Dreamweaver Template Page and Regions Explained.
Introduction.
Dreamweaver templates and editable regions are a god send to any one with a large website, say 50 pages plus although there is no reason why you wouldn’t want to use it on a site with 12 pages to help save you time, effort and your sanity!
When I first started Emelegifts (Casestudy of Emelegifts) I built every page separately. Sure, if I wanted a new page I would take an old page, rename it and then strip out everything I needed to change such as photos and content leaving me with the navigation and logo still in place. But when I wanted to add a new category to the navigation I would have to go through 300 pages, one at a time, adding a link in. It used to take me 2 full days. I would end up with maybe 20 pages with an error out of those 300 where I would loose my concentration and do it wrong or just hit the wrong button making a typo which I wouldn’t notice but everyone visiting the site would! As for changing my copyright notice to add the new year in, it would take me forever, talk about wasting time!
In the end I got so fed up with having to do edit each page individually every few months and thought there must be an easier way…. Aha – A template page in Dreamweaver!
It takes a little time to set them up in the beginning but after that – wow, you will think you were crazy to go through every page one at a time before, I certainly did and wondered why I hadn’t made that template, sanity / time saving page before!
Basically, once it is all setup you just go into your template page, make a change to the navigation or your copyright notice or whatever it is you want to have change on every page, press save and a little box pops up asking if you want to save this change to your other pages – Select ok and 300 pages are updated with the new link in the blink of an eye.
Why Would You Want to Use a Template Page?
Saves Time –
You know when you want to add a new link into your navigation and you have to go through every single page adding the link in? With an editable region template you make the change on your template page once and it’s updated automatically on all other pages. Saves hours if you have a site with hundreds of pages!
Less Chance of Mistakes –
We all do it, there you are writing a link name out and linking it up to the proper page, after you get to like the 20th page with 300 more to go you start getting bored and sloppy, so easily type O when you wanted a U…. You hit save not noticing the error, not noticing that you now have a typo or a broken link. With editable regions unless you do the link wrong the first time in the template page it can’t happen, it can’t “go wrong” because it’s all updated automatically using the template page.
Consistent Site Design / Layout -
You know when you go to some sites and one page is blue and one is green and one is yellow and one has Times New Roman content and the other has Ariel and every page is a different size text and the links are in different places and a different order on every page…… Ok I might be exaggerating but it does happen, we have all seen it right? Well, with the template page what you have on that template you will have on every page of your site. Everything in the same place as it should be, nothing looks wrong or “sloppy” like you couldn’t be bothered after page 50 to finish making the other changes.
So What Exactly Are Editable and Non-Editable Regions?
Say you set the template page up so that you have your navigation, header / banner and footer as a locked non-editable region. This means you only edit these things from your template page; so that each page on the site gets updated automatically when you press save.
The parts of the site that you need to be different I call your “content area”, the place where you put your images and your content etc. This “place” on the page would be your editable region. It is “unlocked” so that you go into each page individually adding you unique content and different images whether you are making an “About Us” page or a product page. From your individual pages you can’t change the navigation or whatever your non-editable region is, you go back to the template page to do this.
When you need to make a new page, click on the template tab, select your template name and “tada” your new page is there, all setup with your navigation, header and footer information, the things you specified as non-editable. All you need to do is save the page and add your content / images then upload as normal.
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