This template allows you to:

Download a prebuilt site to your machine 
Add and delete pages with ease
Customize page content to suit your needs 
Utilize Cascading Style Sheets 
Utilize FrontPage Include Pages 
Publish to your FrontPage-enabled host with the click of a button

Adding Pages

It's easy to create new pages and add them to your web. Open a sample page or another page you have created and select "save as" and rename it. The new page should have the layout intact. Change the content or graphics inside the new page.

Navigation

The button link navigation is an image map created in FrontPage. Second level navigation is text. Third level navigation is a JavaScript pull down menu. FrontPage navigation is not used in this template.

To modify the JavaScript menu, find the body portion of the code in the template HTML. The url of the page or website you wish to link to replaces the # between the quotation marks in the area that looks like this:

<option value="#">

The menu works best if the top option value is left blank.

The text that shows in the menu follows the option tag. It must be kept reasonably short so as to keep the menu from stretching too wide for the column.

Changing Graphics

Blank button graphics are included for sites needing 3-7 top level categories. These are found in the images folder. Import the needed blank button graphics into your graphics program (Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, Image Composer, etc.). If the program allows, place them in layers, making an additional layer for the words. Display each layer of the tab graphics, one at a time, plus the word layer, save the newly modified buttons as .gifs, and export into the template.

OR use the Fireworks editable .png files found in the PNGs folder. Complete step-by-step instructions can also be found there. If you do not have Fireworks, a free trial copy is available from Macromedia. With the .png files the color and size of the buttons can be changed. PNG files should not be published with your website because they are very large in file size. If you wish to use them, move them to another location on your hard drive. If you do not wish to use them, simply delete.

Tip: Give the new .gifs the same file names as the original buttons in the template, letting them override the original graphics in the images folder. This way they will automatically fall into place in the template. After the new graphics are in the images folder, rename the files to make more sense for your site.

The font used on the buttons was Geometr231 BT, however, you can replace it with any font you like. A slight drop shadow was added. 

We are also available to modify the tab and company name graphics for a nominal fee. Please contact us for details.

Coordinating colored line and bullet graphics are provided.

An optional Swish movie is included on the Home page. Swish 1.51 or higher is needed to modify the movie.

A blank graphic is provided for you to add your own company name.

Modifying the Swish Movie

Swish 1.51 or higher is required for modification of the optional header movie seen on the Home page. You can find it here.

Include Files

Note that some elements elements that occur on all pages of this site exist as include pages. You can find these include pages in the "includes" folder of this web. 

The include pages are inserted into the main pages in order to allow you to make global changes to your site or change many pages at the same time. To do this you must right click on the area you would like to edit. If it is indeed an include page you will see something like this in the pop up menu:

Open file: c:\ location and name of include page

Or - you can open the include pages via folders view. Once the file is open - make the necessary changes and save them. All pages utilizing the include page should update upon saving.

Cascading Style Sheets

In folders view, double-click on organized.css. This will open the CSS page. The code governing the links in the header and in the body will be found there.

a.top:link controls the navigation bar at the top of the page under the tabs. 
a.left:link controls the navigation bar in the left column. 
a:link controls the body links.

To change the color of the links - simply make changes to the html color coding such as #ffffff or #336699. Find the HTML color code for the color of your choice and insert the number in place of the existing one.

If you wish to remove the Cascading Style Sheet properties...simply remove the code calling the sheet in the head section of the include pages as well as any code associated with it in the body of the include pages such as <LINK REL=STYLESHEET TYPE="text/css" HREF="organized.css"> </head> and class="left"

For more information on Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) consult the following online resources:

Webmonkey: Stylesheet Guide

Webreference: CSS

 

If you have questions, please feel free to contact us at sandy@thetemplatestore.com.