Templates for mobile-specific content in a multichannel application can give content administrators the flexibility to manage channel-specific content in Experience Manager. When planning the set of templates for your application, however, use more general templates whenever possible in order to share configuration across multiple channels.
The following general practices help enable this combination of flexibility and consistency:
Create different top-level page templates for channels that have a different high-level structure. For example, the same range of cartridges may be appropriate for pages designed to be displayed on desktop computers but not for pages designed to be displayed on mobile devices. Native applications for mobile devices may display content in simplified "pages" that differ from those intended for Web browsers.
Use dynamic slots for configuration that should be shared across channels, because they enable reuse of content between pages. For example, if the same refinement configuration (such as overall dimension order, refinement ordering, and boost and bury options) should apply at a specific navigation state regardless of channel, it may make sense to configure it within a separate content folder and reference it from the appropriate pages for each channel.
To enable the greatest flexibility in Experience Manager while ensuring that content administrators create configurations that are appropriate to each channel, you can restrict the cartridges that can be placed on a page or in a content folder by content type. These content types may vary depending on the intended purpose of a page or dynamic slot. For example, you may have the following in your application:
Page templates for desktop Web, which may define a section of type
SecondaryContent. This section may be populated with Guided Navigation cartridges, Spotlight cartridges, or dynamic slots serving as a placeholder for either type.A content folder designed for Guided Navigation cartridges. This is similar to the Navigation section of the mobile page, but it should not allow a content administrator to create a dynamic slot within a dynamic slot, so it should have a third content type (such as
Navigation) to enforce this restriction.
In most cases, the set of Dimension Navigation cartridges in an application should be identical. Variance between different output channels tends to manifest at the page design level, rather than at the level of the individual components of a page.
