Is it possible to add templates other than #+BEGIN_ #+END_ to org-structure-template-alist?

Question

I've noticed that org-structure-template-alist changed (I'm using org-mode version 9.2) to automatically expand to #+BEGIN_<some block tag> #+END_<some block tag>. I wonder if it's possible to add different kind of templates. For instance a :PROPERTIES:<some properties>:END: template.

Is it possible or should I turn to another package like yasnippets?

Answer 1

UPDATE:

Haven't noticed that Org Mode 9.2 changed the mechanism of template expansion, where org-structure-template-alist is only for blocks defined by "#+BEGIN_" and "#+END_". And entry like ("p" ":PROPERTIES:?:END:") is no longer accepted.

As mentioned in the above link, other "complex" template can be defined by function tempo-define-template , and org-tempo must be loaded((require 'org-tempo)). Actually the entries of org-structure-template-alist are converted to org-tempo-tags via tempo-define-template by org-tempo, and org-tempo-tags defaults to:

(("<i" . tempo-template-org-index)
 ("<A" . tempo-template-org-ascii)
 ("<H" . tempo-template-org-html)
 ("<L" . tempo-template-org-latex)
 ("<v" . tempo-template-org-verse)
 ("<s" . tempo-template-org-src)
 ("<q" . tempo-template-org-quote)
 ("<l" . tempo-template-org-export-latex)
 ("<h" . tempo-template-org-export-html)
 ("<E" . tempo-template-org-export)
 ("<e" . tempo-template-org-example)
 ("<C" . tempo-template-org-comment)
 ("<c" . tempo-template-org-center)
 ("<a" . tempo-template-org-export-ascii)
 ("<I" . tempo-template-org-include))

For your case, you can define a template by:

(tempo-define-template "my-property"
               '(":PROPERTIES:" p ":END:" >)
               "<p"
               "Insert a property tempate")

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Below answer only works for Org mode version prior to 9.2

Yes, you could add an entry to it like this:

(add-to-list 'org-structure-template-alist '("p" ":PROPERTIES:?:END:"))

Then in org file, you type <p and TAB, it will expand to property and leave the point at the position of ?.

And you can find more details in the documentation of the variable by typing C-h v org-structure-template-alist RET.