Create a Template wizard

You can create your own custom templates to meet functional needs and corporate style guidelines. You can design custom templates for your projects using the wizards and editors in ZIETrans Toolkit. ZIETrans automatically adds the necessary code to include color and fonts, the ZIETrans default application keypad, and an area for the host screen rendered with a transformation to any templates that you create.

Use the Create a Template wizard to create a new template. You can access the wizard a number of ways, such as:

In the ZIETrans Projects view right-click on your project and select New ZIETrans > Template.
Click the Create ZIETrans Template icon on the ZIETrans toolbar.
Select ZIETrans > New > Template (or File > New > ZIETrans Template) on the ZIETrans menu bar.

In the wizard, specify the project and give your template a name. See Using ZIETrans preferences for more information. You can use the Browse button to find and select a different package. Optionally, set a description for your template, then click Next and select one of the following options:

Create a blank template

Select this option to create a blank template.

Prefill the template from an existing project template

Select this option to prefill the new template from an existing template. Select the name of an existing template. What you are actually doing is making a copy of an existing template using the name you specified when you started the Create a Template wizard. A preview of the template you select appears in the window below.

Prefill the template from an existing Web page (URL or file) (Web-only)

Select this option to prefill the new template from an existing Web page (such as your company's existing Web site) or a specific file. Type in a URL or file in the text box or click the Browse button to search for one. Clicking Preview will display the template you have selected.

The Web page, as well as the linked files (for example, images, style sheets), will be downloaded from the Web. Links to the files will be changed to match the corresponding path in your ZIETrans project.

Note: Custom JavaScript, applets, and so on that are sometimes embedded in an imported Web page may cause difficulties. If your Web site has complex tags, they may need to be modified in order for your template to work with ZIETrans. The Create a Template wizard downloads the page, all images and style sheets but does not make any attempt to try to filter out possibly unsupported JavaScript calls. Web pages using frames are not supported

To make your new template the default template for the project, select the Set as the default template for this project check box.

Click Finish. This will launch the appropriate editor where you can make changes and modifications to your new template.

Keep in mind that any changes you make to objects in a project only affect that project. If you want to use the template you create for other projects, you need to copy that template to any new projects you create along with any style sheets or images that were modified.

For ZIETrans Web projects, if you create your own template outside of the ZIETrans Toolkit environment, ensure that the following statements are included:

<LINK rel="stylesheet" href="xxx">

One or more tags that refers to a style sheet that defines each of the following settings:

Appearance of the buttons, links, and keypads
Colors for the template background and widgets
The font and size for text

<ZIETrans:Transform>

This tag defines the location of the transformation that the template surrounds.