VSys One: Volunteer Management Software

Site Templates

In versions of VSys prior to 3.1, there was a single template available for VSys Live sites, and it wasn't very flexible. The new mechanism supports:

• Multiple page layouts, for example one, two and three column pages,
• Page configurable settings, e.g. choosing a color scheme and logo, and
• Integrated menus into the page design.

Of course you can continue to use your existing site, but migrating to the new site templates brings a lot of benefits!

VSys comes with one or more built-in site templates (as of this writing there are five, but only Apex is fully supported.) Site templates define the regions available on VSys Live pages, as well as options for CSS and page layout. Each site template defines:

• One or more page layouts (Apex has five: One column; Two column, right sidebar; Two column, left sidebar; Two column, right sidebar with collapse; Two column, left sidebar with collapse),
• Metadata: the user-configurable aspects for the pages, menu generation code, styles, HAML markup for the page generation, and optionally content builders;
• Raw CSS included with each page (this CSS usually contains conditional processing and field replacement logic), and
• Zero or more asset files that may be called upon by the pages.

Okay, so what does this mean? Flexibility. In addition to your site's being able to have multiple page layouts, and have each page be very configurable, it also means that we can build you new or modified site templates and not have to reprogram VSys to do so!

Editing the built-in site templates or creating your own isn't supported. Doing so is very complicated, fraught with opportunities for obvious and subtle errors, and also not documented. Oh, and whenever we update your site, it'll get the latest site template, overwriting your changes. There are good, supported places to change the CSS: use them!