Template Instructions

What's Needed:

Expression Web: This template was designed specifically for Expression Web. Since the template uses a dynamic web template (.dwt) page, it is not compatible with FrontPage.

Dreamweaver: You can choose the Expression Web template if you want a DWT. If not, choose the HTML template.

HTML: This template is made for almost any html web editor as it does not contain DWTs.

What's Included:

Latest coding using CSS3 and HTML5.
Unique starter web site in .zip format.
Responsive design with expanding and contracting cells, provides easy readability from cell phones to high resolutions.
Basic Contact Form
Google Fonts

Special Features:

Cross-browser tested. We ensure that our templates work in today’s web browsers.

Slideshow (IF INCLUDED): easy to replace our images with your own.

JavaScript Calendar

Cascading Style Sheets

This template uses a CSS-based layout, which means that the page sections (header, sidebar, content, and footer) are positioned and styled using CSS. Because this results in cleaner code, your page may load faster and search engines may rank your page higher.

The CSS also controls all of the font colors and sizes. The six heading tags have been styled as well. We include extensive styling for images.

Note: Sometimes Expression Web may lose its formatting in "Design" view or some elements may not appear correctly. Fonts may seem too large or small; spacing between elements may seem too wide, etc. While this can be a bit disconcerting, you will find it easy to keep previewing your site in a browser as you make changes. Don't panic, it's okay, just save your page, then refresh it. This will display your page correctly. To preview your pages, save the page after each change and then go to File > Preview in Browser.

Creating New Pages

Expression Web: To create a new, blank page based on a .dwt page layout, go to File > New > Create From Dynamic Web Template. In the dialog box that appears, select the appropriate .dwt page (if you template offers more than one page layout). When your new page is created, save the page giving it a unique name and page title. You can then add content to the editable regions.

Dreamweaver: To create a new, blank page based on a .dwt page layout, select "File > New > HTML." Go to "Modify > Templates > Apply template to page> Then choose the type of page you wish to create."

Creating Pages Not Based on DWTs: Find a page that you wish to use and do a "Save As" to name the new page. This template has a Sample Pages folder with all of the pages used in this template so you can easily choose to create new pages with those pages.

DWT Templates and Page Editing

Editing the Dynamic Web Template (.dwt) Page:

Dynamic Web Template page(s) can be found within the Templates folder of your web and are easily identified by the .dwt extension. It contains the basic page structure for all of your .html pages. If you change a .dwt page, all of the web pages based on that .dwt will also change.

Dynamic Web Templates have both “editable” and “non-editable” regions. Editable Regions allow you to make changes on each individual pages. Non-editable Regions are areas defined by the .dwt and cannot be changed on your .html pages. To change non-editable regions, you must open the .dwt file. Changing those regions will effect every web page in your site that is based on that .dwt page.

Editing the Content (.html) Pages:

This template package allows you to delete the pages you do not need or rename existing pages if necessary. To edit the existing .html pages, just delete our sample content. You can then type your own text and add any additional photos. Note that you will not be able to edit any “non-editable” regions on these pages. Remember to change the page title when you make a new page or rename a page.

Important: If you delete all content from an editable region, it may be difficult to find in design view. Switch to "Code" or "Split" view and look for the following:

			   html

<!-- #BeginEditable “content” --><!-- #EndEditable -->

					 Type some placeholder text between the two tags as follows:

<!-- #BeginEditable “content” --><p>Content here</p><!-- #EndEditable 
					 -->

Switch back to Design view and you will now see the editable region and can add content to that area. Make sure you type in the paragraph tags: <p>add content here</p>

Directions for Template Development

Accordion Content:

We may have used Accordions in this template. They are very handy arranging large amounts of content in a relatively small space.

			   html

			   <dl id="acc"> <!-- begins definition list -->
<dt>First Topic</dt> <!-- first topic -->
<dd> <!-- begins expandable area -->
<p>Content goes here</p>
<p>You may use as many paragraphs as you need to explain your topic</p>
</dd> <!-- ends expandable area -->
<dt>Second Topic</dt> <!-- second topic -->
<dd>
<p>content for your second topic goes here goes here.</p>
</dd>
...add more items...
</dl> <!-- ends definition list -->

			

Calendar

Included in this template is a very simple JavaScript calendar which shows the current month, date and year. Note: You will not be able to see the calendar while in Design view. If you do not wish to include the calendar, you can delete it from the code.

