Web template system
A web template system uses a template processor to combine web templates to form finished web pages, possibly using some data source to customize the pages or present a large amount of content on similar-looking pages. It is a web publishing tool present in content management systems, web application frameworks, and HTML editors.
Web templates can be used like the template of a form letter to either generate a large number of "static" (unchanging) web pages in advance, or to produce "dynamic" web pages on demand.
Overview
A web template system is composed of:
A template engine: the primary processing element of the system;
Content resource: any of various kinds of input data streams, such as from a relational database, XML files, LDAP directory, and other kinds of local or networked data;
Template resource: web templates specified according to a template language;
The template and content resources are processed and combined by the template engine to mass-produce web documents. For purposes of this article, web documents include any of various output formats for transmission over the web via HTTP, or another Internet protocol.