It appears that template files are just .asta files, and that if I place them in ~/.astah/professional/template/project they will work. However this is inconvenient. as it appears astah does not allow me to open files in hidden directories, and so I cannot traverse directories to edit it. It would be nice if there were options "new template", "open template", "save as template"

Hi, this is a geart suggestion.
Thank you very much and I will make sure to get it to dev team.

Much appreciated for your support/honest feedback!
SJ