Work with a Starter Site Template

You use a copy of a starter site template provided by Oracle Content Management to create a new site, with a theme and custom components.

A starter site template collects all the pieces you need to build a custom website in one package: the default site, layout, navigation, sample content, theme, associated content items, and so on. Different from other site templates provided with Oracle Content Management, a starter site template provides you with an easy-to-use basic framework for creating a new site, including a new theme.

Note:

A theme is usually shared between site templates, but a starter site template uses a copy of a theme.

The starter site templates, StarterTemplate and JETStarterTemplate, are provided along with other site templates in Oracle Content Management when your administrator enables site templates during installation and configuration of the service. The Oracle JavaScript Extension Toolkit (JET) starter site template includes the latest JET styling for site templates, incorporates some page content (as JET components), and provides starter components for building JET-based site templates and sites.

Basic Process

Here’s the basic process for working with a starter site template:

Create a new site and select the starter site template. A new starter theme is created along with the new site.

Note:
Choose the site name carefully. The name you give the site is duplicated as the name of the new theme, and the theme will be visible to users once you publish the site. You can’t change the name of the theme after it is created.

The starter site and theme contain a set of folders and files that are required to start site and theme development.
Sync the new theme to your desktop. You can work on your desktop to extend and customize the theme with layouts and static assets. Because this is a copy of a theme and uses a name specific to your site template, you can make changes to the theme without affecting the source theme.
Open the site in Site Builder. You can use Site Builder to add to the site structure, add components and interactions to pages, and add content that will become part of the default site of the new site template. You can reuse or remove the site content provided in the starter site template.
When the site and theme are ready, sync the changes with your Oracle Content Management instance, then create a new site template from the selected site.
Share the site template so others can use it.

Create a Template Using a Starter Template

To use a starter site template:

In the Oracle Content Management side navigation, click Sites.

A list of existing sites is displayed.
Click Create.
In the Create Site dialog, select the starter site template to use as the basis for your site.

The new site uses the theme provided with the starter site template, renamed to match the new site name.
In the dialog, enter a name for the site. This name is used in the site URL. You can use letters, numbers, underscores (_), and hyphens (-). If you enter a space, it's automatically replaced with an underscore.

Don’t use the following names for site templates, themes, components, sites, or site pages: authsite, content, pages, scstemplate_*, _comps, _components, _compsdelivery, _idcservice , _sitescloud, _sitesclouddelivery, _themes, _themesdelivery. Although you can use the following names for site pages, don’t use them for site templates, themes, components, or sites: documents, sites.
Note:

The path for an Oracle Content Management site URL is case-sensitive. Case in the query or fragment strings is managed by developers in their custom code.
```
      https:[//host[:port]][/]path[?query][#fragment]
     \____________________/\________________________/
        Location          Data
```
Optionally, enter a description for the site.
When you’re ready, click Create.

A progress bar shows the new site name and creation status. When the site is created, the name appears in the list of sites. Its initial status is offline.

To quickly find your newly created site in the list, sort the list by Last Updated. The site you just created will appear at the top of the list.

Note:
You are automatically assigned the role of manager for the site you created.
Use the desktop app to sync the theme to your desktop.

You should now see the folder hierarchies and files for the theme.
The starter theme contains a minimal set of folders and files, like these:
```
theme
	assets
		css
			main.css
		js
			topnav.js
	designs
		default
			design.css
			design.json
			facebook.png 
			googleplus.png 
			linkedin.png 
			twitter.png 
			youtube.png 
			x-close.png		
  layouts
		index.html
	resonsepages
		404.html
	_folder.json
	_folder_icon.jpg
	components.json
	viewports.json
```
The x-close.png file contains the default close icon for the cookie consent popup.

The /layouts folder contains a starter page layout file (index.html) with the following contents:
- A set of HTML tags that allow the file to be used as a page layout.
- A single slot that has seeded text with instructions, such as how to sync the theme to your desktop, how to add a new page layout, how to add components to the page layout, and how to build site hierarchy using the new page layout.
- A simple JavaScript navigation file that provides an example of how to use the renderer API JavaScript functions and objects. The rendered API is needed for traversing the site hierarchy and generating required HTML markup to allow navigation within the site.
See also Basic Theme Structure.
When you’re finished modifying the theme, sync the theme folders and files to your Oracle Content Management instance. To see how your changes to the theme look and behave in a site, open the site in Site Builder. This will likely be an iterative process.
To view or modify the site, select the site and click Open in the right-click menu or click in the actions bar.
Toggle the editor mode to Edit so you can make changes to the site. You can modify existing pages and add new pages using the page layout available in the starter themes.

Note:
If you are familiar with the page layout structure and usage, you can delete sections provided by the starter site template that you don’t want and switch the layout on the sections that you do want to one of the new layouts.
When you are finished making changes to the site, Save the site, then click Publish to merge the update to the base site.
Select the site and create a site template based on the site. This pulls in the assets and theme for the new site template.
Share the site template with members you want to be able to use the site template.