Templates

User level (creating/editing): Site Owner; Site Administrator

User level (using): Site Owner; Site Administrator; Site Editor; Site Author; Site Contributor

Templates allow site admins to define the layout and widget placement for a designated class of pages. This ensures that site editors and authors only write and edit content within the template, and cannot make changes to page layout.

Templates are created in the Manage Content > Templates screen. When creating a template, the first thing you need to decide is which Content Subtype the template (and subsequently, the pages created from the template) will belong to.

Then, on the template creation screen:

• Give the template a title (in the 'Title' text field)
• The template can then be set up in the same way that a page is created: select Layout; place the widgets you want to use in each page region
• You can add content to the template (e.g. as default, guidance, or example) but you can’t prevent editors and authors from changing or removing it when they create a page from the template.

Once you have saved the edits, the template can be used to create pages (Manage Content > Content screen > 'Add new content': choose the template from the list of templates at the top of the screen).

Using templates

Template description and guidance

Once you have created your template, it is recommended that you re-enter the edit mode (Manage Content > Templates > 'Edit' button next to the template description field) and add a description and guidance notes (in the 'Template' tab) for content editors who will use the template.

Template usage and editing (according to user role)

All user roles can use templates to create pages (Site Authors can only make content using templates). Information about which users can create and edit templates is in the 'User roles' section of the Users documentation page.

Site owners and administrators editing pages created from templates can opt to 'break out' of the template. To do this, click the “Enable Full Content Editing” button in the page’s edit mode:

Once this is done, the page can be edited just like any page created from scratch; there is no way to re-link the page to its template.

Limitations of templates

Templates are not dynamic - if a page is created from a template then the template is edited, the changes to the template are not reflected in the page that has already been created. Creating a page from a template operates by creating a copy of the template in its current state.

On pages created from templates, widgets cannot be added or removed but they can be configured using the widget configuration options.