Skip to the content of the web site.

Using the Template in Dreamweaver and Contribute

Although you can use your template to create new pages with either Dreamweaver or Contribute, you may prefer to use Contribute. Although Dreamweaver creates appropriate pages, you do not see the page on your Dreamweaver editing screen in a “what you see is what you will get” manner. Instead, you would need to Preview in Browser to see what the completed page will look like on the web. Contribute, on the other hand, renders the page almost perfectly in the editing window.

Optional Regions

The template contains several optional regions, and for each page you create, you must indicate which optional regions should be included on the page. These optional regions are the collage the rightnav menu, and none or a selected expanded sub-menu.

If collage is selected, there will be a collage, but no topic title. If collage is not selected, there will be no collage, but there will be a topic title.

If rightnav is selected, the right navigation box will appear.

To select the optional regions in Dreamweaver, from the menu choose Modify, Template Properties. A template properties selection box will appear.

In Contribute, at the top of the page, you will see a yellow banner containing the words: “Some items on this page can only be selected by setting template properties.” The words “template properties” are clickable. Click them, and (almost) the same template properties box appears.

Selecting Template Properties

The template properties box consists of a list of names of the properties, followed by a default value of True, meaning this section will be included in the page, or False, meaning that it will not be included, or a 0 or other assigned name indicating which, if any, submenu should be included. The value for any item can be changed by selecting it, and either clicking the Show box (True) or unclicking the Show box (False).

To select which, if any, submenu item should be displayed, click on submenu and type the number for the desired submenu.

If you have assigned names to your submenus, type the name instead.

Note that if you are using names rather than numbers, you must enter the name exactly.

Creating Pages

You now enter the text of your page. If the text already exists on a page on your old web site, you can view that page in a browser, or another Dreamweaver or Contribute window and simply copy and paste it into the new page.

The Topic Title

The Topic Title must be set for all pages except the splash page. It is used to tie the content of the body to the appropriate item in the left navigation. In a small site such as this one, that consists only of pages linked to from the left navigation, the topic title duplicates the wording of the menu item or sub-item. However on a larger site, you will have links that appear on the content pages. In those cases, it may be best to have your Topic Title match the primary left navigation item to which it is related.

Applying Styles

In Contribute, Heading 1, 2, 3 styles can be applied by selecting them from the drop-down box. However, there are a number of other styles listed that are part of the CSS. It is not intended that content providers should select these styles. It may be best if the content provider's view of these styles was turned off. This can be done by editing role settings, and under Styles and Fonts turn off Show CSS Styles. Then the Contribute user will see only Heading and Normal styles.