By using Dynamic Web Templates, you can create HTML pages
that share the same web design/ layout. In addition to providing a shared layout,
you can make some regions in a template available for editing while preventing
changes to other regions in that template. This means that you can allow
others to add and edit content, yet still preserve the layout of the
pages and the template itself.
You can use any number of Dynamic Web Templates in a Web site and you
can attach a Dynamic Web Template to as many pages as you like. You can
also save Dynamic Web Template (.dwt) files to any location. If you choose
to detach a Dynamic Web Template from one or more pages in a site, you
do not remove the content from those pages. You remove only the formatting
provided by the template.
In earlier versions of Microsoft FrontPage, you might have used shared
borders to create a region on a Web page that was common to one or more
pages in a Web site. You can now use Dynamic Web Templates instead. Unlike
shared borders, pages that are attached to Dynamic Web Templates share
an entire layout, and they offer much more control over which parts of
your pages are available for editing.
A Dynamic Web Template is an HTML-based master copy of a Web
page that you can create to contain settings, formatting, and page elements
such as text, graphics, page layout, styles, and regions of a Web page
that can be modified. You can attach a Dynamic Web Template to the pages
in a Web site, and that template defines the layout for those pages.
By creating a Dynamic Web Template, you can make regions on
attached pages available for other authors to add and modify content,
while preventing changes to other regions on the same page. This provides
you with control to preserve the layout of the pages and the template
itself.
When you update the content in a Dynamic Web Template, you can update
the attached Web pages simultaneously.
You can use any number of Dynamic Web Templates in a Web site, and you
can attach a Dynamic Web Template to as many pages as you like.
There are no special template storage restrictions, so you can save your
Dynamic Web Template (.dwt) files to any location.
What are the key content regions of a Dynamic Web Template?
Editable regions are those areas that you specify in the Dynamic
Web Template as being okay for other writers to edit. For example, you
might have a section about upcoming events that changes often. When creating
the Dynamic Web Template, you can enable other authors to add or remove
event information in the regions you specify without having to worry
that they will alter the page layout.
The following screen capture represents a sample Web page that is attached
to a Dynamic Web Template. The template specifies the following areas
as editable regions:
doctitle
This Week
ViewPoints
The screen capture also shows that the following are protected (non-editable) regions:
The lips logo in the top left corner of the page.
The navigation links, also on the left side of the page.
Protected regions are those areas in the layout that only the author of the Dynamic Web Template can change.
For example, you might want to add your logo to a protected region. The
logo will appear in the same location on every page that you attach to
the Dynamic Web Template. Contributing authors are not able to remove
the logo because it is in a protected region.
Dynamic Web Templates are particularly useful in collaborative
environments in which a designer controls the page layouts and other
authors add content to the pages but are not allowed to change the layout.
When it comes to updating the content on your Web pages, you can do it
dynamically!
The procedures that follow enable you to create a Dynamic
Web Template, add editable regions while preserving other non-editable
regions, and attach the template to Web pages, thereby allowing coauthors
to add and modify the content on the Web pages.
In the document window, right-click the editable region that you
want to rename, and then click Manage Editable Regions.
You can identify editable regions by the boxed areas on the page that
include a tab with the name of each region.
In the Region name box, type the new name, click Rename,
and then click Close.
On the File menu, click Save.
Click Yes.
Note If the Dynamic Web Template that you edited hosts
attached files, FrontPage will prompt you to update those files.
In the document window, right-click the editable region that you
want to rename or remove, and then click Manage Editable Regions.
You can identify editable regions by the boxed areas on the page that
include a tab with the name of each region.
Click Remove, and then click Close.
On the File menu, click Save.
Click Yes.
Note If the Dynamic Web Template that you edited hosts
attached files, FrontPage will prompt you to update those files.
Open the Web page you want to attach a Dynamic Web Template to.
To attach the Dynamic Web Template to more than one page, select the
pages you want.
In the Folder List, hold down CTRL and click each page
you want.
If the Folder List is hidden, click Folder List on
the View menu.
On the Format menu, point to Dynamic Web Template,
and then click Attach Dynamic Web Template.
Locate and click the Dynamic Web Template you want to attach, and
then click Open.
