Templates

What are Templates?

Templates are the lifeblood of building sites and structures within Cascade. They are XHTML documents that provide the basic page structure.

Templates typically contain the basic HTML scaffolding and necessary scripts and styles to produce the desired look and feel of a page.

Creating a Template

Templates can be created by clicking Add Content > Default > Template.

The most basic template must include the following system-tag.

  <system-region name="DEFAULT" />

Templates can be as sophisticated or simplistic as needed. System tags are used to define areas of need within a specific page design. For instance, if you wanted a main content area and a sidebar the following could be used:

<html>
  <head><!-- head code --></head>
  <body>
    <div class="main">
      <system-region name="DEFAULT"/>
    </div>
    <div class="sidebar">
      <system-region name="SIDEBAR"/>
    </div>
  </body>
</html>

This code would provide some layout while also allowing multiple formats to be used to define the various components.

System Tags

System tags may be used to define various content areas. DEFAULT is required by all templates and can be static, dynamic, or a result of a format acting on a block.

System tags may also be used for metadata tags (e.g. title, author, etc). Available Tags:

  • Content Regions
    • <system-region name="DEFAULT|CUSTOM_NAME" /> - Any user defined region. DEFAULT is a required element of all templates
  • Page Name(s)
    • <system-page-name/> - system name of the page asset (computer-name)
    • <system-page-title/>- user defined Title
    • <system-page-display-name/> - user defined Display Name
  • Other Metadata
    • <system-page-author/> - page author, from the metadata field. Not necessarily the Cascade User
    • <system-page-summary/> - user defined summary
    • <system-page-teaser/> - user defined Teaser, from the metadata field
    • <system-page-description/> - user defined description
    • <system-page-keywords/> - user defined Keywords
    • <system-page-start-date/> - page’s start date
    • <system-page-end-date/> - page’s end date
    • <system-page-meta-date/> - current time when the page is rendered
  • Helpful Meta Tags - This code, when used in a Template, will render the full <meta name="keywords|description" content="CONTENT" /> code
    • <system-page-meta-description/>
    • <system-page-meta-keywords/>

Cascade Docs

Configuration

After defining custom system-regions you can then configure the template to use formats and blocks to render static, dynamic or function-based content.

Configurations can also represent one or more outputs that are used to display page content.