SharedTemplates

This topic is for exploring options for sharing skin template elements.

I was recently trying to figure out how to implement a feature that's skin-related, although not exactly a skin (more on that another time). It got me wondering whether I can utilize elements from other, existing skin templates. In other words, if I'm creating a template called, say, view.newskin.tmpl, can I use %TMPL:INCLUDE{"globalflexible.tmpl"}% to utilize some of the defined elements therein. I haven't seen (or at least understood) a clear answer to this question yet, althrough there's relevant information and discussion in Plugins/SkinDeveloperFAQ, Support/TemplateIncludesInAmbarSkin and or course TWiki/TWikiTemplates. (If no one can give a quick answer, I'll do some T&E later to find out.)

This got me wondering whether it might be worthwhile to explore this track further, in line with the intent of Codev/ConsolidateFunctionalityFromSkins and Plugins/SharedCode? The first two questions that come to my mind in this regards are:

• What are the mechanisms for incorporating complete templates or specific elements within other templates (e.g. %TMPL:INCLUDE{"globalflexible.tmpl.PrintingFooter"}% where "PrintingFooter" is a defined element in globalflexible.tmpl).
• What elements might be common to multiple skins that could consolidated into a single template file such as twiki.shared.tmpl - parallel to the approach of Plugins/SharedCode?

-- LynnwoodBrown - 02 Aug 2004