Custom Template Reference

Revision as of 11:08, 11 April 2006

This section covers the creation and integration of custom templates for use with the Soholaunch Pro Edition, and is intended for graphic designers and site developers. As such, a working knowledge of Adobe Photoshop and HTML programming is recommended.

How Pro Edition interprets template information

Within the maintenance platform, users will only have access to the page “content” area for editing. This means that each site must have a template design that maintains continuity throughout the site. Automatic menu generation is built in to the Soholaunch management tool so that Menu Display buttons and sub-page buttons can be defined within the template (using special Pound Variables). This gives you the option of placing Menu Display systems vertically, on the left or right of the page layout, or horizontally, across the top or bottom of your pages.

You may also wish to custom-design your main navigation system and not use the Menu Display feature at all. This allows you to have total control over font, colors and sizes of your navigation structure. For even greater flexibility in design, different templates may be assigned to individual site pages throughout your site.

Your template designs can take on any level of complexity that you wish them to have. However, please note that the user, via the management tool, cannot change any images, text, or links built into the template. This should always be planned and noted well ahead of the build process.

In order for your template to work, you will be producing a series of images and an HTML template file to be uploaded via the Pro Edition’s File Upload module.

See for detailed info

• Pound Varialbes
• Template Folder and Files
• Uploading Custom Templates

Template folder and files

Place all files(images,index.html,custom.css, etc) into a folder and name the folder like this...

    Category-Sub_Category-Color

    Example: Category-Template_Name-Color

Possible files in your template folder (aside from images):

index.html (REQUIRED) - The main HTML template file for your website used accross all site pages. This file must exist in your template folder in order for site pages to display at all.

custom.css (OPTIONAL) - If found in your template folder, it will be used in place of the default stylesheet (runtime.css).

cart.html (OPTIONAL) - Custom shopping cart template. If found in your template folder, it will be used in place of index.html on shopping cart system pages (as in: when website visitor is browsing/purchasing products via your online checkout process).

home.html (OPTIONAL) - Custom home page splash template. If found in your template folder, it will be used in place of index.html on the "Home Page".

news.html (OPTIONAL) - Custom blog/article display template. If found in your template folder, it will be used in place of index.html when visitor views full text of blog entry or news item.

Uploading custom templates

If you're running v4.8.5 or later... Zip up your Template Folder and Files and upload the .zip file via Template Manager > Upload Custom Template (below Base Site Template selection). Once uploaded the product will automatically extract your .zip file in the correct location, and the template will be availible in the list of templates (drop-downs and browse by screenshot).

If you're running a version prior to v4.8.5, or if you want to quickly update individual template files... Log-in to your site via FTP and upload your template folder (containing all template files) to this folder:

    sohoadmin/program/modules/site_templates/pages