Creating and Understanding Web Page Templates

What is a web page template? Is that just a term used by people who use preset web site creators like Wordpress or Joomla? Is it something that I can use if I am going to build my site from the floor up? What are its advantages and disadvantages and how can it speed up my design time? These are questions that many people have and ones that we promise to answer in this article. There will be no question in your mind what a web template is and how it helps, where it is used in and even how to make one.

Take a web site for example, one that you have created from scratch. What does it consist of in each of the HTM/HTML/PHP pages? What do all these pages have in common? There are certain elements that any good coder would have spread over all the pages and then other snippets that can make your life easier when spread over a set of pages. Take for example the section of any page that comes before the tags. There will be a bunch of code such as the page title, the favicon or shortcut icon that appears on the top of the page in the browser, and the links to the multiple stylesheets in CSS that you use.

To save yourself typing all of those, you just tend to copy and paste and then edit out the bits that need to be changed. This works, and is effective, but what about when adjustments need to be made in this are? What about when all the pages need another link to another CSS file? Then what? Go around changing it for all the pages? Why waste that time? Why not put in a simple PHP include or require snippet that draws the code onto all the pages and then only have to change that one for any changes that are required in the future? Wouldn't that be charming?

If you can begin to think in this way, putting a simple "require_once('file.php');" into your code then you can save yourself having to edit in multiple places and then you are on the road. Making a template of any sort simply means that you divide the page up into sections and instead of having the code there, you store this code in an external file and clue it into the matrix of your site. How useful could this be? Think not having to retype or restyle the footer every time you make a new page. Think about having the navigation bar be a universal element that you don't have to copy and paste or edit over multiple pages. That is thinking in the way of web page templates, the way of efficiency, and the way of the smart web designer. This is why people that use templates pump out sites in half the time and with half the effort. Thinking with templates will take you from being a rookie to being one of the pros.

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