Design: Templates

Our page4 system provides you with several templates. If you click on the "Templates" tab (1), you will find several menu items.

 

 

2) Designs = Here are all new design templates since mid-2015. Each design is named with a term from the field of astronomy. For example, we use the proper names of planets, stars, galaxies or similar.
3) Classic = Here are all the design templates that were created by us converting older templates. Each design has a number, so you can immediately see which old template was used.
4) Structures = Here you can customize the structure of your design.

As long as you don't click on "Save" in the upper right corner, you can try everything and revert to the last saved state at any time.

The first two templates (Design and Classic) completely overwrite the contents of your current design. Contents are header images, colors, font selection and design, navigation design, borders, background colors, etc. The content on your website, i.e. texts, images, lines, tables etc. will not be overwritten, of course, but only displayed in a different design.

Structure templates only change the structure and leave the design otherwise unchanged. With these templates you have a basis and can then customize it individually. By the way: All our templates are created with exactly the same tools that every page4 user can work with.
A design template is a website designed by the Page4 team. We only use our page4 web construction kit for this purpose, so you can theoretically and practically assemble any design template we create yourself.

A design template consists of several elements:

 

 

Header. A header consists of a container into which you can load a background image and on which you can place additional special content. You can also include navigation in a header. You can place up to three headers at the same time. All headers are always located in the upper area of a web page. More about headers in the article Header.

Footer. A footer consists of a container into which you can load a background image and on which you can place additional special content. A footer is always located at the bottom of a web page. More about the footer in the article Footer.

Sidebar. In the sidebar you can include content, the blog navigation and the normal navigation. You can place up to two sidebars at the same time.

Navigation. Depending on the type you need up to two areas where the navigation will be included. Navigation is mandatory, so there is no design without navigation area.

Content area. In this area all the content of your page will be included. Blog articles are displayed in the same place, but are independent from the normal content. The content area is also mandatory, so there can be no design without a content area.

 

 

We have created completely new design templates. You can find them in the "Designs" section and also recognize them by the fact that each design has its own name. We have chosen the names from the field of astronomy. So the templates are named after stars, galaxies and planets. Each template allows you to create hundreds of variations. And this can be done within a few minutes.
Design templates are suggestions provided by us to help you create an attractive website. You can use the design template as is and fill it with your own content. You can also replace all or part of the provided images with your own images, change the colors, fonts, heights, widths, spacing and whatever you like and create a completely individual design. All templates in the new design editor are optimized for mobile websites. Even design templates that you change remain completely responsive.

In Page4, the elements for design are strictly separated from the content of a web page.

There is only one exception. Content that you place yourself in a header or a footer is created and edited directly in the design editor. However, this content is not part of the design. We have moved the editing of this content to the design editor because it makes the workflow better and gives you more control.

In the old version, you could create and edit content in the header directly on the page, which is where you create content. Since you could place text and images on the design image in the header, many users had problems with the fact that they couldn't change the header image itself there. It wasn't until our support explained why we designed it that way that people understood that the header image is part of the design and the elements on the header are part of the content.

Now that you edit the content in the design editor, you can also edit the header image with one click and remove it if it is not needed because a gallery should be displayed instead.

 

 

 

We have converted and optimized old templates. You can find these templates in the "Classic" section. The templates are named with a number. If the old design has the layout (structure) number 64 and we converted the template 20, then the new "Classic design" has the number 64-20. With the old templates it was so that, for example, the structure 64 determined the arrangement of the areas and the templates themselves differed only by color scheme and the height of the header or by the total width.
There were also templates that used graphic elements to create decorative frames. Unfortunately, such templates are not suitable for mobile display and are no longer up-to-date. Moreover, it is technically not possible to convert these templates 1:1, because the new system is built differently.
However, you can use a Classic template to replicate all the old templates of a layout structure, so the Classic design templates we provide are able to replace hundreds of the old templates.

 

 

 

Currently there are five templates for structures. With these, all existing design templates have been created. With these structures and the options that page4 provides, you can rebuild about 90% of all design templates that other building kits provide without much effort. Many building kits use only a structure and design the templates with fonts, colors, images and often with "real" content, i.e. elements in the content area that normally have no place in the design.
The structure is used to place the areas. A structure decides how the areas of a web page are arranged in relation to each other. If you have chosen a certain structure, you can determine the widths and heights of the areas or omit areas. However, you have no influence on how the sections are arranged in relation to each other. The only way to rearrange them is to choose a different structure.