Implementing a Compound Template design plan
This task provides an overview of the steps required to design and create a Compound Template and its Template Building Blocks.
Procedure
- Determine the steps in your implementation that lead from the Content Manager to a published item and design a Compound Template (representing the sequence) consisting of Template Building Blocks (representing the steps).
- Assign members of your implementation team one or more tasks to develop the code for the required Template Building Blocks:
Type Description .NET assembly A .NET assembly created in Visual Studio. C# fragment A C# code fragment created in a code editor. Adobe Dreamweaver Template An Adobe Dreamweaver Template created in Adobe Dreamweaver. XSLT stylesheet An XSLT stylesheet created in a plain-text or XML editor, or your development IDE of choice. Note: Check with SDL Tridion's Professional Services department and with the SDL Tridion user community to see whether Template Building Blocks already exist for the functionality you intend to implement. Publicly or commercially available TBBs are on SDL Tridion World (http://www.sdltridionworld.com) in the Building Blocks Exchange (BBX) area of the site. - Open Content Manager Explorer:
- Add each C# fragment, .NET assembly, Adobe Dreamweaver Template or XSLT stylesheet to a separate Template Building Block.
- Optional: If you want to pass parameters to a Template Building Block from within your Compound Template, you must specify a Parameter Schema for the Template Building Block.
For more information, refer to Creating Compound Templates. - Open Template Builder:
- Create a Template that joins the various Template Building Blocks together.
- Optional: Add any of a number of predefined general-purpose Template Building Blocks, installed with the Content Manager, to your Template. Refer to Default Template Building Blocks.
- Optional: Setting parameters.
For more information, refer to Creating Compound Templates. - You can also take a Compound Template you made earlier and embed it into this Compound Template as a Template Building Block.
For example, imagine that you want image resizing and hyperlink resolving to be part of any Compound Component Template you create. You could put the two Template Building Blocks that perform these tasks in a Compound Template, and include that Compound Template in all of your Compound Component Templates as a Template Building Block.
- Run the Compound Template you created and its Template Building Blocks—refer to Running Compound Templates
- If necessary, debug the Compound Template—refer to Debugging Compound Templates.
- In Content Manager Explorer, set the properties of the Compound Template itself, such as (in the case of a Compound Component Template) the type(s) of Component it can combine with.
- Make the Compound Template available to content authors and editors, so that they can use it to publish content from the Content Manager.