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About the templates
Traditionally, when one discusses web templates, one refers to prescribed layouts that accommodate specific types of media and content in specific areas of a webpage. This was the case with our previous template offerings, but the 2015 templates depart from that model.
Rather than providing a collection of rigid layouts, the 2015 templates function as more of a page-builder solution that allows the user to divide up the page real estate according to the needs of the content. Here's how it works:
- The user creates a page.
- The user adds sections to the page.
- The user adds one or more rows to each section.
- The user adds one or more widgets to each row.
Centralized updates
Template assets are, wherever possible, managed centrally. This means that in most cases, updates to the template are automatically reflected across all subscribing Sites, minimizing the efforts required by Site owners to stay in sync and up-to-date.
Requires PHP
The 2015 template utilize php for the following features like:
- Publish to subdirectory - You can publish your site to a subdirectory of the web root. Sitewide assets auto-discover their location in the folder structure to keep path references in tact.
- Single-point publishing - Sitewide and multipage assets (e.g., header, footer, primary and secondary navs) are referenced on pages via include statements. Changes to these assets are made live by publishing the asset itself rather than all subscribing pages.
- Dynamic dates - Easy-to-overlook things like the copyright year never need to be updated.
About the template documentation
This is it. Please utilize the comment feature on this wiki to post questions about the templates and this documentation. That way, others can benefit from your query.
Some terminology
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| section | Sections are high-level organizational structures on a webpage. Their use is beneficial for accessibility and SEO purposes. |
| row | Rows group content for layout and presentation purposes only. They have no semantic influence on a webpage. |
| widget | Widgets are low-level organizational containers that encapsulate the specific content and functional elements of a webpage. |
| header | The page header appears at the top of every webpage and contains the site masthead and search form. Note that the context of the 2015 templates, term 'header' is not equivalent to, nor interchangeable with, the term 'heading', which has its own distinct meaning. |
| heading | Headings are text elements used to identify various content areas of a webpage. Headings are available in multiple 'levels', the highest level being h1 and the lowest being h6. The heading levels provide content hierarchy and semantic structure to a webpage. Their use is beneficial for accessibility and SEO purposes. |
| site | Note the lowercase 's'. A website, hosted on a web server, accessible to visitors via a web browser. |
| Site | Note the uppercase 'S'. A Cascade Site. This is where your web content and assets are housed for editing. Only those with proper authorization can access the content here. |
| data definition (datadef) | A data definition, or datadef for short, is a web form used to provide content for a page or other web asset. In other words, datadefs are what you interact with when you edit a page, content block, file, folder, etc. |
| wysiwyg | Acronym: "what you see is what you get". Pronounced whiz-ee-wig. Refer to Hannon Hill's wysiwyg documentation. |
Getting started
- Request a Cascade Site from Strategic Communications
- Configure your site settings
- Edit your site header
- Edit your site footer
- Create folders
- Load your multimedia assets
- Create pages
- Edit your site navigation
- Update your robots.txt file
Upcoming features
Check our template roadmap to see what's planned for future enhancements.