Creating a template

You can use templates to create documents that have a common structure and appearance. Templates are useful when you want to make sure that all of the pages in a site share certain characteristics.

Once you apply a single template to a group of pages, you can edit information on the group of pages by editing the template and then reapplying it to those pages. While elements unique to each page (such as text describing an item for sale) remain unchanged, common template elements (such as navigation bars) are updated on all of the pages that use the template.

The Cyber Rez homepage links to several other pages about the Cyber Rez. You'll use the homepage to create a template. Using a template ensures that rest of your pages will have an identical layout and format.

In this section, you'll create a template from the existing homepage and then use the template to create pages.

Create the template

You'll create a template from the tutorial version of the CyberRez homepage. You'll then use this template to create additional product pages.

1	In the Site window, in the Local Folder list, double-click the icon for DW3_products_cd.html to open the file.
2	Choose File > Save as Template.
	The Save As Template dialog box appears.
3	In the Save As field, change the template name: type main_template , and then click Save.
	A new document appears in the Document window. Notice the Template identifier as well as the file extension .dwt.

Modify the template

At this point, your new template is the same as the page from which you saved the template. The layout for certain page areas need to be the same on each product page: the navigation bar and the title

Each template contains both locked and editable regions. Locked regions can be edited only inside the template itself; they appear in a highlight color on all pages the template is applied to. Editable regions are placeholders for the content that is unique to each page the template is applied to. In an applied template, the editable regions are highlighted.

1	In the main_template.dwt template in the Document window, select and delete all the text underneath the title graphic. Delete te image as well. In this blank new area type in the word body.
2	Select the text you just typed.
3	Choose Modify > Templates > New Editable Region.
	The New Editable Region dialog box appears.
4	In the Name field, type Body as the name for this region of the template.
5	Click OK.
	Notice the text is now highlighted, indicating this is an editable region of the template.
10	Choose File > Save to save your template.
	The Update Pages dialog box appears, asking if you want to update all the documents in your local site. Selecting Yes would update the pages in the completed Cyber Rez site, which you don't want to do.
11	Click No, and then click Close to close the Update Pages dialog box.
12	Close the template.