for hand drawn animation. Some of them were simple overlays, yet some of them were complex and had several complex layers.

You can tell whether or not a template page uses meta-templates or nested templates (complex cels) by looking at the template via the "edit" (or "view" if the template is locked to editing) button. On Wikia templates, there is a module on the right rail for templates (you may need to expand this to find the link to click that lists all templates). On Wikipedia, this list is at the bottom of the Edit/ViewSource page. Other wiki farms tend to be similar.

A word of caution about exporting. The "include templates" check-box means "include all templates used by this page" not "the page I want to export is a template". That means that if you use the check-box to export a page that nests templates, it will include *all* of the templates used on the page. Those templates will then replace existing templates with the same name on your wiki.

Therefore, if as in TheRealPella's example, you find a template that uses several meta-templates, you need to be careful that they don't have the same name as the existing templates on your wiki (or they will be over-written). Sometimes, this is a good thing, as they have a better version. But, sometimes this isn't so good, because the wiki you are importing from is using an older version than the one that you have already customized for your wiki.