WikiTemplate UDL is an add-on for Notepad++ that can aid in Wikipedia template development by providing brace balancing and syntax highlighting for MediaWiki template code. Due to the repetitive nature of wiki template code, the highlighting was designed to exaggerate its code features and make code blocks more recognizable at a glance.
To use this, you will first need to install Notepad++, which is free. Once it's installed, do the following:
Download or copy the complete code from here and paste it into a new text file called WikiTemplate.xml.
Open Notepad++ and click the Language menu, then "Define your language..."
Click the "Import..." button, and select the WikiTemplate.xml file you created. Close the User Defined Language window.
Files you open or save with a .mwt extension should become recognized as WikiTemplate code and show the relevant highlighting. To get started, create a new Notepad++ document and save it as anything.mwt. Paste a section of template code into the window to see if it's working. Code should become highlighted live, as you paste or type.
If you still don't see the highlighting as shown in the image, click the Language menu again and select WikiTemplate, which should be at the very bottom of the menu.
Highlighting
The ((userscript)) template being edited with WikiTemplate UDL and with added line breaks and indents. The code above is interpreted by MediaWiki as if it were all on a single line, even though it contains line breaks and indents around pipe characters. Formatting template code this way can ease readability.
Below are some examples of the code highlighting features, but this is not a complete list.
(( )) Double-braces withoutparser functions (templates and magic words) are formatted with a unique font and yellow highlighting.
(({ ))} Triple-braces (variables) are formatted as bold purple text.
[[ ]] Double-brackets (wikilinks) are highlighted in blue.
| Pipes are bolded, colored pink, and highlighted in cyan, as they tend to be difficult to spot.
<noinclude></noinclude>, <!-- --> Noincludes and HTML comments are faded and italicized
Placing the cursor next to any brace [ ] { } will highlight the matching opening or closing brace (the matching braces will turn red).
Tip: Line breaks, tab spaces, and other whitespace immediately before or after pipes | , within wikilinks or parser expressions, are ignored by MediaWiki. Therefore you can format your parser code with line breaks and indents the same as one might format Javascript, PHP, and other code. The pipe generally means "then" and "else", so indent those as you normally would indent "then" and "else" blocks in other code, to provide some additional ease of code reading.
