Table of Contents
Overview
Page Template Design
Building Page Templates
Question Bank
Assigning Page Templates
Related Articles
Overview
If you are using Coursedog's Curriculum Management product along with your catalog, you will want to determine how the pre-built course and program pages are displayed. Fortunately, Coursedog provides you with an extremely flexible template editor that can be used to apply a consistent style across all course and program pages in the catalog.
Page Template Design
Overview | Cards | Fields | Downstream Effect
Overview
Before you start building page templates, it is important to first understand the different parts that make up each template. In short: each template is made up of different cards, and every card consists of various fields. The following screenshot of a course template, for example, shows the “General Information” card, which consists of several fields: Subject Code Select, Course Number, Text, Department Select, and Select.
Cards
The primary purpose of a card is to group fields together for the viewer.
Every card contains a name at the top as well as a set of fields.
The name of the card can be edited at any time (simply click on the name to change it).
You can re-order cards via the “Card Order” option located on each card. You can either:
Click the up or down arrow. OR
Manually input a specific order number (cards will move to the specified order after you input the number and click out of the “Card Order” box).
There are two ways to add new cards: Click the “+” icon to add a new card above an existing card OR click “Add Card” at the bottom of your screen to add a card to the bottom.
Fields
You can add both “Custom Fields” and “Course Template Questions” to any card.
You can adjust the location of a field by dragging it around the template.
Downstream Effect
The fields you add to the template – and the way in which you order the fields and cards – will ultimately impact what the public sees. The general information card shown in the template above will look like this in the public view.
Building Page Templates
PATH: Catalog > Settings > Page Templates
Overview
You can add or edit course and program templates at the above path.
Create a new template from scratch by clicking the "NEW TEMPLATE" button at the top of the page.
Edit an existing template by selecting an option from the list.
How To Do It
Step 1: Select “New Template”.
Step 2: Fill out the required fields:
Input a name.
Select the type of template (i.e. Course or Program) from the dropdown.
Step 3:
Add the fields you would like to appear on the page template.
Those fields can be found in the “Question Bank” on the left-hand side of your screen. You can choose between “Custom Fields” and “Course Template Questions”. A breakdown of both can be found in the “Question Bank” section below.
Step 4: Click into each field to enter its Question Title, Question Description, and Question Extended Description.
Step 5:
Clicking into the field also opens additional Question Settings on the left.
Available settings will vary depending on the question type.
See the “Question Bank” section below for more information.
You will not need to save your template when you are done – it is automatically saved.
Question Bank
Overview | Custom Fields | Course or Program Template Questions
Question Settings | Questions with Nested Fields
Overview
The question bank includes two options: Custom Fields and Course/Program Template Questions.
Custom Fields
Custom Fields allow you to define content that will display on the course page directly in the template builder.
Click “Custom Fields” to see the two types of Custom Fields you can add to a template: WYSIWYG Editor and Custom Heading.
WYSIWYG Editor
The WYSIWYG (“What You See Is What You Get”) Editor allows you to define a text box with tables, images, and more. To use the WYSIWYG editor, drag the custom field onto the template, then click on it. This will display the following menu:
Custom Heading
Allows you to define a header on the template. After dragging the field onto the template, enter the header title you wish to add in the "question title" section. In the public view, the heading will display as an H2 header (shown here).
Course or Program Template Questions
Overview
These fields are pulled directly from the associated template in Curriculum Management.
Some of the fields have nested data which can also be modified. These fields include:
Requirements
Components
Topics
Specializations
Credits
When a field with nested data is added, a dropdown menu will appear on the field in the template. Simply click on this dropdown to expand the settings and edit visibility.
Updates between Curriculum and Catalog
If you add a course or program template question into the page template, and then the course or program template in Curriculum is subsequently updated, you will need to delete and re-add the question into the page template to have those changes reflected in the page template.
Question Settings
Overview | Set Default Value | Visible | Configurable
Empty Placeholder Value | PDF Visibility | Add Action
Overview
Click into any given field, custom or prebuilt, to edit its “Question Settings”.
Available settings vary from field to field, but a breakdown of several potential settings is below.
Set Default Value
Allows you to define the content you would like to be displayed across all pages of the template's type.
Visible
- Check this box to have the field visible to end users.
- Uncheck this box to keep the field on your template, but keep it off of your public website.
Configurable
The “configurable” setting impacts who can modify and/or remove this field on the form itself.
Learn more about how this works here.
Empty Placeholder Value
This determines what will be displayed in the field if no value is entered.
PDF Visibility
This setting determines how a question should be displayed in a generated PDF, including the Catalog PDF.
Options include “Hidden”, “Content Only”, and “Table of Contents & Content”.
Even if a field, including nested fields, is marked “not visible”, it might appear in a catalog PDF if you haven’t also toggled the PDF Visibility setting to “Hidden”.
Add Action
Actions allow you to make exceptions by defining which pages should not receive the default value and defining an alternative option.
Actions that use conditions to control display of a field in the online catalog (e.g. if ____ is empty then hide field) do not apply to the PDF. Template fields are either visible/hidden based on the field's PDF visibility setting, which is not conditional.
- Actions are limited to showing or hiding the whole field, not parts of it. PeopleSoft schools can work around this by creating a field called “catalog attributes” (this ability is limited to PeopleSoft schools for the time being).
You can learn more about actions here.
Questions with Nested Fields
If a question has nested fields, you can configure question settings for the main question as well as each individual nested field.
If you have the “Requirements” field on your template, for example, that question has multiple nested fields. Each nested field is a different requirement type (e.g. Simple Requirements and Free Form Requirements).
You can click into each nested field and use “PDF Visibility” to determine which requirement types are (or are not) hidden.
Assigning Page Templates
PATH: Catalog > Settings > Catalogs
Overview
Each catalog must be assigned a course and program template in order to display Curriculum-fed data.
How To Do It
Step 1: Navigate to Catalog > Settings > Catalogs.
Step 2: Click on the catalog you wish to edit.
Step 3: Select the desired template from the "Catalog Course Page Template" and "Catalog Program Page Template" drop downs.
Step 4:
Select “Save” when you have finished editing.
All courses and programs that are pulled into that catalog will reflect the layout you have defined
Additional Note
The “User Select” field should not be used within templates to display instructors. “User Select” is not designed for display, and will not render in a public-facing catalog.