The Webpage Template Builder allows you to create and maintain the layout templates that will be used on your site. Once defined here, these templates will be available to users of the Webpage Publisher to assign to specific pages.
Features
- You can create and maintain templates for your website without HTML knowledge.
- You can customize and lock part of the pages so that they cannot be amended
- You build templates from functional plugins (also called "blocks")
- Plugins can be free-text entry for static text, images, or HTML
- Plugins can be configurable to automatically pick up dynamic content form Publish Port
- Plugins can automate the navigation system
- Plugins can be used to integrate existing sites pages into the IA Builder.
- Preview options are available for customized sections of the templates and the templates them self.
- See a full list of the plug-ins/blocks here.
Concepts behind the layout templates
Pages in the IA Builder are made up of a number of layers. The base template is used to ensure that items common to all pages are specified in the one place, for example the navigation bar or the footer. Typically, the base template will specify the top, bottom, and side sections of the page.
The body template defines the more dynamic parts of the page, for example it may define the layout for specific types of documents.
The templates themselves are defined using content blocks that have different functionality. They may be standard or custom-defined. A block may contain the organization logo for instance, or it may be a free-text block, which allows a user to enter whatever text or graphic they wish to for that particular page.
These three elements are used together to create the overall webpage template that can then be applied to any number of webpages.
