eric’s modification is to remove the “duplicate” at the bottom of the fields list (i think it’s more of an input, which is why it doesn’t have a trashbin, and why we’re altering the edittemplate?)
if you use brian’s original code you’ll get the prompt for input, and once you enter a value it will produce a line for the field as well (so “duplicate” lines)
since it’s an input i think you don’t get a real field stored until you complete the input, which is something you might want to consider in your workflow – and as you’ve noticed, having a default value doesn’t seem to work (it seems like you actually need to alter the field value before it recognises it as something it can save)
i would personally use mohammad’s recommendation (i use something similar for several fields and have the button visible at all times – some people add it to the sidebar) as you are guaranteed the fields will populate just from creating the new tiddler
but it’s swings and roundabouts, with brian and eric’s recommendation you can do it for missing tiddlers (but you need to enter a value and save it) while with mohammad’s recommendation you need to click the button and default can be automated (but it won’t work for missing tiddlers, you’d need to alter your workflow)
yes i agree that would make sense, and have it in the control panel too; maybe it’s not so easily doable in the code
in a different direction, did you see linonetwo’s thread about templates? What are your favorite tiddler templates?