Yes.
With original version, you had to do this.
1) Create new plugin LoadTemplate and paste the plugin code in it.
2) Check the OnLoadWebDocument checkbox on the plugin System Events tab.
3) Put a string like thus which follows in your template source code :
@FILE:helpPagesTemplate.tpl
The path was implicitely relative to the assets/templates subfolder.
For instance
@FILE:help_templates/helpInEnglish.tpl
was used to specify path to
/assets/templates/help_templates/helpInEnglish.tpl
With enhanced version, steps 1 and 2 are the same.
For step 3, you have to specify assets/templates explicitely.
But, --and that’s the benefit-- you can use a chunk at the beginning of your path.
For instance, if you created a folder at the root of your site for particular customer, you could use :
@FILE:{{customer}}/assets/templates/template.tpl
where the chunk {{customer}} could be set to "demo_123" or whatever else.
(Of course, the chunk can also contain the assets/templates subpath if you prefer.
So you can run demos on your site. If you migrate the"demo_123" folder (containing the subsite), you can set the {{customer}} so that it doesn’t have any more content on the production server.
This way you can map a MODx-like structure contained in demo_123 to the structure starting at the root of a production server.
Hope this answers your question and helps understanding the reason of the enhancement.