To change the size of the fonts in the calendar or to change the colors, you must edit the calendar.js file.

			   html

			   <p class="center">
<script src="javascripts/calendar.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
</p>

Contact Form

We have included a very basic contact form. Your visitors can fill out the form and you will receive the results by email. In order to receive the results, you will need to edit a few lines on the process.php script to set your email address where the form results should be sent and to set a subject line for the emails.

			   javascript

			   // EDIT THE 2 LINES BELOW AS REQUIRED
$email_to = "yourname@yourdomain.com";
$email_subject = "Your email subject line";

Once the form has been submitted, you can redirect the user to your "thankyou.html" page. On the php script, near the bottom of the page [Line 76 of the "process.php" page in the javascripts folder] you will need to set the absolute file path to your "Thank You" page:

			   javascript

			   <!-- include your own success html here -->
<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
window.location = "http://www.yourdomain.com/thankyou.html"
 //-->
</script>

			

Important: This contact form works on many web hosting platforms, but we cannot guarantee it will work on all of them. If you have configured the form according to the instructions above but have problems, your web host's support team should be able to help with any server-side settings that may need to be made.

Drop Down Navigation

We have added a multi-level drop down menu that works perfectly in mobile devices, tablets and desktop computers. The levels will drop down as you mouse-over the top links. You must edit the drop down menu in code view on the dwt or on individual html pages that are not associated with a dwt.

			   html

			   <li><a href="../index.html">Home</a></li>

For a main topic that contains sub-topics, your code will look something like this:

			   html

			   <li><a href="../page.html">Main Topic</a>
   <ul>
     <li><a href="../page.html">Sub-Topic 1</a></li>
     <li><a href="../page.html">Sub-Topic 2</a></li>
     <li><a href="../page.html">Sub-Topic 3</a></li>
     <li><a href="../page.html">Sub-Topic 4</a></li>
   </ul>
 </li>

			

Once you have your menu completed on the .dwt page save your page and allow the changes to update on the .html pages. Font sizes and colors, background colors, margins, paddings, etc. are all controlled in the style.css page.

You can set the size where the menu changes to the mobile version. We have preset the width to 1024 pixels. If your menu uses fewer main topics, you may want to reduce this size. Edit the code located at the bottom of the .dwt template pages:

			   javascript

			   <script>
$('ul.slimmenu').slimmenu(
{
    resizeWidth: '1024',
...
</script>

			

Font Awesome Icons:

Font Awesome gives you over 600 scalable vector icons that can instantly be customized: size, color, drop shadow, and even movement. Learn more about Font Awesome - We recommend you bookmark their page for easy reference.

			   html 

			   <i class='fa fa-car'></i>

To use an icon as a bullet or marker, for example:

Home

			   CSS 

			   .home {
   position: relative; 
   padding: 0 0 5px 25px;}
.home:before {   position: absolute; 
   font-family: 'FontAwesome'; 
   content: "\f015"; 
   top: 5px; 
   
						   left: 0; 
   font-size: 20px; 
   color: #2aaf99;}

Adding the icons for "Home," "Call," "Email," and "Hours" can done by applying a style to the paragraph tag.

If you have the style available in the dropdown style menu in the text editing box, then choose the style you need.

