Inserting Silverlight content with Expression Web 3: Module 3

Using Dynamic Web Templates in Expression Web 3

In this module, you’ll learn how to Create Dynamic Web Templates in Expression Web 3, define areas of the template as editable and apply the template to new pages with Silverlight content in your site.

Defining a Site in Expression Web
You’ll begin this module by defining a site in Expression Web 3.

1. Open Expression Web 3 and, from the Site menu in Expression Web, choose Open Site.
2. In the Open Site window that appears, click the Browse button.
3. Navigate to the 03_Using_Dynamic_Web_Templates folder and click Open, then click Open again in the next window that appears.
4. In the Site View tab, double-click default.html to open this page in Expression Web. This page currently has a Silverlight application in the top half of the page. In Expression Web 3, this appears as a blank placeholder. To see the Silverlight content you need to preview it in the browser.
5. Choose File > Preview in Browser and choose your default browser. After the page renders you will see your Silverlight navigation and animated slideshow. You will now create a template based off of this page.
6. Close the browser and return to Expression Web.

Dynamic Web Template Overview
Dynamic Web Template (DWT) is an HTML-based master version of a web page that contains settings, formatting, and page elements such as text, graphics, page layout, styles, and regions of a web page that can be modified. When you attach a DWT to pages in a site, that template defines the appearance for those pages. You can use any number of DWTs in a site, and you can attach a DWT to as many pages as you like.

By using DWTs, you can create HTML pages that share the same layout. In addition to providing a shared layout, you can make regions in a template editable while preventing changes to other regions in that template. Ultimately, this allows others to add and edit content in designated areas of a page, yet the layout will remain similar and linked to the template itself.

Because a DWT is attached to the pages based on it, changes you make to the DWT are reflected in these pages. When you update the content in a DWT, you can update the attached web pages simultaneously.

Editable regions
Editable regions are those areas that you specify in the DWT as being okay for other writers to edit. When creating the DWT, you can enable other authors to add or remove event information in the regions you specify without having to worry that they will alter the page layout.

Editable region in Code view
<!-- #BeginEditable "Region1" -->
<p>(Region1)</p>
<!-- #EndEditable -->