If the body of a selected Web page contains content, the Choose
Editable Regions for Content dialog box appears. The dialog box
displays the default settings for mapping content from the body of
the Web page to editable regions specified by the Dynamic Web Template.
The Old column lists content in the body of the Web page. The New column
lists editable regions specified by the template.
In the Choose Editable Regions for Content dialog box, do one
of the following:
To move all of the content in the body of the Web page to the
default editable region, click OK. If the default editable
region contains content, that content is replaced with the content
on the Web page.
To move all of the content in the body of the Web page to a specific
editable region, click (Body), and then click Modify.
In the New Region list, click the editable region you want
to move the content to. If you click (none), the content
is removed from the Web page.
To maintain all of the content and structure of the Web page,
click Skip Current Page. The template is not attached to
the page.
When you use Dynamic Web Templates, it doesn't take much to
keep your Web site current and professional looking. After you create
a Dynamic Web Template and attach it to the Web pages in your Web site,
you can update that template in the following ways:
Add new editable regions
Rename editable regions
Remove editable regions
Detach files from a Dynamic Web Template
Manually update attached pages
You can update the content in the editable regions as well as the protected
regions of the template as often as you want. You can even attach more
than one Dynamic Web Template to your Web site.
When you want to change the entire look of your Web site,
consider creating an entirely new Dynamic Web Template.
When you attach a different Dynamic Web Template to a Web site that has
an existing Dynamic Web Template attached, you may not want to move any
content from the existing template to the new template. If that's the
case, just detach the existing template and attach the new one.
If, however, you have content in editable regions in the existing template
that you want to move to the new template, we recommend that you use
the same naming practice for the editable regions. For example, if the
old template contains a News editable region, use that same name in the
new template. That way, when you attach the new template and specify
where the content goes, you do not have to look at the pages themselves
to designate a region in the new template.
After you create the new template and specify the editable regions in
it, you are ready to move the content from the editable regions in the
old template to the editable regions in the new one.
If, for some reason, you add content in the new template for example,
you include a sample of the text you want the writer to add in the region,
be sure the content from the old template does not overwrite the new
content. To do this, before you attach the new Dynamic Web Template,
in the Choose Editable Regions for Content dialog box, click Modify,
and then select (none) from the New Region list.
If the existing template contains protected content that you want to
move to the new template, you can copy it from the old template to the
new one.
Open the Web page to which you want to attach a different Dynamic
Web Template.
To attach the Dynamic Web Template to more than one page, select the
pages you want.
In the Folder List, hold down CTRL and click each page
you want.
If the Folder List is hidden, click Folder List on
the View menu.
On the Format menu, point to Dynamic Web Template,
and then click Attach Dynamic Web Template.
Locate and click the Dynamic Web Template you want to attach, and
then click Open.
If the Web page you selected contains editable regions specified by
the Dynamic Web Template previously attached to it, the Choose Editable
Regions for Content dialog box appears. The dialog box displays
the default settings for mapping content from the previous template
to the new template. The Old column lists editable regions specified
by the previous template. The New column lists editable regions
specified by the new template.
In the Choose Editable Regions for Content dialog box, do one
of the following:
To move all of the content in the body of the Web page to the
default editable region, click OK. If the default editable
region contains content, that content is replaced with the content
in the page.
To move content from an editable region specified by the previous
template to a specific editable region specified by the new template,
click the region in the Old column, and then click Modify.
In the New Region list, click the editable region you want
to move the content to. If the editable region in the new template
contains content, that content is replaced with the content in
the page.
To maintain all of the content and structure of the Web page,
click Skip Current Page. The template is not attached to
the page.
In the Folder List, select the file or files that you want
to detach from the Dynamic Web Template. To select multiple files,
hold down CTRL and click the files that you want to detach.
On the Format menu, point to Dynamic Web Template,
and then click Detach from Dynamic Web Template.
Manually update attached Web pages
Update Web pages from within the attached Dynamic Web Template
With the Dynamic Web Template open, on the Format menu,
point to Dynamic Web Template, and then click one of the following:
Update All Pages
Update Attached Pages
Update a selected page in the Folder List
In the Folder List, click the page that you want to update.
On the Format menu, point to Dynamic Web Template,
and then click Update Selected Page.
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