Customizing Templates
Preview Templates | Initial Setup | Customizing Templates
Adding and Maintaining Pages | Reference
Before You Start
Templates are useful in that they make changes to all pages "based" on the template automatically when saved. (See Adding and Maintaining Pages for how to create a page based on a template.) All changes made outside the blue-boxed editable regions will be applied to other pages.
If you have not done any work with web pages before, you may also want to read our Reference Guide.
Editing the Header
In the header, you can edit the following things:
- The image, if there is one in the layout
- "Your Department" and the subtitle
Click inside these areas to edit text just like you would in a word processor. To replace the image, click on it and hit delete, then go to Insert > Image in the toolbar and select an image of about the same dimensions (200x100). There are a number of images of that size on the server, if you need one. (A little larger or smaller won't cause problems, if you already have an image in mind.) Note: You will need to make sure to upload this image to the server along with your pages if it is not already there, as local files will not show up when the page is put online.
To edit "Your Department" and "Subtitle," open Header.lbi in the Library folder, and edit the text there. Save to see your changes reflected across all the pages of your site.
Editing the Navigation
To edit the navigation, open Navbar.lbi in the Library folder. When you save, changes you made to the file will be made to all your site pages.
The navigation bar is in unordered list format. Editing item names can be done by selecting them and typing over them. To edit links, see Links in our Dreamweaver reference.
To add a new item to the navigation, hit "Enter" after the link you wish to put it behind, and then type your new navigation item.
Editing the Sidebar
To format text as a heading, go to the "Properties" box at the bottom of the screen, find the "Style" drop-down, and click on "heading." To return to normal text on the next line, find the drop-down again, and this time click "None."
To create a list in the sidebar, click the bulleted or ordered list button in the "Properties" box. While in the list, every time you hit return a new item will be created. To exit a list, create one more new item, and then uncheck the box.
To remove the sidebar altogether, open the Default.dwt template and click inside the sidebar. Look to the bottom bar of the editing window, where it shows the tags, and click on <div#sidebar>. Hit backspace. This will delete your sidebar.
Editing the Footer
Click anywhere inside the footer area. Then go to the "Properties" box, and click "Open." Edit your contact information, as well as the links at the top of the footer to reflect your page structure. The rest of the footer should stay the same.
Changing the Color Scheme
Open the file "layout.css" on the same level as your main pages. You will see the following lines:
@import url("http://www.wcas.northwestern.edu/shared/templates/v1/options/layout.css");
@import url("http://www.wcas.northwestern.edu/shared/templates/v1/options/purple.css");
To change the overall layout, change "options" in both lines to options, open, boxy or leftnav. To change the color, edit "purple" in the second line and change it to purple, green, red or blue.
Finishing
Once you are done with your customizations, upload your entire site to see the changes on the online version. See Adding and Maintaining Pages for more information on uploading files to the server.
Top
|
