Overview
The Template Customizer allows you to customize any supported template using an interactive point-and-click interface. The following covers the basic usage of the Template Customizer using the Default Entry Card template, one of the free templates included with Connections.
Important
Video Walkthrough
Starting the Template Customizer
To start the Template Customizer, go to the Templates admin page, locate the template you wish to customize, and click the Customize button.
After you click the Customize button, the page will reload with the preview on the right and the Customizer on the left. The Customizer will initially open with the Display Panel open.
Important
Important
Template Customizer Panels
The Template Customizer options are grouped into Panels. When the Template Customizer is initially loaded, the Display Panel will be displayed. To view the other available Customizer Panels, click the back arrow button (<) in the upper left of the Customizer.
The following Customizer Panels are those available for the Default Entry Card template.
Global Options
The Global Option Customizer Panel options are available to all templates which support the Template Customizer. In this panel, you will find the following options:
- Character Index :: Show the character index at the top of the results list.
- Character Index Repeat :: Repeat the character index at the beginning of each character group.
- Current Character :: Show the current character at the beginning of each character group.
Tip
Display
This panel allows you to disable or enable the display of data entered into your directory; for example, whether or not to display the address, phone number, categories, et cetera. Again, the options available are dependent on the template being customized.
Style
This panel will allow you to adjust the template’s various style configuration options. The options available are dependent on the template being customized. As an example, the Default Entry Car template allows you to configure the following attributes:
- Border Width
- Border Color
- Border Radius
Image
This panel allows you to adjust image-related settings, such as displaying the image type and size.
- Type :: Choose to display no image or either the Photo or Logo.
- Width
- Height
- Crop Mode :: Several different crop modes are available.
- Placeholder :: Choose whether or not an image placeholder is displayed if the selected image type does not exist.
- Placeholder Text :: The text to display if no image is available.
Advanced
Many of the options under this panel are common among all templates which support the Template Customizer. There are many options here, but they all work very similarly. The following covers how to use the Name Format, Address Format, and Address Types options. The same instructions can be applied to this panel’s other available “Format” and “Type” options.
Name Format
The name shown will be the full name of the entry, including the prefix, middle name, and suffix. This option accepts only a few specific tokens. A token is a word wrapped with the % symbol; for example, %first% is a token.
The valid tokens are:
%prefix%%first%%middle%%last%%suffix%
If you would like to display just the first and last name, you would use:
%first% %last%.
Address Format
Connections will scan for each token and replace it with the corresponding address segment when processing the address display. Each token should only be used once. You could use each token more than once, but that is not recommended.
The available tokens are:
%label%%line1%%line2%%line3%%city%%state%%zipcode%%country%
The default address format is:
%label% %line1% %line2% %line3% %city%, %state% %zipcode% %country%
To remove the label and the country, you would set these settings to:
%line1% %line2% %line3% %city%, %state% %zipcode%
To change the position of the zip code, you would change the settings to:
%label% %line1% %line2% %line3% %state%, %city% %zipcode% %country%
Display Address Types
The address field has the Type option when adding an address. The default choices are Home, Work, School, and Other. It is possible to limit the output to any combination of these address types regardless of whether an address is entered for an address type.
Examples:
Show only the home address type:
home
Show only the work address type:
work
Show both the home and school address types:
home, school
Saving Your Changes
To save your template customization, click the Save and Publish button.
Exiting the Template Customizer
To exit the Template Customizer, click the close button (×) in the upper left of the Customizer.