Websites are an important aspect for companies trying to promote themselves. While building a website, the content can pile up and eventually it can get difficult keeping up with all the pages. Let’s say you forget to add a copyright symbol that needs to be displayed on every single page. Depending on the amount of pages you have, it could take hours. There is a helpful tool in Macromedia Dreamweaver that allows a user to make their web pages from a template, saving countless hours and potential money.
How do you make a template?
Complete the web page you want set
as the template
Click Insert > Template Objects
> Make Template or File > Save as Template
A box will pop up with save
options
Click the ‘Save’ button at the top
right corner
Now what do I do with my template?
The first thing you should do is open your template and add an edit region box. The edit region allows for content to be added to your site. Make sure you add an edit region wherever you may want to add content. Once you have chosen the areas where you want to add your content, click Insert > Template Objects > Editable Region. A box with blue highlights will be added to your page. Inside the edit region will be text, the name of the region. Make sure you delete this, unless you want the text to be displayed on all of your web pages.
How do I use my template?
Your template is saved as a .DWT file. If you wish to make changes to the layout of your website, or change the overall look of your website, you will only be able to do so through that file. Click File> New and the New Document box will appear. Choose the template tab, and there will be a selection of templates listed. Find your template and click ‘Create’ near the bottom. This opens a new page and allows you to add content to your edit regions.
Using the example before, say you have many pages you need to add a copyright symbol to. Open the .DWT file, it will be saved under a folder called ‘Templates’ where you chose to save your website to. Add the symbol wherever you want it to appear on the page. Save the template, which makes a dialog box appear. This box will ask if you want to update the templates used in the file, then it lists the pages you have made from that template. Choose update, and it will go through each page automatically adding the copyright symbol. Another dialog box is displayed when completed, showing the number of pages updated, and if there were any pages that could not be updated.
Templates are a great way to manage your website, especially when you have multiple pages. This article should give you the basic ideas behind creating a template for your website. Try it out for yourself, and your websites are sure to be more manageable.
