The public site has a layout, or 'skin' that appears around each page. This discusses how to create a new one.
The public site has a layout, or 'skin' that appears around each page. This layout is normally setup by Center Dynamics initially, using the layout from your previous public web site. A web designer can create a new replacement skin or additional skins to differentiate parts of the web site.
Masterpages
The technical name for a 'skin' or layout is Masterpage. The web site can have a single or several masterpages. The masterpage contains links to images and stylesheets, and uses those common elements when displaying each document so that the look and feel is consistent across the web site. Content is inserted in the center of the masterpages so that the all pages match without the need to alter each content page. In the image below, the masterpage is seen as pink, while the content area is shown in the center. The content will appear properly, even if the masterpage is changed. In this way, the entire look of every page on the site can be changed by changing just a single masterpage.
Each document or folder of documents points to a single masterpage. There is also a default master page that the dynamic pages such as the center map and event search pages use exclusively.
The masterpage almost always contains a menu to help the public find relevant documents. These documents are simply added to the library, and then linked to by the master page. There are also special features in the library to automatically generate a menu based on the contents of a folder. This feature is good for sub-menus under certain areas of the site, but is usually not used for the site's main menu as that normally contains links to several portions of the site.
Masterpages must be manually uploaded to the web server. If you are hosted with center dynamics, just send us your new masterpages, linked stylesheets and images, and we will load them to the server for you.
Constructing a Masterpage
