• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

♦ Menu Link: This placeholder (it isn’t really a page type) allows you to create a menu item that helps organize other pages. Use the parent attribute of a page to make it a child of a menu or an ordinary page. The menu structure adapts automatically.

♦ News V3.5: A blog feature that allows the user to write blog articles. I often use it for other things, such as sermon archives for church sites, specials of the week for commercial sites, and so on. A blog feature is good any time you’re working with repetitive, dated material. You can add multiple blogs to the same site easily. Figure 3-14 shows the news page in action.

♦ Wrapper: This incredibly versatile page type allows you to do all kinds of interesting things. Essentially, it allows you to embed any page into the CMS. Figure 3-15 shows the wrapper used to embed a Google search into my site. The wrapper is handy when you want to access an external ordering or newsgroup system but keep within the visual structure of the CMS.

Figure 3-13: The form editor simplifies creating forms and collecting form data.

Figure 3-14: The news page type allows you to build a blog-like document.

Figure 3-15: Use the wrapper page type to embed other pages into your system.

You are not limited to these page types. See the section “Adding new functionality” later in this chapter for information on how to add additional page types to your system.

Changing the template

One of the primary goals of a CMS is to separate the visual layout from the contents. So far, you’ve seen how to modify the contents, but you’ll also want to change the appearance of the page. The visual settings of a site are all based on a template concept. You can easily overlay a new template onto the existing site without changing the contents at all.

1. Log in as the administrator.

Obviously, the administrator has the ability to change the template (although you can allow individual users to change their own templates).

2. Go to the system menu.

Templates are set in the system menu.

3. Change template under Default Settings.

Don’t worry about the Backend Theme and Search Settings templates. It’s best to leave these alone until you’re a bit more experienced because they don’t have a major impact on the user experience.

4. Choose a template from the drop-down list.

All the templates installed in the system are available in a drop-down list. For this example, I chose the All CSS template (the default). See the section “Adding additional templates” for how to download and install templates that aren’t already installed in the system.

5. Preview the site with your new template in place.

Figure 3-16 shows the contents of the site with the All CSS template in place. The template essentially encapsulates core XHTML code and the CSS used to display each file.

Figure 3-16: The same site has a new look!

Adding additional templates

The standard installation of Website Baker includes only a few templates. Typically, you’ll want to work with additional templates. Fortunately, there are hundreds of great templates available, and you can easily build your own. Here’s how to add additional templates.

1. Locate the template you want online.

A number of Web places offer great, free templates for Website Baker. My favorite is the Templates repository available at http://www.websitebaker2.org/template/pages/templates.php. The templates in this archive are approved by the Website Baker community and meet minimum quality standards.

2. Download a template or two that you like.

When browsing templates, remember that you will be able to modify them. If you don’t like the particular colors or images, you can change them later. Save the downloaded Zip file somewhere on your local machine.

3. Log in to Website Baker as admin.

Only the administrator can add new templates to the system.

4. Navigate to the Templates page of the Add-ons section.

This is where you install and uninstall downloaded templates.