Managing Your Site
 with Dreamweaver
      by Brian Sullivan

   

Lessons

 

Using Templates

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A template is a document you can use to create multiple pages that share the same layout. When you create a template, you can indicate which elements of a page should remain constant (noneditable, or locked) in documents based on that template, and which elements can be changed.

You can modify a template even after you've created documents based on it. When you modify a template, the locked (noneditable) regions in documents that are based on the template are updated to match the changes to the template.

Templates are particularly useful in a collaborative environment in which a designer controls the page layouts, and other people add content to the pages but aren't allowed to change the layout.

Important Notes and Considerations

If you open a template file, you can edit everything in that file, whether it's marked as editable or locked. If you open a document that is based on a template file, you can edit only the regions that are marked as editable. So the terms editable and locked refer to whether a region is editable in a document based on a template, not to whether the region is editable in the template file itself.

Using a template may limit your later changes to design and layout. If you intend to make major layout changes to your pages later, you may want to use library items instead of templates.

Utilizing CSS or Behaviors usually requires that script or link information be stored in the HEAD section of the page which is locked in a template. Therefore, if you wish to utilize these things, you must do so in the template. (Certain behaviors in the BODY section may carry over if you apply a Template to an existing HTML page with the behavior set.)

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