Where, how?! Where to find this in help or wiki?
Use the search of the wiki: searching for "packages" leads you to
Lazarus Packages whcih, in turn, points to other pages about the topic: the category
IDE Window leads you to (almost) all the pages dealing with using the IDE, including the configuration; searching "project templates" goes almost directly to
Project Templates, etc. There are also other resources out there in the web, google for them!
Work with the pure source: able to browse source to the very assembler level to read-recognize-edit-correct.
To do this without recompiling the IDE itself. To work (at least at this time of learning) - with bare *.pas files and without those multiple *.pp, *.res ... etc.
I'm not at all sure whether
Pascal source goes to the "very assembly level"
Jokes apart, you can even do this, by compiling with the
-al, which will give a nice assembler file
including the Pascal lines which generate it. Which is explained in the manuals.
Alas! Adding packages without recompiling the IDE is not possible (yet); as for the rest, you can (mostly) forget about any file type other than the "bare" pascal sources, which can in fact be
*.inc,
*.lpr,
*.pp or
*.pas To tell the truth, most of the time I work just with my own
.pas and let the IDE deal with all those
*.res,
*.lrj, etc.
All in all, Lazarus and FreePascal's learning curve is somewhat steep at the start ... but it quickly becomes rather "soft" and steady, accelerating the learning. Just one of its advantages.