Creating Templates
Creating a Template can look difficult, but actually it is quite easy, assuming that you already have a web page somewhere to use as the basis for your Template.For this exercise you will need a text editor, like TextEdit, SimpleText, or TextWrangler. This is not the same as a word-processor, like MS Word, which can insert hidden characters and make substitutions that upset browsers. (However, if necessary you could use Word as long as you select the option to save as a text file. But be warned, it is not the best option). A proper HTML editor or web page design programme is ideal.
Step 1
Open your web page in a browser and select the browser's option to view the source code.
Select all the source code, copy it and past it into your text editor.
Open another document in the text editor, paste it in a second time, and save this as HTML Backup (or whatever name you choose).
Step 2
At this stage, it is a good idea to create a new Caliban template and paste your source code in there as well. Create a new Document with placeholder entries in the various fields. Preview the document.
All you will see at this stage is whether you page has copied over correctly. Assuming that it looks identical, then continue.
Step 3
Now take a look at the Caliban tokens and decide which ones you are going to be using. The simplest of these simply reference a Caliban field, and we suggest that you start by just using those. They all have names beginning with "Field."
Step 4
Paste the Document|Start tag right at the start of your HTML document, before the tag. The pasted tag should look like this:
--*>:DocumentStart--*>:
All tokens are enclosed in the same <<:*-- and --*>: tags.
Step 5
It should now be a fairly simple job to use the search and replace functions in your text editor to, say, find the text that is the heading of your web page and replace it with the appropriate token - in this case FieldHeading, entered in the HTML as --*>:FieldHeading--*>:
The only word of warning is to be very careful that you do not accidentally alter anything other than the text you are replacing. In particular, watch out for the start and finish off any surrounding HTML tags.
Step 6
We suggest that you now take a look at how you are getting on. Copy all your HTML page, go back to your Caliban template, and paste it in, removing the previous code as you do so. Now go back to your Caliban Document and preview it. Your page should still be displaying perfectly, now showing the placeholder text that you entered into the Heading field.
Step 7
If everything is OK, paste this new code into your HTML Backup document. This is here just in case you get one step wrong, find that you page is no longer displaying correctly and have to revert to the last version.
Step 8
Now repeat steps 5 to 7 repeatedly with all the other fields.
Step 9
Now go to the head of your document. Just below the tag you will find the title, keywords and description tags. Replace these with the HeadMeta and HeadTitle tokens. Update your template once more and the job is done.