The CWU templates were constructed to allocate editable areas where departments would be able to update their content. All Web pages under the homepage have 3 editable areas, which include the left menu links, the main content area, and the contact area.

Editable Left Menu Area

Below is a picture of the CWU Student Health and Counseling Center homepage. Notice the editable regions are marked on the image. These will be the regions where you can add or delete content.

If I were to open this page up in Dreamweaver, I would see a section of code like the one in the image below (if you are in code view). Notice that the first three lines are HTML comments.

This is just a comment to you, the Web developer, on where this first Editable Left Menu Area begins. Notice that about 10-15 lines later, there is another set of HTML comments that mark where the Editable Left Menu Area ends.

A nice feature that Dreamweaver has, is to recognize that only the space between theses two sets of comments is the editable region. Therefore, if you try to edit outside of this area (in the gray areas), Dreamweaver will not allow it. This helps prevent errors that could break the structure of the page.

Links in this left menu area are surrounded first by a div tag and then by the anchor tag. Take a moment to compare both the above and below pictures to see if you can figure out how the left links were created.

Learn more about common HTML tags.

Editable Content Area

The second editable region is the Content Area. The image below shows that this area is again marked by three HTML comments which tell you where to begin editing. Notice that, again, there is also a place that tells you where this area ends. Take a few moments to compare the code with the first image shown at the top of the page. Are you beginning to see how the page was constructed?

Learn more about common HTML tags.

Editable Contact Area

The last editable region is the Contact Area, where your address and phone number are placed.

Learn more about common HTML tags.

The CWU templates were constructed to allocate editable areas where departments would be able to update their content. The lower level pages have 3 editable areas, which include the left menu links, content area, and the contact area. However, there will be times when you need to start a new page or edit an existing pages' department title, page name, or some other uneditable region.

If you are using Dreamweaver, follow the steps below to learn how to update these uneditable regions by altering the template properties. If you are not using Dreamweaver, you will need to follow another method to update these areas. Please contact Jesse Days at daysj@cwu.edu if you need assistance.

To access these areas, first open the desired page in Dreamweaver. (Get help on how to open a file in Dreamweaver.) Then go to Modify —> Template Properties...

A dialog box will appear that looks like the image below. Let's discuss each Name and Value property individually.

(1) HasLeftMenu - This option is asking whether or not you would like a left menu area. It is set to true by default. Notice that when you highlight this option, you are offered two checkboxes as shown below. You may uncheck the first checkbox if you do not want this left menu area.

If you choose to get rid of this left menu area by unchecking this box, you will then see another window appear that looks like the one below. Click on the text that says LeftMenuRegion to highlight it. The bottom of the window will then display a drop down box labeled "Move Content to New Region." From the drop down menu, choose Nowhere. What you are doing is telling Dreamweaver that you no longer want the left menu and that the information that is currently there can be deleted. NOTE: This action will delete your left menu links and once you close the document you will not be able to restore them.

(2) TitleBarOnTop - This option is to allow you some flexibility in where your page header will display. By default the title bar (page header) displays under the main five links under the CWU banner. If you change this value to true, this title will be moved above the main five links but below the CWU banner.

(3-12) amenu_item#_link and amenu_item#_name - These fields correspond to the top menu links. By default, these links will be CWU Home, Admissions, Academic Programs, Alumni/Friends, Life at Central, and Administration.

The CWU Home link will always appear on your pages. However, if you would like to change these links to something specific to your department you may do so. Notice that there are up to five amenu_item#_link and amenu_item#_name variables for you to alter. The URL will be the value for the first link will be entered in amenu_item1_link. Then you will need to enter the name of the link in amenu_item1_name. If you do not need all five links, just leave these values blank.

IMPORTANT: If you wish to alter these links, you will need to consider the length of the link names in relation to user monitor resolutions. For example, let's say I alter these main 5 links as shown below. My computer monitor's resolution is set to 1024 x 768. So this looks pretty good.

But what if my resolution was set to a smaller resolution, 800 x 600. Then my links would look like the image below. Try to make link names as short as possible if you plan to alter these main 5 links. If it is not possible, consider using your left menu area for main navigation.

Good rule to follow: For each link, try limiting the link to a max of 14 characters, including spaces. This should ensure that your links will always display nicely.

(13) dept_homepage - This value will be the CWU homepage address by default. This property should hold the value of the URL that the Back to link will go to. In most cases, it will go back to the department homepage.

(14) dept_name - The text entered as the value for this property will display in two places on your lower level page. The first is in the page heading located in the red bar. The second place it displays is in the Back to link.

In the example below, the value "SHCC" has been entered as an abbreviation of the department name, Student Health and Counseling Center. This is done when the department name is very long to shorten the text in the page header.

(15) dept_title - The value that you input for dept_title will display in two places. It will display in the title bar of your browser and also as the heading in your contact area in the lower bottom left.

(16) desccontent - The description content is referring to a meta tag that will be inserted at the top of your Web page's code. The value should be one descriptive sentence on what this Web page is about. The user will not actually see this code but it helps search engines to find your page. For the Student Health and Counseling Center - we could write:

This page describes information for the CWU student health and counseling services.

(17) kwcontent - This value will be inserted into a second meta tag used to help search engines. It stands for "keyword content." Again, this isn't anything that the user would see on your Web page. Think about what words someone would type into Google or Yahoo to find your Web page. For the Teacher Certification Program - Admission Requirements page, we could enter:

counseling, center, services, shcc, information, cwu, student

Notice that I have separated each word with a comma. This ensures that users can type in any combination of these words to help find the page. Also, note that capitalization does not matter but plural does. Do not exceed 20 keywords, as it will not help you.

(18) page_image - This property will hold the filename of image that appears in the upper left corner of the page. Note: The value that you insert for this image will be just the name of the picture itself without the extension (Ex: do not include the ".jpg").

View listing of all possible images. Please note: If you have specific pictures that you would like to insert, just let us know and we can assist you in editing these pictures.

(19) page_name - This will be the name of the page you are currently on. It will display in the top page header and also in the title bar.