Component Templates 

Component templates allow you to determine varying layouts and functionality for different parts of your web service. A content template can be used for any part of your site, from a single component to an entire site.
 

What is the default template? 

 

You can choose one of the component templates as the default template. This template will be automatically used by all content components you create, unless you specify that they use another template. This feature allows you to change the look and feel of your entire site by just changing the default template. 

Create a new component 

+ Open the properties box for the component by right- clicking the name of the component and selecting properties 

+ Type a name for your component then set the Type to ʻTemplateʼ. This will display the template settings. 

+ Finally, check the box that says ʻSet as the default templateʼ 


This will grey-out the setting to set the template as the master template. This is because the master template and the default template cannot be the same. 

You can create a range of different templates for different pages or sections of your site. You may, for example, want to have a general template for the overall look of your site, but have a specific layout for a blog page, or product page. You can do this by creating additional templates that you use for these pages. 

Try experimenting with tables and container div elements - you can use either to build your template. You can create simple tabular layouts or much more complex designs with divs and spans. 

When using a template component, you will need to add a place holder that marks the area where the content will be shown. This is done by adding a Component Include element onto the template. This defines the position of the main content area and will be the place in your template where any content component you ask for is displayed. The process of adding elements is described further on part ‘Adding elements to components’.