Templates and Master Pages

I have watched this video - https://youtu.be/tcLxY1S25xY - which seems to corroborate the idea that I'm actually making:

• (1) The initial template file for the initial About Us page.
• (2) The actual About Us page inside Admin (using that initial template)
• (3) The Master Page template file, which appears to need to be identical to the About Us template (except for the very first line of PHP code)
• (4) The actual Master Page itself, within Admin, which has its Content Elements synced back to the original About Us page
• (5) The ability then, to create any number of New Page(s) within Perch Admin... which takes its look from the Master Page... which takes its look from its own template file... which takes its look from the original About Us page... which takes its look from the very initial template file.

m.

I have attempted to follow/replicate the example(s) shown in the above video and when I create a new page, using the custom Master as my starting point, it does allow me to add in content for the Content Element inside the template(s)... But when I view the new page, the browser's front-end view seems to finish just before the custom content ought to be shown, and the rest of the page is missing.

For example (2) from my previous post = https://www.mjwebbassociates.com/temp/perch-test/perch-test-01.php - note the page ends with a fake 2009 copyright notice and has my custom content displayed in the middle of the second "article".

Now, the next two are both pages made using the Master Page = https://www.mjwebbassociates.com/temp/perch-test/perch-test-from-master-01.php & https://www.mjwebbassociates.com/perch-test-from-master-02.php - Both without any error message, failing to display both the custom content added directly into each page or any of the template's content beyond.

m.

Hello Martin,

I was assuming that was where Perch Master Pages would come in and a Master Page would basically be a template that multiple Perch pages to be built from.

Yes, that's correct: https://docs.grabaperch.com/perch/pages-and-nav/pages/master-pages/

But now I'm less sure. From what I'm seeing, a Master Page itself actually needs to have a Perch Page that the Master Page takes reference from.

Regular Perch adds pages as files on the server. So even if you create the page from a Master Page, Perch has to create a file on the server for your page.

If you are working on a larger website, you can use Perch Runway. All the pages in Runway are created with Master Pages and it doesn't create a file for each page.

Hi Hussein,

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, that's correct: https://docs.grabaperch.com/perch/pages-and-nav/pages/master-pages/

I've seen that page, and to be honest, it's written in a style where you really need a decent grasp already, of how Perch works.

It would appear that the issue I was having was because I had set-up Perch inside the "back-end" of our own website and Perch was getting confused as to where it was creating files.

I have since setup a fresh install of Perch on a totally separate domain all of its own - and the Master Page test has worked exactly as it should. Now I can move on and actually start getting our Bootstrap theme into these templates.

Regular Perch adds pages as files on the server... All the pages in Runway are created with Master Pages and it doesn't create a file for each page.

If a project is built up to a point in regular Perch, with a series of pages created off of a small number of Master Pages, is it difficult then, to take that regular Perch site and convert it into a Runway site instead?

m.

Hi Martin

Welcome to Perch. As you've discovered, you shouldn't run a Perch site in a subfolder. It's just opening a whole can of worms. Especially with physical files.

If you are making a lot of pages then I would recommend looking at perch_content_create. This function assigns regions to templates as the page is created and saves a lot of faffing around when users are creating new pages from Master Pages.

It's really easy to transition existing pages to Runway. There are detailed instructions here. Runway is much easier to maintain and more flexible (with Collections and Routes). Runway does assume some basic knowledge of PHP. More so than vanilla Perch. But if I use it then anyone can ;)

Jon