Sitedesigner

About the Magnolia Sitedesigner

In the eyes of an "Editor", Sitedesigner is just another template! The beauty of Sitedesigner is revealed only to the administrators or template developers. If you are familiar with managing Web pages and content, you will be fine with the Sitedesigner's "Layout" and "Content" templates.

Sitedesigner vs Templating

The major difference between a "regular" template and the Sitedesigner is:

• A regular template is configured in AdminCentral using customized JSPs.
• The Sitedesigner template "Layout" is configured directly on the Web page created using the "Layout" template.

One of the great features of Magnolia is that layout is separated from content. Using this feature consequently allows to create a protoype page where Authors can already add content while the developers/designers are fine-tuning the layout of the page. When looking closer at the layout, you will notice that there is a so called wire frame and the design.

Wire Frame and Design

A "wire frame" is basically the "skeleton" of a Web page. It defines the page structure (typically a Header-section, one/two or three-column Body-section and/or a Footer-Section).

The "design" is what will be shown within the wire frame. This can be different styles/colors, but also different types of content. We know these "distinct areas" as "Paragraphs".

Sitedesigner comes with two templates:

• Layout template - Configure the web page
• Content template - The web page template

With the layout template you can configure the "looks" of your web page. You can structure the "wire frame" and you can define which Paragraphs can be used in which distinct areas. You can set Paragraph inheritance as well.