Site Design: Organize

STEP TWELVE: MAKE TEMPLATES AND FOLDERS

We're actually going to go into templates in some detail in a future class, but for now I just wanted to introduce you to the idea of a template. A template is a special DW file that can be used to generate pages for a site. In a template, only certain parts are "editable," or can be changed (usually the places you're putting content); nothing else can be changed. That makes templates very useful if there are lots of people working on a site (as you'll find out in the collaborative project).

Because each page created from a template is also tied to that template, templates are also useful for maintaining a large site. When you make changes to a template, DW automatically updates all pages that use that template.

You may or may not decide to use templates in your project. If you're only going to have a few pages, it may not make sense to use a template, and you'll be getting experience with those in the collaborative project anyway, so it's not like you need to use them in your project to learn how to use them. But if you're imagining a large site, or if you're imagining multiple pages within an inner section that all need to look the same, then consider making a template.

One thing you will want to do, for sure, is to start making your folder structure. Rather than simply having all files sitting in one folder (which in web terms is called the "root"), you want to make folders to help you keep track of things. For example, here's the folder structure for this site:

I recommend having a folder for images used in your design (like those one-pixel gifs!) and a folder for each content area. Be sure that the main page of each folder is named "index.html"—that way it will be loaded automatically when someone goes to that folder.

At this point, you've made all the infrastructure you need to make. So let's start making pages.