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:

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.

Web template (disambiguation)

Web template may refer to:

Template processor

A template processor (also known as a template engine or template parser) is software designed to combine one or more templates with a data model to produce one or more result documents. The language that the templates are written in is known as a template language or templating language. For purposes of this article, a result document is any kind of formatted output, including documents, web pages, or source code (in source code generation), either in whole or in fragments. A template engine is ordinarily included as a part of a web template system or application framework, and may be used also as preprocessor or filter.

Typical features

Template engines typically include features common to most high-level programming languages, with an emphasis on features for processing plain text.

Such features include:

Embedded template engines

While template processors are typically a separate piece of software, used as part of a system or framework, simple templating languages are commonly included in the string processing features of general-purpose programming languages, and in text processing programs, notably text editors or word processors. The templating languages are generally simple substitution-only languages, in contrast to the more sophisticated facilities in full-blown template processors, but may contain some logic.