User:Alec/BookTemplate/LabBook

1. Tried to create a reference template with an if statement for the name attribute (so as to create an anonymous reference when there is a note provided) however it wasn't interpreted as XML with a > - created User:Alec/BookTemplate/EvalTemplate to see if that'll help. This template evaluates to whatever it is given.
2. Discovered it was a missing space between <ref and {{#if: that caused the problem. EvalTemplate can be removed
3. Discovered mediawiki cannot substitute between XML tags, and instead there's the #tag special parser function instead, it's not documented! I had to search the source code, there's a line in ParserMethodsTest.php (in tests/phpunit/includes/parser in the Mediawiki directory) that reads:
   • {{#tag:pre|foo|style=margin-left: 1.6em}}
     • From this I concluded {{#tag:name|content|attrib=value}} works, I think it uses the normal named=thing syntax of templates and thus quotes are not needed.
4. I can't put like: {{#tag:name|content|{{if statement}} where the if statement might evaluate to a=b or nothing, and have both work, so I need to do:
   • {{#if:whatever|{{#tag:a|b|c=d}}|{{#tag:a|b}}}} instead
5. Created page rBA (reference for book A) with {{:User:Alec/BookTemplate/ReferenceTemplate|RefName=BA|Content=[[User:Alec/BookTemplate/BookA|BookA]]{{#if:{{{Content|}}}|<nowiki> </nowiki>{{{Content}}}|}}}}
   • There are a few things, like passing groups or different names to the reference, but this is a good start
   • Will also start signing the log entries Alec (talk) 14:27, 30 July 2016 (UTC)
6. There seems to be no way to do this, I cannot have something that is not {{{Content}}} expand to {{{Content}}}
   • I shall have to manually pass parameters to the template, however if I make a change to the style I shall need error reporting, so I shall add a version tag which will categorise pages which have invalid/missing/need-work tags Alec (talk) 21:12, 30 July 2016 (UTC)
7. Adding book reference template, which will be the thing that renders a book Alec (talk) 21:16, 30 July 2016 (UTC)
8. The example page is functional. All I need now is a versioning system that'll make obsolete changes known! Alec (talk) 21:45, 30 July 2016 (UTC)