Editable Templates In AEM

 

EDITABLE TEMPLATES

 

After AEM 6.3, it's recommended that all new Experience Manager Projects use Editable Templates over Static Templates. 

AEM has a new role of template-authors and these authors can create templates dynamically at any time as per the requirement.

Using the Adobe Maven 13 and above archetype project, you have the starting files required to produce Editable Templates. There is no longer a need to create Experience Manager projects by using Static Templates.

 

The following specifies the advantages of editable templates:

 

·         Can be created and edited by your authors.

·         After the new page is created, a dynamic connection is maintained between the page and the template. This means that changes to the template structure are reflected on any pages created with that template

·         Uses content policies (edited from the template editor) to persist the design properties (does not use Design mode within the page editor).

·         Are stored under /conf

 

There are three parts of template editor: 

1. templates: Here all the dynamic templates are contained which are created by template authors.

 

2. policies: There are two types of policies:

Template Level Policy: This policy is used to define client side libraries of all the pages, created from a particular template.

Component Level Policy: These policies are used to define components for a particular responsive grid (parsys)for all the pages created from the template.

 

3. template-types: This is a base template on the basis of which template author creates all its templates at the run time.

 

Structure under /conf folder

 

 

To create the folder using project code, make sure the folder has:

·         /conf/<your-project>/settings/wcm/templates, which holds all editable templates for this project

·         /conf/<your-project>/settings/wcm/policies, which holds all page and component content policies

·         /conf/<your-project>/settings/wcm/template-types, which is like the template of an editable template and is copied over to the template. This is required only if you use OOTB template types.

There are three OOTB template types:

·         /libs/settings/wcm/template-types/html5page

·         /libs/settings/wcm/template-types/afpage

·         /apps/settings/wcm/template-types/coreCmpPage

Creating an Editable Templates

 

A template created with the template editor acts as a container for the components.

In addition, you can define the way the template looks by setting styles

You can also define which components are allowed to be used within the template (and those pages that are based on the template).

 

Steps to create Editable template

1.    Go to http://localhost:4502/aem/start.html -> click on Tools -> select Templates or directly go to

http://localhost:4502/libs/wcm/core/content/sites/templates.html/conf

2.    Click the Create button to create a template.

 

3.    In the Create Template wizard, select the  Empty Page template type and click the Next button.

 

4.    Provide a title (HomeTemplate) and description for your template and click the Create button.

5.    Click Open button to open the template. 

Adding components to the templates

You can define a layout in the new template.

Click on the Policy icon, the first item in the toolbar

 

 

1.    When you click the Policy icon, this action opens the Default dialog. Here you can specify the set of components which are allowed to be placed into the Layout Containers.

 

2.    As of now, specify Layout Container (under General) and the project components (under your project name category).

 

3.    Finally, click the check mark in the top-right corner. 

 

You will now be back in the Template Editor. Drag the Layout Container component from the left panel onto the box labelled Drag components here. Once done, the template looks like the following image.

 Now you need to unlock the Layout container component so that an author can add components to it

You can set a policy for the Layout container that defines which components an author is allowed to use within the Layout container. To set the Policy for the Layout container, click on the Layout container, as shown here.

 Give policy title and select the components from allowed components

 

Before an Experience Manager author can use the template to create pages, you must enable it.

Mouse over the template and click the three dot icon and then select Enable.

 

Enabling the template from the Templates console:

 

·         Setting the status property on the jcr:content node.

·         For example, on:
/conf/<your-folder>/settings/wcm/templates/<your-template>/jcr:content

·         Define the property:

·         Name: status

·         Type: String

·         Value: enabled

 

The below diagram shows how templates, content, and components interrelate:

 

 

Important Note: The big difference between static and editable templates is that once a page is created with the template, no dependency is generated between them, so if the template is modified, it did not affect the pages existing. We only see the changes in a new page created from this template. But with editable templates, the page maintains a reference to the template with which it was created and any changes can be applied instantly in existing pages.

Editable templates retain a dynamic connection to any pages created from them. This ensures that any changes to the template are reflected in the pages themselves.

Create page based on editable template

1.    Go to sites http://localhost:4502/sites.html/content

2.    Select your project Folder 

3.    Click the Create button and select Page.

4.    Click on the HomeTemplate(editable) template to select it. Click the Next button.

5.    Provide title for your page and click on create.