|
One of the major reasons Profile Manager is so flexible is that it is completely
template generated. Templates are simple HTML files.
Every page has its own HTML template. Therefore modifying a member page
is as easy as modifying any other page in your site. You can modify templates using
your favorite HTML editor as well. This screenshot tour will show you how to edit
templates.
1. What is a Template?
As an example, let's look at the "panel" template. This is the page a user
first sees after log-in. The screenshots show panel page template and its working
version below. Look at the selected text on the template "Welcome %%firstname%%".
When Profile Manager runs and a user logs-in this text is changed to the actual
first name of the user. Everything else is shown to the user as it is.
So, you can open the panel template in PM Admin Panel or in your favorite HTML editor
and change it according to your needs. And when you need to put a user data in it, just
use the %%tags%%.
2. Let's Modify a Template
To see how changing a template modifies your membership area let's change something on
the template. Change the welcome message to "how are you today %%firstname%%".
3. Member Entrance Page Changed
After adding the new message on our panel template, let's login as a user.
Our message now shows up on the top of the page. Cool! Let's do something more
advanced...
4. Using FrontPage to Edit Templates
I can open a template in FrontPage, DreamWeaver or whatever my favorite HTML Editor is.
In this example, I will redesign all member changes by modifying the header template.
Since I would like to completely change the header, I have created a new file on FrontPage.
I made myself a simple header with some links and a big banner message.
5. Copying New Design
I can save this template as the header template or I can copy its source code to the
Web Based template editor. I will do the former. So, I click on HTML code tab on the
FrontPage and get the source code of the page.
6. Saving Changes
Then I copy the HTML Source Code of the new page into the header template source code
on the admin panel. Finally, click on the Modify button to save new changes.
7. Testing Changes
I can now login as a user and test my new design. It looks cool! And it took only couple
of minutes. If I wanted to make this process faster, I can open the remote template file
directly in my FrontPage and instantly edit it. The header template is located at
/pm3/cgi/templates/common/t_header.htm in your site.
 | 
