File templates help optimize your content production

Today we’ve rolled out one of our most requested features: file templates. You can now create reusable file templates for your content files that are automatically applied whenever you create a new file. Just create a template and pick it from the list of available templates when creating a file.

Creating templates

Anyone on the team with Editor access or above can create and manage the list of templates from the account dashboard. Here, you can create and edit templates that will be available across the account.

templates_ui.jpg

Any content you put in the template will be dropped in as the default text on new files created from that template. In addition to file templates supporting static content, they are also very flexible and support the Liquid templating language created by Shopify. With Liquid and Beegit, you can do some really cool stuff, like automatically drop in the current date, or drop in the name and Twitter handle of the user who is creating a new file. When a new file is created against a template, Beegit will merge in any variables you have defined in the template. Here is an example of what you can do (we use this template for our Jekyll blog posts):

---
layout: post
title: Post title - 7 words or less
teaser: Post teaser - 18 words or less
date: {{'now' | date: "%Y-%m-%d 12:00:00"}}
author: {{user.name.first}}_{{user.name.last}}
twitter: [{{user.twitter}}](https://twitter.com/{{user.twitter}})
comments: true
---

Which becomes this file when its template is chosen:


---
layout: post
title: Post title - 7 words or less
teaser: Post teaser - 18 words or less
date: 2015-09-28 12:00:00
author: kris_ciccarello
twitter: [kmctown](https://twitter.com/kmctown)
comments: true
---

Available template variables

Here is the full list of variables that you can specify in a file template:

Template Variable Description
{{'now' | date: "format"}} The current date/time in the specified format
{{ file.name }} The name of the current file being created
{{project.name}} The name of the current project
{{user.name.full}} The Name of the user creating the file
{{user.name.first}} The FirstName of the user creating the file
{{user.name.last}} The LastName of the user creating the file
{{user.twitter}} The Twitter handle of the user creating the file
{{user.company}} The company of the user creating the file
{{owner.name.full}} The Name of the user who owns the project
{{owner.name.first}} The FirstName of the user who owns the project
{{owner.name.last}} The LastName of the user who owns the project
{{owner.twitter}} The Twitter handle of the user who owns the project
{{owner.company}} The company of the user who own the project

Make some templates!

We’re really excited about the new file templates feature and can’t wait to see what you do with them. If you haven’t been around for a while, now is a great time to log back in to Beegit and see why it’s the best collaborative writing app for the Web. If you’ve never signed up for Beegit, it’s the perfect time to start a free trial.

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