A simple test follows: ${message} A more rigorous test, showing that we're not faking it: ${message@#$%&}

Message exists! ...and even generates output! Nested statements are ok, too.

Here's another edge case, this time, trying to output a <noparse> inside another <noparse> This is what the noparse instruction looks like: This part of the template wont be parsed by the FreeMarker parser. Instead, it will be treated as verbatim text information, and output as such. The rest of the template appears here. Simple.