1. Add your text
2. Place the cursor at the beginning of the text and choose from the dropdown style box for the classes available: Home, Call, Email, Hours or Comment

Call

Comment

3. Once you choose your style, it will automatically show up! Easy stuff!

Google Fonts

By using Google fonts, you now have access to a wide variety of custom fonts. This offers quite a bit of of flexibility for getting exactly the look you want, whether fancy or all business. These fonts can easily be added to your site in under a minute. NOTE: You will not see the Google font when in design view. It will be seen when you preview the site in your browser. Learn more about Google fonts.

			   html 

			   <link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Font+Name" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">

Next the font name is added to the CSS file:

			   css 

			   font: 48px 'Font Name', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif;
color: #0d5759;
margin: .3em 0 .3em 0;
letter-spacing: 1px;}

			

Lightbox:

Your template contains a JavaScript Lightbox script. You can use the Lightbox feature on any photo in your site; it is not limited to only the product or gallery pages. The Lightbox JavaScript consists of several files. We recommend that you do not move or edit any of these files.

The Lightbox allows you to click on a small photo and have a larger image appear in a semi-transparent overlay that will appear on top of the page. The script will automatically size itself, so your images can be varying sizes. On mobile devices, the Lightbox resizes the images to fit the screen.

First insert your small photo onto the page. Create a hyperlink to the larger photo. Switch to code view and add class="lightbox" which activates the JavaScript. If you wish to have a title appear, add the title attribute as shown in the example.

			   html

<a href="images/gallery/image1.jpg" class="lightbox" title="Photo 1 - Description Goes Here">
<img alt="" src="images/gallery/image1th.jpg"></a>

To click through a group of images, add a group name: data-lightbox-gallery="groupname". The "Previous" and "Next" buttons will now automatically appear.

			   html

			   <a href="images/gallery/image1.jpg" class="lightbox" data-lightbox-gallery="gallery1"
				  
title="Photo 1 - Description Goes Here"><img alt="" src="images/gallery/image1th.jpg"></a>

[Credit for this application: http://dev7studios.com/plugins/nivo-lightbox/.]

Pagination:

We have included a simple pagination block you can insert when you have a number of pages you wish to link to. Remember, this template is a static site (not database driven), so you must manually code each page link.

			   html

			   <div class="pagination center">
<span class="disabled_pagination">Prev</span>
<span class="active_link">1</span>
<a 
					 href=".html">2</a>
<a href=".html">3</a>
<a href=".html">Next</a>
</div>
				  

			

Slide Show

We may have included an easy JavaScript slideshow on the home page of this template. It is very flexible and you can use your own images sized as shown on the index page and add additional images. To make changes to the images used, the file path to the image(s), or to add a hyperlink, you make the change within the script on the .dwt template page(s). Note that you will not see the slideshow while in Design View, but it is visible when you go to File > Preview in Browser.

The Highlighted "Description" area is the text that will appear on the slide show.

			   html

<div id="slider" class="nivoSlider">
<img src="images/mainimage1.jpg" title="Description" alt="Image description 
					 goes here">
<img src="images/mainimage2.jpg" title="Description" alt="Image description goes 
					 here">
<img src="images/mainimage3.jpg" title="Description" alt="Image description goes here">
</div>

Tips, Tricks & Miscellaneous Info:

1. Naming your pages: make all of the letters lower case and use NO spaces between words. For example - gettingstarted.html or "camel case" - gettingStarted.html

2. Do NOT copy any text from Word, etc. directly into your web. Paste the text into notepad to remove all formatting. If you copy directly into your web, you may get lots of formatting code you don't need.

3. Make use of the Heading Tags. This template has 6 heading tags and quite a few classes that you can use to give interest to your website. Check our "Typography" page for samples of things used in this template/theme.

4. Meta Tags: To help get your site listed in search engines and directories, we have added blank meta tags for keywords and description to each page. You will want to either delete these tags or add your own specific content. DO NOT leave our default content in these tags.

5. Photo / Image Tips:
a. Use all lower case in your photo / image name.
b. Use "Insert > Picture > From .... Do not drag your images into your web.
c. Use an image program to size your images. Do not grab the corner of the image and pull in to make the image smaller. It may seem like a small image to you, but your viewer's browser must load the entire huge picture!