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Templates

gp1
Novice

Oct 10, 2006, 4:04 AM

Post #1 of 6 (3171 views)
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Templates	Can't Post

Hello,

Do you have posts or documents which give a bit more basic information about how to modify templates? I don't understand what template cells do or how to change them. I want to make a few changes in templates such as:

I want to create a section with its own template. I read the tutorial about this and created the template. In this section I would like to change the content of the left navigation bar. I want to change the title. Then I would like to see only the categories to articles in that section. On the right navigation bar I would like to have a text box in order to add comments about the article.

I have several more modifications and a better understanding of template elements would be helpful.

Thanks

ross
Staff / Moderator

Oct 10, 2006, 10:21 AM

Post #2 of 6 (3167 views)
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Re: [gp1] Templates [In reply to]	Can't Post

Hi there.

Thanks for posting!

I think the best place to start here is going to be with this tutorial on our site:

http://www.interactivetools.com/products/articlemanager/tutorials/templates101.html

That is going to cover the templates is quite a bit of detail and should give you a good working foundation to start out from.

We are always happy to help so once you have read through that, feel free to post up anymore questions you have Smile

.
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gp1
Novice

Oct 10, 2006, 4:21 PM

Post #3 of 6 (3161 views)
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Re: [ross] Templates [In reply to]	Can't Post

Thanks for your reply. I read the tutorial and that's a good introduction but I am still not clear about what separate elements do. Could you for instance tell me what template elements I need to copy into this basic HTML document to obtain results:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<title>Untitled</title>
</head>

<body>

</body>
</html>

Let's say I want to see the category list and article summary and titles.

Thanks.

ross
Staff / Moderator

Oct 11, 2006, 9:15 AM

Post #4 of 6 (3146 views)
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Re: [gp1] Templates [In reply to]	Can't Post

Hi.

Thanks for getting back in touch!

From the sounds of it, you are actually going to want to have a look at your index template. You�ll find that here:

/templates/index/default.html

That is actually going to build a page very similar to what you describe. There are couple different things happening here though.

First off, the category list is created as a separate file all on its own and gets included onto your index page with this line of code:

Code

    <!-- INCLUDE CATEGORY LIST --> 
    <!--#include virtual="$publishdir_virtualpath$$file_categories$" -->

That can be placed anywhere on the page based on where you want the categories to actually appear.

Next, the list of articles is going to appear where ever you see this bit of code:

Code

<!-- template insert : $article_list$ -->

Now, the formatting of your article list is actually handled by the four templatecells you see below this line (in an unmodified version of the template that is). When you are creating a new article you get 4 choices for what type it will be:

Full Article
Summary Only
Internet URL
Uploaded File

The template insert line of code is going to loop through all your articles and just start displaying them one at a time. Each time it comes to an article that is set as Full Article, it will use the HTML code you see between the  tags. Each time it comes across a Summary Only article, it will use the HTML code between the <!�templatecell : row_summary --> tags. And so forth. Here�s a quick list of which templatecell each article type uses:

Full Article => 
Summary Only => 
Internet URL => 
Uploaded File => 

And that is some more detail on what�s happening with your index template. So you know, with the default settings, each of your index pages will use this template. Each of your categories gets an index page published for you and there is always one main index page called index.shtml.

Does that all help? Keep me up to date with how you are making out Smile

gp1
Novice

Oct 11, 2006, 8:50 PM

Post #5 of 6 (3136 views)
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Re: [ross] Templates [In reply to]	Can't Post

Thank you for your reply. This was very helpful. I made several changes in the style sheets. I am almost done but there are a few things I could not figure out and I wanted to ask you.

In the article summary page, I want to remove the category name above the title. How can I do that?

I also want to change the title of the navigation bars. Where can I find them?

Thanks again

ross
Staff / Moderator

Oct 12, 2006, 10:25 AM

Post #6 of 6 (3126 views)
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Re: [gp1] Templates [In reply to]	Can't Post

Hi.

Glad you are getting on well with your templates Smile

.

Removing the category name on your article summary page is quite easy. The only thing is that I am not quite sure what you mean by article summary page. That�s not a big problem because there is probably only two possibilities anyway and the code change would be the same.

The first would be what we call your index page. This is a page that lists the most recent articles from any category and puts a summary bellow each article title. If this is the page we are talking about here, the template you are looking for is /templates/index/default.html

The second would be what we call your article pages. This is a page dedicated to just one article and will typically display anything you entered in the Article Content field. If this is the page we are talking about, the template you are looking for is /templates/article/default.html

Now, in either case, you�ll be opening up your template and looking for this bit of code:

Code

<span class="header_breadcrumb">$cat_breadcrumb$</span>

If you remove that, the category names aren�t going to be showing above your articles. This is referred to as the category breadcrumb.

With the titles of the navigation bars, there are few different templates they are pulled in from. Here�s a run down:

Front Page -> is actually coming from a setting on the Server tab in Setup Options. Just look for the field labeled: �Global Category Name� and you�ll see it.

Search -> This comes from the /templates/search/search_form.html template. You�ll see it up a the top of the page.

Latest Headlines -> This actually comes from two different places depending on what page you are looking at. On index pages, it will come from /templates/headlines_bycat.html and on article pages it will come from /templates/headlines/default.html.. In both cases, it�s like the other one. Just up a the top.

Have a look and let me know how you make out. Remember to republish your articles after making a template change Smile

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