Defining Placeholders in Website Manager

When Author-it Website Manager creates the webpage it works through the substitution rules you have defined. Placeholders can be defined at one of four levels - global, content, experience, and page. By defining substitution rules for placeholders at different levels you can fine-tune how content is to be delivered.

Global

Placeholders at the global level define content that is common to every experience and language. An example of a global placeholder might be a link to an external website. All visitors will receive the same link, no matter what language or browser they use to view the website.

Content (or language)

The majority of placeholders will be defined at content level, especially if you plan to deliver localized content. By defining placeholders at content level you can use the same set of templates and substitute language appropriate content, such as text or localized graphics.

Experience

Placeholders are defined at the experience level for content that is affected by the look and feel of the experience, such as graphics or functionality delivered to a PC or PDA.

Page

In some situations you will choose to define placeholders at page level. Placeholders can be substituted at page level when content or functionality of a specific page is different from that displayed in other pages.

When Author-it Website Manager creates the web page it works through the substitution rules that have been defined at different levels. The rules are resolved using the following order of precedence - page (the highest level), experience, content, global (the lowest level). In short, if Author-it Website Manager finds the same placeholder has been defined at more than one level it uses the rule defined at the highest level. Any placeholder defined at page level overrides a placeholder set at experience, content, or global levels. Placeholders defined at experience level override content and global levels, and placeholders defined at content level override anything defined at a global level.

Important: If a placeholder has been added to the template but not defined in Author-it Website Manager the placeholder will appear as regular text in the final webpage.

By defining placeholder values in Website Manager Admin you can add the following functionality to the website:

• Menus
• Search field and a results list
• Breadcrumb navigation
• Random adverts
• Language selector for localized websites