Editing 101

Working With Templates

Premade Backups

Templates:
Understanding Templates: Templates are simply a framework or footprint with an established layout that you wish to emulate. You may transform and customize a template, but ultimately a template offers a time saving launching point by providing a vehicle in which you don’t have to reinvent the wheel(s). Templates achieve two goals: 1) they save time; 2) they maintain cosmetic, if not brand, consistency.
We achieve templates in a variety of ways. There are three primary structures that operate on the template concept: themes, pages, and blocks.
  • themes: are essentially over arching templates which address the entire look and feel of a website while promoting overall brand consistency. In your instance we have chosen the Kriesi, Enfold theme, and have established the universal fonts colors and page layouts that will be duplicated across the entirety of the website.
  • pages: most pages have a consistent layout, though certain ‘page types’ may differ. Very often informative, text driven pages have a certain layout. In this respect, blog pages may look slightly different as they offer additional features like categories and archives which are conventions most consumers have come to expect from a blog. Additionally, ecommerce product pages and their required integration with shopping carts place a different demand on the expected layout of a webpage. As a brand evolves and the depth of data and/or scope of products and services expand one may need further variations to distinguish between certain categories. More often than not, most websites typically only need 2-3 page layouts with the occasional sub variation.
  • blocks: blocks are essentially sections of a page that may be delineated into the following 3 categories:
    • textual content
    • media content: images, animation, and video (and Sliders)
    • functionality: forms, surveys, graphs, ecommerce
Template Fundamentals: Templates are simply a matter of copying a pre-established design and populating it with the pertinent unique content or data.
The fundamental advantage of a template is that once you’ve established a format for an article, you don’t need to recreate that format for the next article. Once you’ve established an attractive presentation of an image or video, you don’t need to recreate that format. The same goes with stylized and branded forms, surveys. shopping carts, etc.
How to use templates:
  • theme template: the theme structure and cosmetic ingredients are already set in place across 90% of the website. There is nothing further to ‘reproduce’. Once the theme is established, the rest of the work falls into the following two sections: pages and blocks.
  • page template: the use of a page template was essentially delineated in the ‘how to article: Always Work From A Backup”. Established websites are already working from a defined layout. Simply copy the page you want to emulate and replace the old content with the newly pertinent content.
  • blocks: blocks are elements on a page that can be saved as templates so that they may be duplicated on the same page, removed from any page as needed, and added to new pages entirely. Some blocks may already appear on a page which you’ve duplicated for its particular framework, layout, and blocks. Other blocks may need to be retrieved from a template archive to be used on any page you create.