Web Team: Contribute Resource Guide

Template Basics

• Basic Page Elements
• Accessing Templates
• Editable Areas
• Choosing Optional Features

Basic Page Elements

Each page within the CAES Web site may have the following basic page elements: header, global navigation, local navigation, content area, searching tools, infoportals, and footer. The image below indicates each area:

Different combinations of these elements can be found throughout the CAES Web site.

• The header, main navigation, content area, searching tools, and footer are requested on all primary CAES pages.
• The local navigation may sometimes be adjusted to display a larger content area (typically for application data display).
• Infoportals should only be used on upper-level pages.

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Accessing Templates

Your Contribute Connection provides access to templates appropriate for your subject matter and pages.

For instance, all Extension pages (county offices included) are based on the extension.dwt page. For the most part, new pages within Extension Web sites can be created by copying an existing Extension page.

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Editable Areas

When you open a templated page in Contribute, the entire page design will be visible, but only select areas are editable. The following image indicates the primary editable regions.

1. The local_nav editable region contains the major local navigation for the current site. This section is typically the same throughout a site.
2. The content region contains all of your page content. See Formatting Text for general guidelines about formatting your content.
3. The footer links region is an area to add or delete supporting links and include information to contact your own site Webmaster.

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Choosing Optional Features

Optional features are elements of a page that you can turn on and off. A primary example of this would be turning on the 4-H logo for Extension 4-H pages and turning it off for non-4-H pages.

To turn a specific feature on or off:

• Choose "template properties" from the information bar at the top of a page draft.
  


• Highlight the desired feature and check or uncheck "Show [item]"
  
• Choose "Apply" to see your change.
• Choose "OK" when you are satisfied with the change.

Note: Turning on and off features that have editable content may lose your unique content.

Optional features per template type

• Extension (extension.dwt)
  • 4h_banner - turns 4-H logo in upper right banner on and off.
  • entry_image - turns area for entry image on and off (primarily for state Extension pages).
• Intranet (intranet.dwt)
  • ApplicationsMenu - turns a dynamic menu on and off for application driven pages.
  • entry_image - turns area for entry image on and off.
• Basic (basic.dwt)

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