Understanding: Metaphors
The three kinds of prescripts influence texts on different levels of detail. What they have in common is that they are effects of a new kind of creation process, intrinsic to the computer.
How should we then understand the template? A few possible metaphors come to mind, each with different strengths and weaknesses. Templates could be likened to:
- Collaboration between the template author and the user,
- a platform to stand on to reach higher,
- a mould to shape an object, or
- the framing of a house that is clad in brick or wood.
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Collaboration
When authoring with templates, much of what is in the finished work was not a part of the prescripts, but is provided by the author. Authoring with templates could be considered collaboration.
Platform
The template could also be seen as something to stand on to reach higher than one otherwise would do, a platform. The latter is a metaphor that stresses the democratic powers of template-authoring systems. Templates give new powers of expression to citizens with little computer training. However, it is a view that hides exactly what I have discussed in this paper: the prescripts.
Mould
To highlight the restrictions, I should rather describe the template as like a mould, a form the creator pours his material into to make a new copy. This metaphor is useful insofar as it points to the fact that a template is fixed and can be used over and over for many creations. What is different with template authoring is that the user's "material" generally is more important as a message than the shape it is in.
Framing
A template could also be considered to be like the framing that supports a house: It is not the main visible features of the house, but without it, the house would not stand. It is a metaphor that stresses the necessary support a template provides. A template is far from invisible, however, but does instead lend actual connotations to the work.
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