## Goals

Templating System

The overall goal of the templating system is to provide the publishing team with a set of tools for simplifying the development and maintenance of the user interface. In particular:

- A common solution. Programmers and designers should only have to learn a single system that serves as a UI substrate for all the functionally specific modules used on a site. The system should not make any assumptions about how pages should look or function. Designers should be able to change the default presentation of any module using a single metholodogy with minimal exposure to code.

- Separation of code (Tcl, Java and SQL) and layout (HTML). Programmers should be able to specify the data sources and other properties of the template independently of the HTML template used to present the data. HTML authors should be able to write templates that reference the data sources and properties without further intervention from the programmer to produce a finished page.

- Separation of page components. There should be provisions so that pages can be broken into discrete components to simplify maintenance of the HTML code and allow for reuse in different contexts. Examples of common page components include a navigation bar, a search box, or a section of a report or story. Another common example is a portal page that allows the user to choose from a palette of features to display.

- Global control over presentation. There should be a way to define one or more standard master templates used by most pages on a site, so that changes to the overall look and feel of a site can be made in one place.

- Dynamic selection of presentation style. Given that the same data may be presented in many different ways, there should be a general mechanism for selecting a specific presentation (including file format, layout, character set and language) for each page request, depending on characteristics such as user preference, location, browser type and/or device.

- Usability. Programmers should be able to develop template specifications using their standard tools for writing and maintaining code on the server. HTML authors should be able to access information about template specifications and work on templates remotely without needing shell access to the server.

templating@arsdigita.com