Elephant renders macros each time a page is requested. Macros start with {@ special characters and expand into text or HTML code. Macros can even include content from a file, HTML page or JSP page. In order to understand what macros are for see what current macros do:

• Core
• Navigational
• Modules
• Documentation
• Macro summary

Macros can be nested, but take in mind that macros are written inline, in order to allow content inclusions. Thus, only macros that resolve to a string could be nested. Ex.

{@equals:{@user:id}:admin:Administering:Browsing}

To escape the : character prepend a slash, like /:.

Next generation

The next generation of macros provide a great number of features, aiming to easy-of-use customization. The main goals are:

• Order agnostic parameters. Parameters can be specified by name, in any order.
• Significant decrement of macro names. Using the order agnostic parameters, a single macro can offer more options.
• Easy escaping characters. Escape values enclose it in brackets, ex. name=[values] or [values].
• Single parser, multiple processors. Relaxes complexity on macro processors, by parsing parameter tuples.
• Improved fail detection. Parser detects macro existence before fully interpreting the content.
• Better backward compatibility. While using named parameters, macro changes won't break previous code.
• Error feedback. None interpretable macros will be rendered in red and failure will be logged in the system.
• Empty result default. Empty results can show a value using the system-wide parameter void.
• Fully nested macros. Macros can be nested, in order to provide values, macro names or the empty default.

Next generation macros are expressed as @{macro_name}.