Structure of a link template

Links are a fundamental part of the World Wide Web and are crucial for adding value to any website. Links primarily make it possible for the user to navigate the site, but they also direct the user to pages with additional information. Link templates are used to implement links in FirstSpirit. Template developers can use these templates to predefine the layout details for links within a FirstSpirit project.

For each new link template, there are different tabs in the SiteArchitect workspace on which all required settings and definitions can be made.

• Properties: All of the settings required for the link template can be made here.
• Form: The input components for the page are defined here.
• Rules: Rules can be defined to influence elements or properties.
• Snippet: How the page is displayed in overview lists can be defined here.
• Template set: The appearance of the content in the presentation channel is defined here.

Link templates can then be used in particular input components (see Usage).

Link types

The following link types are possible:

• Internal links: links to a page reference within the same project
• Image links: links that refer to a clickable image instead of linked text. These links also make it possible to integrate images directly into the continuous flow in CMS_INPUT_DOM or CMS_INPUT_DOMTABLE. A link target is not necessary in this case.
• Download links: links that are used to download files from the page.
• External links: links to elements outside of the project, such as to an external website.
• E-mail links: links to e-mail addresses.
• Dataset links: links to datasets.
• Remote links: links to FirstSpirit remote projects.
• Image map links: links to image maps (mouse-sensitive images).

The linked pages provide form and output syntax examples for these link types.

Links can be flexibly adapted in FirstSpirit to the requirements of the particular project. For instance, the default options in the following can be freely arranged for the most part, e.g. linked images (see example) can be used not only for links to pages within the project, but of course also for links to external targets or for downloading media, etc.

The preview may not show the current content already entered in the associated input masks when subsequent changes are made to link templates. This can be rectified by saving the input masks again.