- Using the Duplicate Page Command to Create Pseudo-Templates
- Purchasing Additional Ready-Made Themes
- Getting Ready to Create Your Own Themes
- Opening the iWeb Package and Locating the Templates Folder
- Adjusting the TemplatesInfo.plist File to Include Additional Templates
- Adding a New Category Entry
- Opening the Templates Files
- Creating Your Own Template Graphics
- Modifying Template Formatting
- Locating Items in the Index.xml File
- Creating Template Previews
- More Information
- Additional Resources
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Modifying Template Formatting
The formatting for iWeb templates is stored in the compressed XML file at the root level of the template package. Editing this template is an extremely daunting prospect for anyone, even someone with a lot of XML experience. Unlike the TemplatesInfo.plist file, this file is not formatted at all and displays as one huge line of text. Even glancing at it in a basic text editor is enough to give you eyestrain. Proceed to editing only if you have some level of comfort working with XML. Because of the complex nature of this file and its lack of formatting, I don’t attempt to explain most of its contents here—I just give you some general suggestions for locating specific features in it to modify them.
The first step is to decompress the index.xml.gz file. You can do this by double-clicking it (you have to recompress it after making changes). In theory, you can open the expanded file in any text editor and in a number of code editors (although some code editors have a problem with the single-line format). Code editors that display code in multiple colors can help you try to make some semblance of sense of the file. Figure 3 is from the index.xml file for iWeb’s Blank Black template, opened using Dreamweaver (which displays code in various colors). In theory, you can’t get much more basic or simple than this template, yet even this template has a huge amount of code to look through.
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Figure 3 Blank Black template’s Index.xml file