Dreamweaver Templates

 

Create or find Dreamweaver Templates. You may use templates for each shape of page (1 column, 2 column, etc), for each type of content page (contact page, blank page, calendar page, etc), or for each subsection of a site (finance, sales, etc.) or some combination of these.  In designing templates you need to consider what libary items will be available also.  For example if you have a calendar library item for creating calendars, you may not need a calendar template. You may just want users to put the calendar library item in a blank page.  Highly structured templates with many editable regions give the designers a lot of control, but may not adopt well to new needs. What technologies you use will also affect your template design. If you are using SSI for footers, headers, etc you may not be worried about having 20 templates. The header is only changed in one SSI file. If your headers are in all 20 templates, small changes may take a fair amount of work and you may want to keep the number of templates down.

 

Plan your templates before your site gets big! Do them on paper and see how they fit the pages you have planned for your website.

 

We will not get into this in this talk, but here are some references:

Template General Resources

• http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/topics/templates.html
• http://www.dw-fw-beginners.com/tutorials/drmwvr/templ_faq.htm

Template Intro Resources

• How to use the Dreamweaver Site window and Template features in creating a site: http://www.macromedia.com/support/dreamweaver/ts/documents/site_planning3.htm
• Consistent Web Design with Dreamweaver Templates: http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/mx/dreamweaver/articles/dw_templates.html
• Nested Templates: http://www.thepattysite.com/nested_templates/index.html
• Important information to consider when using templates: http://www.macromedia.com/support/dreamweaver/ts/documents/template_considerations.htm

Template Sources

• http://www.macromedia.com/software/dreamweaver/download/templates/
• Macromedia Accessibility Templates (must register) http://www.macromedia.com/cfusion/membership/login.cfm?returnURL=%2Fcfusion%2Fresourcecenter%2Frc%5Fdriver%2Ecfm%3Fpagename%3Dacc%255Ftemplates&cancelURL=%2F

 

 

 

We are using the downloads of the Web Services templates at: http://www.webmasters.uiuc.edu/