Hi,

We are in the mids of redesign our layouts and templates. We noticed after changing the template behind each page from old template to new templates, the parts on the page are scrambled. What's the best practices or guidelines in term of redesign layout and template for exisitng pages?

Thanks
Jean

I've experienced the same issue and was told its just what happens because of the numbering of the content parts. I would love to hear if someone has found a workaround or solution.

Jean Hsi:

Hi,

We are in the mids of redesign our layouts and templates. We noticed after changing the template behind each page from old template to new templates, the parts on the page are scrambled. What's the best practices or guidelines in term of redesign layout and template for exisitng pages?

Thanks
Jean

 

 

Yes, this is because of the format of the layout/templates. My firm (independent of Blackbaud) has done a number of redesigns for current and ongoing NetCommunity customers. The best practice is to design and build your new layouts seperately. Completely new ones, and then build your templates and pages but do not publish them right away. You can keep all that content "behind the scenes" until you are ready to do a roll-over to the new design/layout and then do it all at once. 

There are a number of strategic reasons to do this as well. 

You (or anyone) can contact me offline about more specifics on how to do this.

LL Kasperzak

 

There truly isn't a solution, the parts just automatically find a place that fits. It is very annoying but you have to cut and paste every part in its correct content holder.

I've had that happen because I changed the layout in a major way, and so the placeholders for where you can put parts moved. For example. If you have two columns, one fixed column in the template, and one variable column where the parts go, and you make it so that you can put parts in the first column, then all your parts will go there first. That's because the template editor doesn't let you say "put new parts here but keep all our existing parts in this bit here".