Tutorial for users who signed up after March 13, 2001

As of March 13, 2001 everyone who signs up for we::blog gets a template that predefines building blocks so that editing the template is easier without sacrificing the customizability that you had before. For anyone who signed up before, you can check out testlog (show template) to see how this works.

Here is how your template is structured. It is important to note that some "tags" are in this format [#tag] and some are in this format [$tag]. [#tag]s are predefined building blocks that can be customized by the advanced user by editing the translate_template directives in their <weblog> section. Don't modify these unless you know what you're doing!

First you need to have a link to the edit template form for your template. This link should show up only IF the user that's logged in IS the OWNER.

[IF $is_owner]
  <a href="[$edit_template]">edit template</a>
[ENDIF]

Every page in your weblog has a "main message". On the front page of your weblog is the main message that describes your weblog (the one that initially says "Edit this message to change the name of your weblog"). On all the comments pages, the main message is the post that the comments are on. You also need a link to post new messages or add new comments. That's what the [#post] is for.

[$message_title]
[$message_body]

last modified [#mod_datetime]

[#post]

This is how your front page is structured. Everything between [#main_page] and [/#main_page] defines your front page. Anything between [#messages] and [/#messages] defines the look of each post. Within a [#message], you define what a [#visible_message] looks like. In this case, we have a title followed by an [#edit] link followed by the message body followed by the message id, author nickname, posting time and comment link.

[#main_page]
  [#messages]
    [#date_header]
    [#hidden_message] 
    [#visible_message]
      [$message_title] [#edit]
      [$message_body]
      [$message_id] |
      posted by <b>[$author_nickname]</b> at 
      [$post_hour]:[$post_minute]    
      | [#comment]
    [/#visible_message]
  [/#messages]
[/#main_page]

Similar to how we defined the [#main_page] above, the following defines the look of all the comments pages. Notice there is no comment link in this example because by default we don't allow comments on comments.

[#comments_page]
  [#messages]
    [#hidden_message]
    [#visible_message]
      [$message_title] [#edit]
      [$message_body]
      [$message_id] | 
      posted by <b>[$author_nickname]</b> on 
      [#post_datetime] 
    [/#visible_message] 
  [/#messages]
[/#comments_page]

To list out your archived posts you use this (notice archived months only appear on the [#main_page]).

[#main_page]
  [#archives]
    <a href="[$link]">[$month_name] [$year]</a>
  [/#archives]
[/#main_page]

Are you still having trouble with your HTML template?

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