Building a layout for your Dynamic Data Overview

Layouts control the look of your published data. The layout you create will be applied to each record in your database being published and will be repeated on the page based on the template chosen. For example, if you choose the layout that shows 3 across, your layout would be outputted 3 times on each row. Layouts provide a powerful and flexible way to format your published pages. Layout Example Lets look an example of how this works. In this example, we'll use the following data (from the sample form in the sample folder): Figure 1: Sample data in the sample support form Selecting the Template We're going to select the "Horizontal Listings, 3 Across" template which will show 3 records across and, by default, 10 records per page. Figure 2: Selecting the "Horizontal Listings, 3 Across" template Creating the layout & Inserting Wildcards. The next step is the creation of the layout. Click the wildcard icon in the toolbar shown below to open the wildcard window. Figure 4: Wildcard toolbar item and WildCard Window Open Use the Editor's formatting options (colors, tables, etc) in conjunction with the wildcards to create a layout to display each record. You can insert images (both from the database and static images), and create tables and other layouts. Hint: tables are key to great layouts. I usually start with a table and then add the wildcards and data. Below is an example of a basic layout using the support form data. Figure 5. This is a sample layout shown in the editor. Remember, anything with the square brackets is a wildcard and will be replaced with the value from the database. Based on the selected template (3 across), and the layout created here, the resulting page looks like the following: Figure 6. Published Page in a web browser (3 across) By changing the Page Template to 2 Across and not editing the layout, the output looks like this: Figure 7. Published Page in a web browser(2 Across) Changing the layout template to "Vertical Listings, 1 per Row" gives you this result: Figure 8. Published Page in a web browser (1 per row) Changing the layout template to "Tabular" is a bit different and not covered completely here, but would result in a layout as shown below: Figure 9. Published Page in a web browser (Tabular Output) This has been a high level overview of how layouts work in conjunction with the selected template. The combination of various templates and the ability to create your own layout provides a flexible system for publishing your own unique content and making it look the way you want it to.