Editing templates

5 posts by 3 authors in: Forums > CMS Builder
Last Post: November 12, 2010   (RSS)

By steve_e - November 11, 2010

Hi -
I've just created a new template by copying an 'articles' section into the 'schemaPresets' folder.

Is it possible to edit the templates directly to, for example, add new fields to it, or do I just have to copy a new updated file into this folder?

Regards, Steve

Re: [steve_e] Editing templates

By gkornbluth - November 11, 2010

Hi Steve,

I'm not sure that I know where you're stuck, but once you've put the template into the presets folder, you can create a new section with that template, naming it anything that you want to, and then add or change any fields that are required in the newly created section.

Once you've done that, if the new revised section is more useful as a template for creating future sections, you can copy and upload that one into the presets folder and delete the first one if you like.

Does that help?

Best,

Jerry Kornbluth
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Re: [steve_e] Editing templates

By Chris - November 11, 2010

Hi Steve,

You can edit your schemaPresets directly with a text editor, but that's not exactly recommended!

You'll probably find it easier to modify a schemaPreset by moving it to schema/, working with it with CMS Builder's Section Editor, then moving it back to schemaPresets/. For this reason, it would be useful to have your preset's filename be different than any of your existing sections. You can safely rename schemaPreset files.

The only weirdness with this approach will be that you'll have an extra table in your MySQL database named after your schemaPreset. You can safely ignore it. :)

I hope this helps! Please let me know if you have any questions.
All the best,
Chris

Re: [gkornbluth] Editing templates

By steve_e - November 12, 2010

Thanks Jerry I missed your reply. That's more or less what I'll do. I want to have an 'Articles' template with a large number of standard fields, which I can then use to create an indeterminate number of 'types' of article. Thing is I keep thinking of extra fields I'd like to put in this template, which is why I asked this question.

One thing that occurred to me is that it might be quite smart to have some types of templates that will automatically update or add fields in the sections that were created from them, which might save some repetition when you're adding fields at a later date.

But I can also see where that might cause unexpected problems...