Why use the Ubuntu Templates Framework
Why use the Ubuntu Template Framework
As far as we know this is the only Open-Source Template approach where the complexity is taken out of the templates.
One of the Industry objectives when developing JSP’s is to have separation between code and HTML.
This resulted in the MVC model which the Ubuntu project strives to realize Instead of having templates the have complicated Java code on them we have "pure html templates"
We have a sepperate JSP the Controller JSP which has all the Java code for processing and delivering all the required aspects of the page as object properties
A third JSP is provided that uses a HashMap to keep pointers to all the site specific content so that common images, logos banners can be placed on any other web server and rendered as partt of the same page. It even handles limited internationalization so that you can switch between default language (English) and another (Zulu)
With all this complexity removed from the "Template Writer" making new template is now a simple task
We only have to place small scriptlets like this <%=Object.ProperyValue > on the template to render values stored in a hidden layer of Java code
The framework provide all the property values needed to create , breadcrumbs (hierarchical and same-site ) , body content …and even our special high-performance Imageless Style-sheet Rollover Button Menus
If that is not enough there are 14 Standard templates provided as samples from which you can create your own templates
In order to show you how to create your own sites using these templates we have included 5 sample sites in the module complete with templates, images and style-sheets
Here is an example of how simple it is to create a template with a banner a menu and body content
<%=templateData.getBannerTags() %> <br> <%=templateData.getMenu() %> <cms:include element="body" editable="true"/>