Template to manage small websites

arabif

I am currently working on a requirement to manage large number of small websites (~1000 and keeps growing) using TeamSite templates. Each website is made of 7 pages of which only few are updated. The nature of updates is mostly changes to links, contact information, welcome paragraph and images.

I am planning on using 1 DCT with multiple containers (each container maps to a page on the website) to manage all the websites. A presentation template would be used to generate multiple (7) HTML pages from the DCR. However, one issue I see with the above setup is that every time a change is made to the DCR, the PT will generate all the 7 pages. This is not the best way of maintaining a website. One reason to go with a single Template is to keep the solution simple for the business users who would be updating the website.

I am hoping you guys could share your inputs, suggestions, recommendations and also any other issues you can see with this design.

TS 6.5 SP2
Interface: Pro
Sun Solaris

mstradling

This is quite a common solution so I can say with some authority that the TeamSite WON'T re-generate all 7 pages each time. It will only re-generate pages that have been changed.

My suggestions would be to try and seperate all the actually HTML generation side of the TPL in to a seperate physical TPL file (so you only have one place to change the HTML). The TPL file used in templating.cfg then includes this in loops as required.

If you detect the generation mode (preview or generate) it's often helpful to have a preview loop that generates all the pages in to the single preview window. You get a long vertical scroll bar, but the user can see how each of the pages will look in one window at preview.

HTH