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ITS will provide all necessary technical support to ensure that your website is functioning properly and is useful to your clients. Please note that this support is for the basic (WTA_00) template. You can get that template at the 'download' tab above.
WTA_03 Documentation
welcome.
So you're ready to dive into your template. Lets' go!
The template has been divided into five main areas:
00 File Header
01 Content Header
02 Tabs
03 Main Content
04 Footer
Use the links at left to get started on editing your template.
SITE ORGANIZATION
The organization of your site is important — careful consideration now will save you from many potential difficulties later. Not only that, using the recommended structure for your site will speed your template development. In the discussion below, we'll use the ever-so popular 'yoursite' pictured in the graphic at right. Directories and files in red are the essential ones, those in green are just for demonstration purposes.
top level.
'Top-level' refers to the pages on your site that reside in your main directory. For instance, with a site structure of 'http://www.unomaha.edu/yoursite/', all pages in the 'yoursite' directory are top-level (contact.php, facstaff.php, index.php, services.php, site.php, visitors.php). Aside from the pages and directories in red, it's up to you, but try to make it as logical as possible. Also, you can add additional directories into the 'img' folder.
abbreviations.
Just in case you don't know, 'img' is short for 'images', 'btn' is short for 'buttons', and 'inc' is short for 'includes'. But you probably already had that figured out.
yourincludes.htm.
Your customized includes reside within your 'inc' directory. This means that the path to those files will be different than those outside of 'yoursite', like the 'mark.inc' file decribed on this page. Let's take a look.
It is very important that you modify the paths to your includes if your site structure involves nested directories. All you need to do is alter the template paths to your includes as follows (example shows 'yoursite' on avalon):
http://www.unomaha.edu/yoursite/ = <?php require_once('./inc/inside_home.htm');
?>
http://www.unomaha.edu/yoursite/books/ = <?php require_once('./../inc/inside_home.htm');
?>
http://www.unomaha.edu/yoursite/books/2005/ = <?php require_once('./../../inc/inside_home.htm');
?>
http://www.unomaha.edu/yoursite/books/2005/02/ = <?php require_once('./../../../inc/inside_home.htm');
?>
If you're going to have pages in nested directories, you might want to save a 'model' page for each level in the directory — such as 'model_top' (top-level pages) saved at the top-level (yoursite/model.php), 'model_down1.php' (down one level in the site hierarchy) saved down one level (yoursite/nested/model_down1.php), and so on.
If your page doesn't work, but you're not getting a '404 Not Found' error message, the issue is most likely with the path(s) to your include(s).
DEGREES OF DIFFICULTY
the learning curve.
As you explore this guide to your template, you'll notice some icons: (
). These are to let you know how easy, or difficult, a particular topic is. Let's take a look...
easy.
All of the essentials of your template fall into this category. With a minimal amount of training and expertise, you should be able to handle anything in this category.
intermediate.
Elements in this category are a bit more complicated, but should be possible for users who take the time to learn a bit more.
advanced.
The advanced category covers items that require quite a bit of additional knowledge. Even so, if you can read and follow instructions, you should be able to implement these items.
For a printable page with the complete details on all of the editable areas of your template, follow this link.
