If you edit your HTML pages by hand (or use a database to insert the content into HTML like I do), you can still use the PHP templates we’ve provided.

The available templates

If you are using Dreamweaver or Contribute, you should get these templates automatically. If not, you can get the templates as a zip file. Please note that these files are linked so as to show you what they will look like. Only get them by way of the zip file or within Dreamweaver/Contribute. Otherwise, you will lose all of the dynamic server-side code in these pages, as the server strips it out when it displays the files for you.

subsite_index.php

a template for the main page of your site

subpage_template.php

a template for your subpages--all page except your main page

two full_content templates

for pages that need a wider content area and do not need left navigation link

index.php

generally used for any top-level site that does not need any breadcrumb trail

global.php

a much simpler template that includes very little PHP code and only the top menu bar, suitable for deep pages which have been converted from other formats, such as word processing documents.

You will first want to rename the templates so that they do not contain “.dwt”. They should end only in “.php”.

Title

Replace the title area with “USD: ” and then your site’s title.

For example, change:

<title>USD: Section Name</title>

to:

<title>USD: Web Development Guide</title>

In your subpage template, you will want to also include your site’s main title. For example, “USD: Web Guide: Template Implementation”.

Keywords

Add keywords to the keywords area. For example, change:

<meta name="keywords" content="" lang="en-US" />

to:

<meta name="keywords" content="HTML, PHP, template, web guidelines" lang="en-US" />

Description

Add a description to the description area. For example, change:

<meta name="description" content="" lang="en-US" />

to:

<meta name="description" content="Guidelines for implementing the official USD web page templates." lang="en-US" />

Content

In the “main content” area, replace the fake Latin text with your page’s content. The “main content” area begins with “<!-- BEGIN: main content -->” and ends with “<!-- END: main content -->”.

Bread crumb trail

Only subpages have a bread crumb trail.

In the “breadcrumb area”, replace “Section Name” with the parent section’s title, and replace “Page Name” with the current page’s title. Replace the link that surrounds the section name with the correct link for that section. For example, change:

<a href="./" class="breadcrumb">Section Name</a> » Page Name

to:

<a href="/webdev/" class="breadcrumb"> Web Development </a> » Changing Passwords

The ‘bread crumb area” begins with “<!-- BEGIN: breadcrumb area -->” and ends with “<!-- END: breadcrumb area -->”.

Other items

You might also change the copyright meta area and the author meta area to reflect either your department or USD.