Templates for cloning

[Nathan Neff <nathan.neff@gmail.com>]

Hi all,

Is there a way to create a template structure for cloning?

The main purpose would be to create a shell or structure that is easy
to replicate,
such as a workflow, etc.  This shell, etc would not need any
hard-coded dates, but could
simply have offsets for sub-items whose due-dates or start dates are
relative to a single start date.

For example,

I'd like to have this:

* Some Project
** Plan Project
<start-date-placeholder>
** Step 1
<start-date-placeholder +1d>
** Step 2

<start-date-placeholder +1w>
** Project Due
<DEADLINE:start-date-placeholder +1m>

This would be cool, because

1)  You wouldn't see this template in the agenda, because the dates
aren't hard-coded
2)  You could be prompted for the start date when you clone this
template, and all the dates
would then be created from that start date
3)  When cloning this template, you wouldn't have to calculate the
delta between the
template's date and the initial start date that you plan for the clone
of this template

Does anyone know of a way to do this?
  - I could keep this template in another directory or re-name it as
.TXT so that the agenda wouldn't pick up
the template's fake start dates, but this seems hacky.

Thanks
--Nate