About Site Assets

Site assets are all files that are associated with a Web site and managed on the content server. With Site Studio, you can use these assets to create your Web site and make the maintenance on the Web site much easier. Managed site assets can be concurrently used and reused across your Web site, or even in multiple Web sites.

Some site assets, such as contributor data files, or native documents, are the content viewed on the web page. Other site assets, such as region templates, page templates, CSS, and placeholder definitions, control where and how the data is displayed on the web page.

Other assets, such as custom configuration scripts, validation scripts, and manager configuration settings, are used to help control how the Web site contributors and managers edit and maintain the Web site.

You manage all site assets in the site assets pane in Designer. See Site Assets Pane for more information.

Site Studio works with the following site assets:

• Element definitions: Files that define the editing experience for element types. Specifically, they specify what a contributor can do when editing an element. See for more information. See Element Definitions for more information.

• Region definitions: Files that define the type of content that elements of a particular type consist of. They also specify the content creation and switching options available to contributors for contribution regions, and set default metadata for content files associated with these regions. See Region Definitions for more information.

• Placeholder definitions: Files that define what region definitions, region templates, and subtemplates are allowed for the associated placeholders. They also specify what contributor actions are allowed for the placeholders. See for more information. See Placeholder Definitions for more information.

• Page templates: Fully-formed HTML files that define the layout and high-level look-and-feel of web pages, including the placement of contribution regions (that is, editable areas on the page), navigation aids (in the form of fragments) and site-wide images (banners and the like). Page templates are the highest-level site design object. See Page Templates for more information.

• Region templates: Partial HTML files (that is, without head and body sections) that define the layout and look-and-feel of the data in contribution regions within web pages. See Region Templates for more information.

• Subtemplates: Partial HTML files (that is, without head and body sections) that can be inserted into placeholders on page templates to divide them into further smaller, reusable areas with their own placeholders and contribution regions. See Subtemplates for more information.

• Contributor data files: Content files in XML format that are generated by Site Studio. Contributor data files are edited using the Site Studio Contributor application. See Contributor Data Files for more information.

• Native documents: Content files created using familiar third-party applications such as Microsoft Word. Native documents are converted to HTML format using Dynamic Converter, and they are edited using their associated application. See Native Documents for more information.

• Images: Graphic files (JPG, GIF, PNG) that are included in content files or page templates (for example, corporate banners or product images). See Images for more information.

• Scripts: JavaScript files that provide a series of commands that can be executed without user interaction. Scripts are often used to provide additional functionality to web pages. See Scripts for more information.

• Cascading style sheets (CSS): Files that provide control over how page content is displayed (more specifically, how different HTML elements, such as headers and links, appear on the page). Links to CSS files are often embedded in page templates, so their formatting rules apply to all web pages based on these templates. See Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) for more information.

• Custom configuration scripts: JavaScript files that override the default Contributor editor configuration to provide contributors with a customized editing experience. See Custom Configuration Scripts for more information.

• Custom element forms: HTML files that define custom forms for use in elements (for example, selection forms for specific file types). Site Studio comes with several predefined custom element forms (in [CS-Dir]\custom\SiteStudio\elementforms). These forms are also checked into the content server when the Site Studio component is installed. See Custom Element Forms for more information.

• Validation scripts: JavaScript files that define the validation rules for element data to determine that the data meets the requirements (for example, it does not exceed a certain maximum length or contain some illegal characters). See Validation Scripts for more information.

• Fragment libraries: Collections of chunks of code (fragments) that enhance the functionality of a Site Studio Web site (for example, by providing dynamic navigation aids or a standard page footer). See Fragment Libraries for more information.

• Manager configuration settings: Files that define the functionality that is available in Site Studio Manager. Manager is a web-based tool that enables designated users (site managers) to modify the structure of a Web site. See Manager Configuration Settings for more information.

• Conversion definitions: Files that specify the conversion rules for native documents on a Web site. See Conversion Definitions for more information.