You might think that it is strange behavior searching so desperately for a template; however, it's important for the following reasons:

• By searching in both the current directory and the Template subdirectory, you have the opportunity to hide the templates in a subdirectory if you don't want them to lie around with all your other files. On the other hand, you are not forced to do so!

• By searching back trough the path, you might find specific templates in subdirectories and generic templates in top-level directories. As an example, you might have a directory called Letters that contains all your letters. In this directory, you might have a generic template, which inserts something like Dear... and the current date. In a subdirectory to the Letter directory you might have a directory with letters to your girl- or boyfriend. This template might include text such as Yours forever , and so on.

• By looking in the standard template directory at the end, you can have some templates that are general for all files ending in .txt (letters, configuration descriptions, and other kinds of text files) located in one place.

The Content of a Template

The templates can contain ordinary text combined with stand-ins. These stand-ins either are replaced with other text or mark positions in the buffer at the time a new file is created based on this template. The stand-ins are in the form (>>>letter<<<). Examples include >>>P<<<, which sets the point of the newly created document at this location in the buffer, and >>>A<<<, which inserts your email address.

The simplest kind of templates are those that simply insert text combined with one of the predefined stand-ins. The predefined stand-ins can be seen in Table 4.1.

Table 4.1  All the Codes that Require No User Definition

A sample template might be the following:

 
                            Odense (I<<<) 
Dear (>P<<<) 
 
 
Our record number: (>1<<<) 
 
Cheers (>U<<<) 
 

In Figure 4.16, you can see a new file created with this template.

Figure 4.16
A file created with the sample template.

Inserting the Result of Asking a Question

In your template, you can also insert text that is the result of asking a question. Thus in the previous example, you might want to be prompted for the name to be inserted after the word Dear. (It is very important to you that you do not forget this name.)

Questions like this can be inserted in the template, as you can see in the following template:

                           Odense (>>>I<<<) 
Dear (>>>name<<<) 
(>>>P<<<) 
 
 
Our record number: (>>>number<<<) 
 
Cheers (>>>U<<<) 
 
>TEMPLATE-DEFINITION-SECTION<< 
("name" "What is the name of the customer? ") 
("number" "What is the record number? ") 

To make Emacs ask you questions, you need to insert a line that indicates that the definitions section starts. Text after this line is for defining the questions, so be very careful not to insert text that does not have the syntax you see in the preceding template.

Each question is associated to a word (the question What is the name of the customer? is associated with the word name). This word is used as the stand-in for the text (that is, the text (>>>name<<<) after the word Dear).

When you open a new file, Emacs now asks you these questions, as you can see in Figure 4.17, and your answers are inserted at the appropriate locations in the buffer, as you can see in Figure 4.18.

Figure 4.17
Emacs asks for information within the template.

Figure 4.18
The answer is inserted in the text.