Working with Site Render Templates
This module can be found by going to the Shortcuts area of the Administrative Toolbar and selecting System Administration.
From there, look under General Administration and click on Site Render Templates.
Site Render templates can be used to control the look and feel of various elements on your site. They are most commonly used for are the Navigation, Data Display, Data Summary and RSS Aggregator and Upcoming Events portlets.
- Warning: If you are not comfortable editing XML or style sheets it is strongly recommended you contact the support team to make any desired changes to your theme. Even a minor mistake could make your render template no longer display properly. If you are going to make the edits yourself, be sure to copy and paste the original layout and style sheets in to Notepad or another text editor. That way you can use that copied code to revert to the previous version if anything goes wrong.
To add a new site render template, click Add Site Render Template. You can then enter the following information:
- Template Name: The name of your site render template.
- Category: The category of your render template. For portlets that use render templates, they will only be able to use a specific type of render template, so it is important to set the right category. For more information, see the documentation for the portlet or module you are planning to use.
- Description: A description of the render template for reference purposes.
- XSL Transform: The XML of your render template goes here. The field should start with <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"> and end with </xsl:stylesheet>. The XML code entered must be valid code or the render template will be unable to be added or updated.
- Style Sheets: Any CSS you wish to apply to the render template can be entered here. You can also have CSS in the style sheet for the broader template being used on the page applied to the site render template.
- Upload Images: If you wish, you can upload image files to be used in your XSL Transform and Style Sheets fields. You can also use images from the image manager/document manager/etc but this interface gives you a place you can upload those images from within the site render template interface.
Once you have finished setting up your site render template, click Add Render Template. The XML will be tested to ensure it is valid and then the render template will be added to your site.
To edit an existing site render template, just click on the template you wish to edit. You will then have the same interface you get when adding a new template except that the button at the bottom of the page will now say Update Render Template. The XSL Transform input will still need to pass a validation check in order to be successfully updated.
- Note:
When viewing the list of site render templates, you will notice
that many of them do not have a
under the
action column. The ones without the are
either from a parent site
or they are system default templates; these templates cannot
be edited (though if they are from a parent site, you can go to the
parent site and perform your edits there). If you want to modify one
of these static templates, you can click on the render template and
then copy and paste the code in to a new site render template; you
can edit the new template as you wish.
To delete a render template, click on the and
then confirm your decision.
- Warning: Be careful when deleting a render template as this will disrupt the rendering of any portlet that is using your template.