Page Layouts & Templates

When you’re setting up pages on your website, you’ll find that there are two areas to place your content:

• Page Content – the main section of the page.  All content posted here is specific to this page only.
• Template Content – content in sidebars and footers that is shared across other pages that have that template assigned to them.

You will use snippets to add content to either area – see our Help Center article on Working with Snippets for more details.

Layouts

Our templates use two layouts:

• Default – right sidebar plus footer
• Full_width – footer only (no sidebar)

When setting up your page, think about how you’d like it to look:  whether you’d like a sidebar or whether the Page Content would look better if it’s spread across the entire width of the page. 

Below is the Default layout, with Template Content in a right sidebar and a footer.  The Page Content area takes up about 2/3 of the page width (600 pixels).

Here is the Full_width layout, with Template Content in only the footer (no sidebar).  The Page Content area extends the full width of the page (920 pixels)

Templates

Every page must have a template assigned to it, and the same template can be assigned to multiple pages.  When a template is assigned to multiple pages, that template’s sidebar and/or footer content will appear on all of those pages.

Your system comes with several templates pre-loaded for you:

If you started using SwimTopia prior to 2017, here are the templates that came with your site:

If you started using SwimTopia in 2017 or later, here are the templates that came with your site:

You can see which Templates are assigned to each page on the Edit Navigation/Website screen:

Since Template Content can be shared across multiple pages, think about what you’d like to see in sidebars and footers across your site.  Some pages may use common sidebars with information like Recent News, Sponsor Logos, and Upcoming Events.  Sometimes a page may have unique information in its sidebar and/or footer, so you could assign a custom template to that page.  Examples of pages that might use unique, custom templates include the Team Store and the Sponsor page.

Check out some of our customers' SwimTopia sites to see examples of how they use their templates and the content they place in their sidebars and footers.

Managing Templates

Once you’ve decided how you’d like your pages to look and which templates you’ll be using, you’ll need to complete the following steps:

• Rename or modify an existing template OR
• Create a new template
• Assign the template to your page
• Edit template content

Renaming or Modifying Existing Templates

To rename or edit the layout of an existing template, go to Manage Team > Website > Templates.  Find the template you’d like to modify, and click on “Edit.”

Creating New Templates

If you’d like to create a new template, go to Manage Team > Website > Templates, and click on “New Template.” 

Determine which layout you’d like to use, and click on “Create.”

Next, you’ll need to assign that template to the appropriate pages.

Assigning Templates to Pages

To assign a template to a page, go to Manage Site > Edit Navigation.  Click on “Properties” next to the page that you’d like to assign the template to. 

Click on the drop-down list under “Page Template,” and select the template you’d like to assign to this page.  Click on “Save.”

Repeat this step for all pages to which this template will be assigned.

If this is a new template, the next step will be to add content to the Template Content area (sidebar and/or footer).

Editing Template Content

To edit the Template Content that will be shown in the sidebars and/or footers of a template, go to any page that the template is assigned to.  Click on Manage Site > Edit Template Content.  Then you can edit any existing snippets that are in the sidebar and/or footer area, or you can add new snippets.

In the above example, you could add Snippets to either area by clicking their respective “Add Snippet” button. This opens the standard Snippet palette, where you drag a Snippet to its area. When you are finished adding Template content, click the “Exit” button at the top of the page.  This content will show up in the sidebar/footer of each page that has this template assigned to it

Many of our customers like to display the following information in their sidebars:

• Registration link
• Upcoming events
• Recent news
• Sponsor logos
• Facebook page feed
• Quick links or anything else you might want!

Some customers use their footer area to display sponsor logos, league information, or contact information.  Many customers leave their footer area empty.

Now that you’ve created and assigned your templates, you’re ready to create page content.  See our Help Center articles about Creating and Editing Pages and Editing Page Content with Snippets.

Using templates and layouts allows you a great deal of control over what displays on your page and where.  With SwimTopia, you have the flexibility to make it your own!

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