[ xmlSE . how to . control the appearance of the site ] edit

The xml site engine is set up to allow several different versions of the site to be built from one set of xml data files, in order to accommodate different browsers. Every time a web browser requests a page from a web site, it identifies itself with a short text message called the user-agent string. When you create a new browser, or edit a browser, you can provide a regular expression for that version of the site, and when a web browser requests a page from the site, it is served the version that matches its user-agent string.

Each browser version has a set of html templates, that define the appearance of the pages. Each browser can also have a header and footer, so that html that is shared by all the templates can be controlled from one place, when you edit a browser.

Each browser needs an 'index' home page template, a series of templates for pages that are generated by scripts, like the form page and the password page, and an index, record and reference template for each category. The index template lists all the records in a category, a record template is printed for each record, and the reference template controls the appearance of references to the record from other records and search results. You can edit an html template to change the appearance of an existing page. When you create a new category you need to create a new html template for its index and record pages.

authors: Mike Weller

last updated 2.28.2002 by administrator