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The most phenomenal factor of a web site is
“changing”. No matter how nice your template looking now, you will want to
change it (For adding a special offer to every page etc).
Think, by the time you will have 100 web pages and
if you used “Save As” method you will have to open up all 100 pages and make the
necessary change 100 times.
How about doing the change one time and making
all 100 pages changed at the same time? Cool, ha? Now let’s move onto the
practical side of doing this.
I assume you can work with Macromedia
Dreamweaver MX
(1) First create a root folder anywhere in your
hard disk.
(2) Open Dreamweaver and select Site>New site…
(3) Dreamweaver asks several questions
including your server information. Give a memorable name to your site. You can
omit server information and answer them later.
(4) When it asks “Where on your computer do you
want to store your files?” choose the root folder you created above.
(5) After setting up your new site, open your
HTML file which contain your default site layout (Note: Before opening, save
this file and its contents in the root folder you created).
(6) Select File>Save as Template… In the dialog
box, check weather the site name you gave has been selected and give a name to
your template. Dreamweaver will automatically create a folder called “Templates”
in your root folder and save the template in it (Note: Don’t rename or move this
Templates folder).
(7) Select a particular part that may get
changed from page to page (Like a special table cell where you add body
content).
(8) Select Insert>Template Objects>Editable
Region and give a name. Then save the changes.
Editable regions allow you to add unique
content to each page. Define appropriate editable regions in your template,
especially for head and body.
To define editable regions, I prefer direct
coding.
Your unique content is here.
Give different names for each editable region.
Your editable region exists between above tags.
(9) To create a new page using this template
select, File>New>Template-tab>Site-Name>Template-Name. You will notice that
except the editable regions, all other parts of the page are “not editable”.
Whenever you want to make a change to all pages
do it on the template (Outside of editable regions) and save it. Dreamweaver
will ask about updating related pages and will do it with a one click.
Dreamweaver makes only the original change you made and doesn’t add any crazy
codes to your pages.
That’s it! You have created a huge time saver.
Use this time to improve your site ontent.
Feel free to use this article on your web site,
blog or in ezine as long as the full content is displayed without any alteration
and all active web links remain as they are.
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