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Before Modifying Templates Files

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Although modifying templates for employee applications such as Siebel Sales and Siebel Call Center is typically not necessary, it is common to need to modify Web templates for customer and partner applications. For example, you may want to add a corporate logo to every page seen by your customers or partners.

When modifying Web templates, consider the following:

For Siebel employee applications the standard templates are tightly integrated with the High Interactivity Framework. Modifying or creating new templates may cause unexpected behavior which is difficult to troubleshoot.
Siebel Web templates files, like cascading style sheets, are not automatically upgraded. Consequently, if you make modifications to Web templates, the modifications will need to be reapplied manually after upgrading to a new release.

Before you modify Siebel Web templates, consider how you might configure objects definitions in Siebel Tools or use other means to meet your user interface requirements. For example:

Reposition fields and other controls, such as buttons, by dragging and dropping them to different locations in a template using the Web Template Layout Editor.

See Siebel Tools Reference for more information.

Use the functionality provided by the More/Less feature to add additional fields to an applet but only display them when a user clicks the More button in the upper right corner of an applet.

See Siebel Tools Reference for more information.

Use Siebel Conditional tags to target different layouts for different browsers. Conditional tags are Siebel tags that process if or switch/case logic. They allow you to target different layouts depending on which browser type (for example, Internet Explorer 5.5 or Navigator 6) is making the request. A single template can handle layouts for multiple browser types.

See Siebel Tools Reference for more information.

Use Siebel Web Format file (.swf file) to define a new HTML Type. For example, you could create a new HTML Type called LargeButton by copying the standard MiniButton and then changing the size and image used for the button. After you add LargeButton to the List of Values, it will be available to select as the HTML Type property of a control.

See Siebel Tools Reference for more information.

If you must modify or create Web templates, try to keep the number to a minimum; the fewer, the better. Here are some general guidelines to help achieve this goal. The following list is ordered by the amount of effort that will be required to upgrade to a future release—the first item will require the least effort and the last item will require the most effort.

Modify the container page. There is only one container page in an application, so it is acceptable to make changes in this template. This is a relatively easy way to make changes that apply throughout the application. For example, you might add a new logo or other navigational links to the template.
Modify view templates. There are only a few view templates in an application. It is generally acceptable to add navigational links in view templates. Changes in a view template affect all View objects that reference the template.
Modify applet templates. There are a number of applet templates in an application. It is best to minimize changes to applet templates. In most cases, the layout placeholders in the standard applet template are flexible enough to meet your needs.
Hardcode applet templates. This is writing your own HTML directly into a template, such as hardcoding the width attribute of a <table> tag. Doing this may cause unexpected behavior. For example, it might change the template so that it is no longer reusable, which would lead to a proliferation of applet templates that would have a severe impact during upgrades.
Create new templates. New templates can be useful when they are used for very specific purposes. However, you should be careful to avoid creating numerous instance-specific templates because of the consequent effort required to manually upgrade each one. If a new template is necessary, it should be a copy of a standard template, and the copied template should have the same set of Siebel tag IDs as the original. This will allow easy replacement because existing association information between tag IDs and UI objects in the Repository will continue to work.
Embedding JavaScript in templates. This should be avoided. See Siebel Tools Reference.

For a complete description of each standard template, see Siebel Tools Reference.

About Embedding JavaScript in Web Templates

It is not necessary to embed client-side JavaScript in Web templates. Instead, you can write client-side JavaScript in Siebel Tools using Browser Script. Browser Script allows you to interact with browser objects, such as form fields, and interact with Siebel objects, such as business components and business services. The advantage of using Browser Script is that, because it is developed in Siebel Tools, changes are stored in the Siebel Repository. And since Browser Script is not hardcoded into a template, applets with Browser Scripts can share the same template.

For more information about Browser Scripting, see Siebel Tools Reference and Siebel eScript Language Reference.

The general recommendation is to avoid embedding any client-side JavaScript in Web templates. Doing so not only limits the reusability of Web templates, but may also adversely affect Siebel employee applications that run in the High Interactivity Framework, which uses client-side JavaScript extensively.

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