help with structured layout

See the attached. The left hand column (with contact info and mission statement) is my main concern. This will be constant on every page but I don’t want to use a chunk because I want to allow front-end editing of these elements via TVs. Is it right to assume that there is no way to place a template within a template?

Use a chunk but make the individual blocks that you want to be able to edit TVs in the chunk. They will still be editable on each page.

I guess I’m a little confused because TVs are tied to templates, so how do I get TVs in a chunk? I want a true universal TV so that when I change it on any page, it is reflected on all. I don’t understand how this can work if they TVs are unique to templates and I will have various templates building out the site.

TVs are editable on a page-by-page basis, for all pages using the templates that have been given access. There is the @INHERIT binding, which allows you to edit the TV for a container document, and all of its children will automatically "inherit" that value. Otherwise, editing a TV in a given document only changes it for that document.

If you want a block to be edited in one place and be changed for all documents, though, that’s a chunk.

Chunks can contain TV and snippets, by the way.

OK, sorry if I’m being a bit slow here. I have set up a chunk, I included a TV and then included this chunk in a template. I can’t see or edit the TV from that chunk anywhere though. Have I done this right? I’m using the newest 0.9.5

In your TV configuration, you must allow access to the TV by each template that you want to be able to access it... have you done that? Be sure to scroll the whole page on TV setup. On the individual pages, you will also access the TV’s below the main content window, so you need to be sure to scroll down on those pages as well... it is really easy to not realize everything that is on a page.

Quote from: identity at Nov 19, 2006, 07:21 PM

In your TV configuration, you must allow access to the TV by each template that you want to be able to access it... have you done that? Be sure to scroll the whole page on TV setup. On the individual pages, you will also access the TV’s below the main content window, so you need to be sure to scroll down on those pages as well... it is really easy to not realize everything that is on a page.

OK, well I have this working now. I only have two templates set up, the TV is accessible for both. What I’m not getting is how to have this act "global". I guess this is where I need @INHERIT...?

Yes, @INHERIT will be picked up by the children of where you place @INHERIT, so you can run it through the entire site (I believe, such as placing it in the template or in a chunk placed at the template level), or you can deliver different code based on sections... say a sidebar content pertinent to one section or another on your site, which may or may not be based on your main navigation... say you have your About Us section which uses it to contain your contact information in the sidebar on all the pages of the About Us section, but on the Products page, you use it to highlight your product categories as well as the phone number for your customer service... it all depends on what you need it to do.

Not exactly. By default, all pages will use the "default value" in the TV. If you put @INHERIT as the TV default value, then you edit the TV for the container documents. Each container document’s children will inherit the value you put in their parent document’s TV, even though their TV editing field will still say @INHERIT.

yes, what she said ... much better than I