A content template is a layout that new content of a type starts from. This article teaches you to save a template, to choose the default template and to create content from a template.
Before you start
- A template serves all types: pages, your content types and your categories.
- You must be a site administrator to save a template. Your writers start from templates when they create content.
- A template is copied into the content when it is created. Changing it later changes no existing content.
Tell a content template from a template
| Template | Content template | |
|---|---|---|
| Decides | The layout around the content: header, footer, list arrangement. | The blocks in the content at the moment you create it. |
| Applies | To all content of the kind, permanently. | Once, when the content is created. |
| Can be edited in the content | No. | Yes. Its blocks become those of the content. |
Decide the look with templates describes templates.
Save a layout as a template
- In the editor, open the content whose layout you want to keep.
- In the sidebar, in the content’s tab, for example Page, find the row Content model.
- Click Make this a model…. The Make this a model window opens.
- In Name, enter the template’s name, for example
Standard job offer. The content’s title is suggested there. - Optional: check Make it the default model of this type. If the type already has one, the box is called Replace the default model of this type.
- Click Save the model. The message Template saved. appears.
The template keeps the layout shown on screen, even if the content is not saved. It keeps none of the content’s field values.
The Content model row only shows to the site’s administrators. It does not appear in the editor of a composition, a template or the design preview.
Respond to the editor notice
On content of a type that has no template in its language, a notice shows at the top of the editor: Reuse this layout for future content of the “Pages” type? Its Make this a model… button opens the window Make this a model.
The notice does not show on empty content, nor if you are not a site administrator. It disappears as soon as a template is saved. Once closed with its cross, it does not come back for this type on this browser.
Choose the default template
A type has at most one default template per language. Setting the French template as default changes nothing for English. Setting a new default removes that role from the old one, which stays one template among the others.
Create content from a template
New content starts from one thing only, the first that applies in this order:
- A translation starts from its original content, title included.
- A copy made with Clone starts from the copied content.
- Otherwise, the content starts from a template.
- With no template, it starts from an empty page.
On creation, the start window only opens if there is a choice to make.
| Situation | When creating content |
|---|---|
| No template for this type | The content starts from an empty page. |
| Only one template, single-language site | The template is applied without asking. |
| Several templates | The Start from window shows the templates. You choose one. |
| Multilingual site | The window first asks Which language?, then the template among those of that language. |
The Start from window shows each template as a thumbnail, with the label default on the default template. The Empty card is always offered. The choice applies without reloading the page. Closing the window makes the content start from an empty page.
The language comes first, because a template belongs to the language it was made in. Changing the content’s language afterward would not change its layout.
Manage your templates
A template is a composition filed in the Content models category. You find it in the Templates menu, under Compositions, where you rename it, edit it, move it to the trash or restore it. The Compositions link in the menu only shows to the site’s administrators.
- Deleting a template changes no existing content. If it was the default template, the following content starts from an empty page, or from the start window if other templates remain.
- Locks set on a block of the template follow the copy: a part locked in the template arrives locked in each new piece of content.
- A template does not count as a page of your site: it has neither analytics nor SEO.
A template goes with its type when you export a structure. Reuse a structure from one site to another describes the export.
Entrust a template to your AI
An AI connected to your site can build a composition and attach it to a type. This composition becomes a template, offered at creation like yours. It needs the right to edit the site’s structure, which only an administrator grants. This right is never checked in advance. It works in the Staging.
The AI is instructed to ask you before making it the default template, since that choice removes the role from the old template. It does not reread a composition afterward: touching it up is done in the editor.