Understanding Guide templating

Guide templating, also known as the Templating API, is responsible for rendering the Help Center theme packages. This contains the Curlybars templating language that is used in the template files, CSS and JS files, and the manifest file.

To learn more about Guide themes, see Customizing your Help Center theme and the Help Center Templates developer documentation.

About Guide templating versions

Version 2 of the Templating API was released on February 24, 2020 and applies to the Copenhagen theme and any new theme releases. You can find out which version of the framework from the Customize design icon () in Guide (see Finding out the templating version).

All Zenplates themes are built using the latest version of the Templating API which removes jQuery entirely to ensure themes remain fast and nimble. All custom functionality in our themes is written in vanilla JavaScript however if to use jQuery you can import the jQuery library.

For a full list of changes in version 2, refer to the online documentation.

Finding out the templating version

You can see the templating version from the Edit code view in your theme, or in the manifest file.

To check the templating version

1. In Guide, click the Customize design icon () in the sidebar.
2. Click the theme you want to see.
3. Click Edit code.

4. Under the preview option, you’ll see the templating version number, for example, Templating API v1.

   

   This version number corresponds with the api_version field in the manifest file.