# Use more often placeholder forms in documentation topics?
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/use-more-often-placeholder-forms-in-documentation-topics/395360
**Category:** Site feedback
**Tags:** placeholder-forms
**Created:** [February 6, 2026, 11:46am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/use-more-often-placeholder-forms-in-documentation-topics/395360 "2026-02-06T11:46:24Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Canapin](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Canapin)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2026, 11:46am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/use-more-often-placeholder-forms-in-documentation-topics/395360/1 "2026-02-06T11:46:24Z")
> [@Placeholder forms is such a great component](https://meta.discourse.org/t/placeholder-forms-is-such-a-great-component/386769/2):
>
> Thanks for the commentary! blush I would be very glad if even more documentation platforms started including it.
Made me think that meta is, partially, a documentation platform.
Searching for `example.discourse.com` in the documentation returns [46 results](https://meta.discourse.org/search?q=discourse.example.com%20%23documentation%20order%3Alatest) (and other topics may use another domain).
Those topics could benefit from placeholders. Single example of a topic with many `discourse.example.com` mentions: [Discourse Doc Categories](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-doc-categories/322376)
What about using #placeholder-forms on those topics?
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### Author:  [@pacharanero](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pacharanero)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2026, 12:15pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/use-more-often-placeholder-forms-in-documentation-topics/395360/2 "2026-02-06T12:15:40Z")
100% agree @Canapin! I’m a big fan of the #placeholder-forms component and I use it on all my personal and business Discourses, for documentation, creating Runbooks, and for semi-automating processes which aren’t ready for a Bash script.
Here’s an example that uses a Placeholder [Publishing a Material for MkDocs site to Azure, with automatic branch/PR preview deployments - blog - Baw Medical Ltd](https://bawmedical.co.uk/t/publishing-a-material-for-mkdocs-site-to-azure-with-automatic-branch-pr-preview-deployments/763)
I’d love to see articles in #Documentation > Self-Hosting and #community-wiki:sysadmins use placeholders wherever there is some text/command to use which needs real-time customisation with user input.
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### Author:  [@Moin](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Moin)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2026, 8:26pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/use-more-often-placeholder-forms-in-documentation-topics/395360/3 "2026-02-06T20:26:39Z")
I also like the placeholder component. [Use a subfolder (path prefix) to serve Discourse with multiple servers sharing a domain](https://meta.discourse.org/t/use-a-subfolder-path-prefix-to-serve-discourse-with-multiple-servers-sharing-a-domain/30514) is an example where it’s already used, and the placeholder is also working in the automatic translation (at least in German; I was a little afraid AI could break the formatting).
I would also like to see [Discourse icon](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-icon/143374) being used more often instead of tiny screenshots of an icon or using an emoji that looks similar.