Using Pactum Templates

making the most of a good thing

Our templates provide you with a complete package, ready for your input. Here are a few hints to help you understand the package and implement it easily and effectively.

suggested workflow

1. Save an extra copy of your CSS and XHTML files. This will leave you with a backup, in case you find you have made changes that you want to reverse and don't know how. (I recommend saving these with their original names; just save them into a separate directory. This will save you the hassle of fixing links later.)

2. Before doing anything else, take a few minutes to decide what pages you are going to have on your site.

3. Create links for all your pages in one of the columns (or divide the links between the two columns).

4. Replace the template name (e.g. "Driftwood Template") with the name of your site.

5. Look in the head code and alter what you find to fit what is going to be on your page. You will want to edit the following in the head: title, keywords content, and description content. Here's what to do:

• Page title: when you receive your template, the title will have the template name; replace that with your site name. Look for this code in the head area of your page: <title>Template Name</title>.
• The keywords content (on the line <meta name="Keywords"...) should have something like: "Put,your,keywords,here". Replace that with a small handful of important words that will appear on every page in your site, especially in headings. (Note: do not get carried away - search engines do not tend to like sites with more than about 10 key words. Note also that at this point you should only input keywords which are going to be site wide. Later, when you create the individual pages, you can finish your task by adding words specific to each page.)
• The description content (on the line <meta name="Description"...) will probably say something like: "Put a short site description here". Replace that with a brief, informative, and relevant sentence or two describing the content and purpose of your site. Try to limit yourself to roughly 20 words.

6. If there is anything else you want to appear on every page (a small photo or other graphic in one of the side columns, for instance), insert that now. Likewise, if you want any other cosmetic detail altered that cannot be accomplished via the Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) file (which would be very rare), that change should be made now.

7. Now create the pages that you named in your links (see steps 1-2). This is easily done by opening your original XHTML file and using File > Save As... In most cases (although hosts differ) your home page should be named index. (Note: the XHTML template file has a .php extension. If your web host does not support .php, save your pages with a supported extension - e.g. .htm, .html. Many Windows hosts support .asp. If you know something about Server Side Includes (SSI), and plan on using them, you should name your pages with an .shtml extension.)

8. Add content to your pages (generally the main content area will be encloded in a td or div tag labelled as simply "content"), adding extra keywords as necessary. If you need to learn some basic HTML, we have a tutorial here. There is a great deal more information on the Internet; don't be afraid to do some searching.

9. Upload your files to your site. Don't forget to upload the dependent files: the images, CSS file, and any other files you may have added.

notes

The style sheet is already linked from the XHTML page provided. When you upload your page, be sure to upload the CSS file and optimized images (e.g. driftstump.jpg and driftstumpfade.jpg in the Driftwood package) into the same directory, so that the links remain functional.

Any styles beginning * html in the CSS file are conditional comments for Internet Explorer, a browser which does not fully support fixed positioning for background images.

If you don't understand why a style is included in the CSS, you are safest to leave it alone. I recommend keeping a backup copy of both the CSS and XHTML files, just in case your tinkering doesn't work out quite like you want.

Our packages include optimized images as well as source files (it's easy to tell which is the source file by the file size; it may be a .jpg or a .png, depending on the nature of the graphic and template package). You can use the source files to save at higher quality or make other modifications. However, watch your file sizes carefully - higher quality means longer download times.

If you have particular difficulty, please email us via our contact form, and we will try to help you. (Please be realistic concerning our time, particularly given the price you have paid for our template.)

 

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