Global placeholders

Some placeholders are not really about one template. A client's name, a company, a department - they belong to the way you work rather than to a particular folder structure. A global placeholder is defined once, in the Globals screen, and every template in your library can use it.

Defining one

Globals sits in the sidebar beside Library and Settings. Its Placeholders tab lists the globals you have defined, and gives each one the three things a template's own placeholder has: a key, a display label, and a default value.

The Placeholders tab of the Globals screen, with the list of globals on the left and one being edited — The panel on the right lists the templates that write the key you are editing.

A key has to be unique across the library, and it cannot be one of the built-ins. Two globals sharing a key would leave the value down to lookup order, so a key Prefab will not accept is refused rather than saved, and the field says why. The last key it did accept stays in use meanwhile.

Where a global applies

A global fills {{client_name}} in a template that writes {{client_name}} without defining a placeholder of its own with that key. Nothing else brings it into play.

Prefab works this out by reading the template rather than by listing everything it knows. Folder names, file names and file contents are scanned for placeholders, embedded templates included, and only the keys actually found there count. A global that nothing refers to never reaches the deploy prompt, so defining one costs you nothing in the templates that have no use for it.

A template's own definition always wins

If a template defines {{client_name}} itself, that definition is used - its label, its default - and the global is set aside for that template. Adding a global can never change what an existing template asks for.

Seen from inside a template

A template's Placeholders tab lists the globals as well, in a section of their own, each marked with how it relates to the template you are looking at.

Used in this template. The template writes the key, and the global fills it.
Overridden by a placeholder here. The template defines its own placeholder with that key, and that one is used.
Not used here yet. Defined in the library, but this template does not write the key.

The section is read-only. Editing a global from inside one template would change every other template that uses it, so the edit belongs in Globals, where you can see what it reaches.

The Global Placeholders section inside a template's Placeholders tab, showing each global's status — Globals as seen from inside a template: shown, not edited.

Deleting one

Deleting a global does not touch any template. What changes is that nothing fills its key any more. Templates that write it have no definition to draw on, and the key turns up again under Suggestions in their Placeholders tab, ready to be defined locally or globally.

Globals in a shared template

A .prefab file carries the globals its templates rely on - the ones they write without defining themselves - so a template still asks the right questions on the machine that receives it.

On import, a key the receiving library already defines keeps its local meaning. The incoming definition is skipped rather than merged, because changing a global's label or default would change what every existing template there prompts for. See Sharing templates.

The right-click menu reads the same library, so globals count towards a deploy from FinderFile Explorer exactly as they do in the app. See The FinderFile Explorer extension.