How create an alternate page template ATA 3.6.7
 

Hello! Its been awhile, but I believe I have created alternate page templates in ATA such that a drop-down appeared on the right nav of the Admin "new/edit page" screen.

I need a couple changes between the main template and the alternate, mainly change the background image and also change the size of the right sidebar (the goal is to create a page template that will allow for longer content with a plain background image rather than the very fixed space used with the main background.

I made a copy of index.php and called it PlainTemplate.php but have made no other alterations to it.

Thanks for your help!

Why not. Use CSS to make the changes for that page?
you have to know how many sidebars you are using to determine the 'colxxxxx' to use or you could exclude the sidebar using the 'RIGHT sidebar: Don't display on Pages:' option

I need it to be very easy as the ministry will be maintaining the site themselves. Manually updating the CSS each time they want a page like this is probably too much. Thanks for the suggestion though.

Here is the temp address if it helps: http://womenat.s426.sureserver.com

The background will always have to be set via CSS - however, if the background for all pages that use the template will be the same you can use
as for teh template, take a look at the 'http://forum.bytesforall.com/showthread.php?t=8787' thread in teh Gold Forums tutorials

I took a quick look at how your site is constructed and I see that you are using a body background as the background for the page. Also from what you said it seems like you only want this front page and perhaps a select few other pages to be this fixed size with all others being longer to accommodate more text. If those assumptions are correct I would...

• Use a page as the front page with the welcome message
• Use the image you are using now as a background for that page
• Eliminate the right sidebar for just that page
• Use separate background images for the left sidebar and main content
• Build the CSS that applies to all other pages

In other words build the front page and use the necessary CSS to make it look like you want but for any other pages anyone creates the CSS you created for all other pages would be in place.


This is all much more difficult to explain that it is to do.