Re: Questions about templates and content elements

At 03:54 AM 13/05/2005, Bob Doyle wrote:

>I am thinking about doing my next EContent column on templates and I want 
>some help with template architectures and how to describe their content 
>elements included at runtime.
>
>First the terminology. The reusable content blocks seem to have lots of 
>names - portlets, slots, boxes, microcontent, etc.
>Will you please tell me the names you use or are familiar with. Great if 
>you would mention the particular CMS. I will then add these names to our 
>Glossary of CMS terms. http://www.cmswiki.com/tiki-index.php?page=ContentBlock
>
>Where are templates usually stored?  Are they dynamically generated from 
>the database and configured in a proprietary interface? Are they files 
>requested by http and containing server-side includes for the content 
>elements? Does an XML template differ in important ways from an HTML 
>template? What is your experience?
>
>What should we call it when content contributors can preview their work on 
>a reusable content element inside the template with the full styling of 
>the final delivered page?  Some call it "in-context editing."

Hi Bob,

I think there's a number of different issues you are talking
about here.

First off, there's how the CMS actually delivers the content
to site visitors. In general terms, this can be "dynamic" or
"static", as dicussed in this article:
http://www.steptwo.com.au/papers/kmc_publishingmodels/index.html

Then there's the separate (but potentially related) issue
of "content reuse". Which can many things, including assembling
pages out of "content items" (or whatever they are called).
I explored this in the following article:
http://www.steptwo.com.au/papers/kmc_contentreuse/index.html

There's also the issue of how the "layout and presentation"
of the site is "loaded" into the CMS. In most cases, an existing
HTML template is supplemented with CMS "tags", but some systems
use XML/XSLT templates, or other variations (such as portals, etc).

Finally, there's the "authoring" environments offered by the
CMS, which may be "in-context" or via an "admin" interface
(or some other variation).

The aspects are combined together in many unique ways in
products, contributing to the massive variation in CMS
capabilities and designs.

Hope this helps,
James

-------------------------
James Robertson
Step Two Designs Pty Ltd
Knowledge Management / Content Management / Intranets

http://www.steptwo.com.au/
[email protected]