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<title>Templating System: Goals</title>
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<h2>Goals</h2>
<b><a href="index.html">Templating System</a></b>
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<p>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:</p>
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<li><p><b>A common solution.</b> 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.</p>
<li><p><b>Separation of code (Tcl, Java and SQL) and layout (HTML).</b>
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.</p>
<li><p><b>Separation of page components.</b> 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.</p>
<li><p><b>Global control over presentation.</b> 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.</p>
<li><p><b>Dynamic selection of presentation style.</b> 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.</p>
<li><p><b>Usability.</b> 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.</p>
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<a href="mailto:templating@arsdigita.com">templating@arsdigita.com</a>
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