Designing a Layout Concept

Before you create layouts in the editorial system of CMS Fiona, you should always develop a concept in which the structure of the website, its layout, and any possible further uses of the content are determined. In doing this the following aspects should be given particular consideration:

  • Which users are responsible for creating and caring for the layouts?
  • Are several layout sets required because the online publication ist to be generated individually for different target groups?
  • Should the layout be defined globally or do individual areas of the folder hierarchy require individual layouts?
  • In which places in the layout must further layout files be provided for changing elements of the page (title images, navigation entries, automatically inserted field values, among other things)?
  • In which places in the layout should automatically generated navigation entries appear?
  • What information does the editorial staff require in order for the mechanisms provided for in the layouts to work (e.g. mandatory field values)?

You should place as much emphasis as possible on the flexibility of the layout concept to minimize maintenance expenditures and the costs for subsequent adjustments. This means in particular that layouts should be used consistently: a layout file should be provided in every area of the layout in which future changes are to be expected.

If already in the base layout the main content of a file is inserted using

<npsobj name="body" insertvalue="var"/>

then in the subfolder it is no longer possible to design this part of the page using local layouts. Therefore, one initially calls only a layout as a wildcard for the main content, for example in the form

<npsobj name="localtemplate" insertvalue="template"/>

and in the same hierarchy level creates a layout with the name localtemplate and the content

<npsobj name="body" insertvalue="var"/>

In this way further formatting can be defined as required for each folder in a dedicated localtemplate.