FrontPage Dynamic Web Template (DWT) Tutorial

• Introduction
• What is a Dynamic Web Template?
• How do I use Dynamic Web Templates?
• What are the key content regions of a Dynamic Web Template?
• Who uses Dynamic Web Templates?
• How do I get started with Dynamic Web Templates?
• Create a Dynamic Web Template
• Add editable regions to a Dynamic Web Template
• Rename an editable region
• Remove an editable region
• Attach a Dynamic Web Template
• How do I change a Dynamic Web Template-based Web site?
• Update the current Dynamic Web Template
• Attach a different Dynamic Web Template
• Detach files from a Dynamic Web Template
• Manually update attached Web pages

Introduction

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.

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What is a Dynamic Web Template?

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.

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How do I use Dynamic Web Templates?

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.

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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:

1. doctitle
2. This Week
3. ViewPoints
4. 
   The screen capture also shows that the following are protected (non-editable) regions:
5. The lips logo in the top left corner of the page.
6. 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.

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Who uses Dynamic Web Templates?

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!

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How do I get started with Dynamic Web Templates?

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.

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Create a Dynamic Web Template

1. Create or open an HTML document.
2. On the File menu, click Save As.
3. In the Save as type list, click Dynamic Web Template, and then click Save.
4. Create the basic contents and structure of the template in the *.dwt file, and then click Save.
    

Add editable regions to a Dynamic Web Template

1. Open the Dynamic Web Template (.dwt) file.
2. In Page view, at the bottom of the document window, click Design.
3. Select only the areas in the template where you want to allow other Web authors to change the attached Web pages.
4. Right-click a selection, and then click Manage Editable Regions.
5. In the Region name box, type a name for the editable region, for example, Header, Body, or Footer.
6. Click Add.
7. Repeat steps 3 through 6 for each new editable region you want to add, and then click Close.

Rename an editable region

1. Open the Dynamic Web Template (.dwt) file.
2. 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.
3. In the Region name box, type the new name, click Rename, and then click Close.
4. On the File menu, click Save.
5. Click Yes.

Note If the Dynamic Web Template that you edited hosts attached files, FrontPage will prompt you to update those files.

Remove an editable region

1. Open the Dynamic Web Template (.dwt) file.
2. 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.
3. Click Remove, and then click Close.
4. On the File menu, click Save.
5. Click Yes.

Note If the Dynamic Web Template that you edited hosts attached files, FrontPage will prompt you to update those files.

Attach a Dynamic Web Template

1. 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.
2. On the Format menu, point to Dynamic Web Template, and then click Attach Dynamic Web Template.
3. 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.

How do I change a Dynamic Web Template-based Web site?

After you begin using Dynamic Web Templates, you will need to perform tasks to change the existing page layout.
Such tasks can include:

• detaching a Dynamic Web Template
• attaching a different Dynamic Web Template
• renaming and removing editable regions
• manually updating attached pages

If you want to change the current page layout of your Web site, and you are using Dynamic Web Templates, you need to do one of the following:

• Update the current Dynamic Web Template
• Attach a different Dynamic Web Template

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Update the current Dynamic Web Template

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.

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Attach a different Dynamic Web Template

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.

1. 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.
2. On the Format menu, point to Dynamic Web Template, and then click Attach Dynamic Web Template.
3. 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.

Detach files from a Dynamic Web Template

1. 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.
2. 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

1. In the Folder List, click the page that you want to update.
2. On the Format menu, point to Dynamic Web Template, and then click Update Selected Page.

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