Introducing Templates

The layout of a blog is defined by a number of templates, which specify the layout and formatting of its content. The arrangement of items on the main page, the category and photo album pages and the individual article and photo pages are all defined by templates.

Templates comprise regular HTML interspersed with template variables, which act a placeholders for specific types of content. Before displaying your blog as web pages, the blog system replaces these template variables with the actual content for which they are placeholders. By using combinations of HTML and template variables, you have a high degree of control over how your blog is laid out. For example, you could change your blog so that the title of any article was the permanent link to its entry, the permanent link for each entry was represented by a graphic of a little smiling face, the byline for each article appeared after the body and not before, and so on.

The blog system allows you to modify the following templates:

The article template defines the layout of articles as they appear when viewed in their individual pages. This template contains two other templates, the comments template and the trackbacks template.

The base template defines the basic overall layout of a blog and which items go into its columns, the header and the footer.

The category template defines the layout of articles as they appear when viewed in their category pages. The Main Page is also a category page.

The comments template defines the layout of comments posted in response to an article or photo.

The favorites template defines the layout of favorites lists in the sidebar columns.

The photo template defines the layout of photos as they appear when viewed in their individual pages. This template contains two other templates, the comments template and the trackbacks template.

The photoalbum template defines the layout of photos as they appear when viewed in their photo album pages in "by page" format.

The photoalbum-byday template defines the layout of photos as they appear when viewed in their photo album pages in "by day" format.

The style template is the CSS template for the blog, defining colors, fonts and other visual elements.

The trackbacks template defines the layout of trackbacks for an article or photo.