Book Image

Building Websites with OpenCms

Book Image

Building Websites with OpenCms

Overview of this book

This book takes you through the process of creating content-rich websites and applications using OpenCms. Although powerful and flexible, OpenCms can be daunting on first approach, but its advanced features reward the investment in learning. This book exists to ease Java developers into getting the most from OpenCms. OpenCms OpenCms is a professional-level, open source Website Content Management System, with which you can create and manage complex websites. Based on Java and XML technology, it fits into almost any modern IT environment. With hard-won experience of the practical difficulties faced by developers working with OpenCms, this book is the embodiment of the author's expertise, and the perfect way to master the system.
Table of Contents (12 chapters)
Building Websites with OpenCms
Credits
About the Author
Introduction

XML Templates


In OpenCms 5.0, XML templates play a minor role in a number of tasks, but there is one area in which they are still quite dominant. The majority of the Workplace is still implemented using XML templates. In the next major release of OpenCms, the core system will not make use of XML templates at all, and OpenCms developers have announced that they intend to relegate all of the XML template support code to a separate module that can be used for supporting legacy applications.

With this in mind, I will provide just a cursory overview of the XML template mechanism—enough to provide the developer with the tools necessary to interact with, fix, or modify existing code. If you find that you need to use XML templates more extensively, the OpenCms website (http://www.opencms.com) has documents that explain the template mechanism in detail.

How XML Templates Work

Essentially, there are three XML template types used for rendering a page:

  • The frametemplate defines the structure of the page...