Best Practices for Building Sites in dotCMS
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This document provides best practices for building sites in dotCMS, including: 1) Important container types like functional templates, meta containers, and statistics containers. 2) The differences between templates and containers, and how to structure each. 3) When to use Velocity Template Language (VTL) files. 4) How to structure widgets and use them with containers. 5) Setting up URL maps for detail pages and custom forwarding pages. 6) Ensuring valid HTML and 508 compliance.
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Best Practices for Building Sites in dotCMS
- 1. Best Practices for Building Sites in dotCMS Presenters: Click to edit Master subtitle style Michael Fienen – Pittsburg State University, nuCloud LLC, .eduGuru Maria Bouza – dotCMS @fienen - google.com/profiles/fienen
- 2. What we're looking at... 1)Container Must-haves 2)Template vs. Containers 3)Using VTL Files, when and where 4)Widgets 5)URLMap for Detail Pages 6)Custom Forward Pages 7)Valid HTML and 508 Compliance
- 3. Container Must-haves • Functional Template Include – Inserted at the top of templates to include data and information – Loads before <html> tag – No visual elements included – Good for: • Global Variables • Macro testing • Timestamps for CSS/JS cachebusters
- 5. Container Must-haves • Meta Container – Page Title, Friendly Name and Title for Page details – HTML Page Meta tags: $!HTMLPAGE_META – Good for meta keywords, descriptions, or other things you need in the <head> per page – Include all common CSS Files – Include all common JS files – Lives inside the <head>...</head> tags
- 7. Container Must-haves • Statistics Container – Create one container that holds your Statistics code, such as Google Analytics – Container will normally be included at the end of all templates – If multiple hosts, use Host Property to hold Account ID
- 9. Template vs. Containers • dotCMS uses Yahoo Grids (a CSS framework) to create HTML used in templates: http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/grids/ • Try to create small number of templates • Templates should be created only for different layouts, the functionality should all be handled through widgets
- 10. Template vs. Containers • All reusable sections of the HTML should be created as Containers (max contents 0) • All sections of the site that are editable should be created as Containers (max contents > 0) • Doctype should be added to template • Head section (<head>) should be created in the template to allow to have specific JS and CSS files on each template
- 12. Using VTL files, when and where • Limit use of VTL files only to Simple Widgets • Should not be used as “widgets” parsed from containers, content or templates • Should be saved to a central location on the site (/application/velocity) • Limit to “application” like functionality • Good as building blocks of complex widgets • Used for source code in some macros • Don’t abuse them!
- 13. Widgets • Simple Widgets: – Use them for dynamic code that does’t need parameters – Good for generic, dynamic tools (listings, detail page bodies, etc...) • Structured Widgets (Widgets that receive parameters) – When the widget needs to be reused on different sections of the site – When we need to send parameters to the widget – As a front end for macro setup
- 14. Structured Widget for Macro
- 15. URLMaps for Detail Pages • Create URLMaps for structures (1.9) • Better for SEO purposes (human-readable): http://yoursite.com/news/some-unique-field • Easier to print and share • Make sure your structure has at least one unique field to tie to. • Example: http://1.9.demo.dotcms.org/news/dotcms-launches-1.9
- 17. Set Up Custom Forward Pages ● You already do this for your home page when you set up the /cmsHomePage virtual link (Vanity URL in 1.9) ● You can also do this with typical error pages with: /cms###Page ● Works with 400, 401, 402, 403, and 404
- 18. Custom 404 Page Example
- 19. Valid HTML and 508 Compliance • Garbage in – garbage out. Validate templates before loading them in. ● HTML Validation http://validator.w3.org/ ● 508 Compliance http://www.contentquality.com/ • TinyMCE won't do your job for you (even if it wants to try) • Microsoft Word hates the internet
- 20. Thanks Boys and Girls! Questions? Hunt me down: http://google.com/profiles/fienen dotCMS Cheatsheet: http://tinyurl.com/dotcmscheatsheet