More Template Questions

Hello again,

Here are answers to a few more frequently asked questions about the templates:

How can I get help using and updating the templates?

If you need help with the templates, you can take advantage of the services offered by the New Media Center (free), or the Blacksburg Electronic Village (low cost).

New Media Center
1140 Torgerson Hall
(540) 231-4826
http://www.nmc.vt.edu/

BEV Web Support Services
http://www.websupport.bev.vt.edu/

How do I remove the right-hand side-bar (Featured Content) in Dreamweaver?

Go to Modify > Template Properties... Select the FeaturedContent property from the list and uncheck the "Show FeaturedContent" box. The Featured Content area on the right will disappear. You can show the Featured Content area again by checking the "Show FeaturedContent" box.

For information about other optional regions, please refer to Step 5 of the template instructions.

How do I change the page title in Dreamweaver?

Go to Modify > Template Properties... The Template Properties dialogue box will appear. Select the PageTitle property from the list, change the placeholder text to the title of your new page, and click "OK". The page title will be changed in both the browser title bar and the body of your new page.

I'm trying to use the Home Vertical template, but I need to remove the Intro, Columns, and Postlude*, how do I do that?

First of all, if you are using the Home Vertical template to create news articles, faculty staff bios, or instructions pages etc., then you need to switch to the Content Vertical template.

The Home Vertical template was patterned after the Admissions home page (http://www.admiss.vt.edu/) and is one of the least flexible in the set (next to Home Horizontal of course). It's best used for a home page, and not a gateway page or a content page.

The Content Vertical template on the other hand has a much more open design. It also lets you set a page title in the title bar and the body, which is attractive to search engines.

However, if what you really want is a home page with an open design, then try this:

1. Open content_vertical.dwt.html (or content_horizontal.dwt.html) in the Templates folder.
2. Go to File > Save as Template... Save the file as my_home_template.dwt.html (or whatever you like).
3. Make sure you are editing in code view.
   
4. Delete

   <!-- TemplateParam name="PageTitle" type="text" value="Page Title" -->
   

5. Change

   <!-- InstanceBeginEditable name="ChildTitle" -->
       @@(PageTitle)@@ |
   <!-- InstanceEndEditable -->
   

   to

   <!-- InstanceBeginEditable name="ChildTitle" -->
       @@(" ")@@
   <!-- InstanceEndEditable -->
   

6. Delete

   <div id="page-title">
       <h1>@@(PageTitle)@@</h1>
   </div>
   

7. Save your changes and create your home page from the new template.

* Sorry about the name, it a musical term defined as the "play after", or the final piece in a multi-movement work.

My design view in Dreamweaver / Contribute looks horrible. What can I do?

If your design view in Dreamweaver sports overlapping text and other strangeness, then you are probably using Dreamweaver MX or an older version with limited support for stylesheets.

The simplest solution is to upgrade your version of Dreamweaver to Dreamweaver 8 if possible.

If you can't upgrade your version of Dreamweaver, or you are using Contribute, then design time style sheets may be your best option: (This gets ugly, sorry...)

1. Open every template but the master.

2. For each template, go to the CSS Styles tab, click the little pull down icon on the right, and select Design Time... The Design Time Style Sheets dialogue box will appear.

   

3. At this point you'll be able to add or remove stylesheets to be shown or hidden at design time. I recommend showing default.css and widgets.css. I recommend hiding the stylesheet for the template, and sub-content.css. Here's an example using the Content Vertical template:

   

4. Click OK when you are finished. Dreamweaver will ask if you'd like to update pages created from the template. Say yes since you'll want all those pages to use the design time stylesheets too.
5. If you're using Contribute, upload the _notes directory inside the Templates folder to your website. Then ask all your users to restart Contribute.

The results won't be a huge improvement, but at least you'll be able to see what you're doing. As always, preview your page in a browser before publishing, especially if you are using server side technology such as php.