About Website Templates
by James Berg
Website Templates are very relative to Themes of all types. Actually, themes are often called templates. Mambo template can be named mambo theme as well with no substantial difference within meaning.
Website Template has a wider meaning then theme though due to the way it can be used. Usually website template has all the source files within the package such as PSD (if a template was sketched in Adobe Photoshop® of course) and HTML. In fact all you need to do with a website template to start a website of your own is to add an original content to it and upload the files to your web hosting. That’s it.
What is good about website templates is that you don’t have to run a special CMS to use it. Of course it will take more time to update such a site but there are some good points about it as well. Every CMS have a number of standard layouts (most of them have the only layout at all) and you have to stick to one of them in order to use this particular CMS. So if you don’t plan to update your site very often a website template is a better solution then a special theme.
There are many different types of website templates just like as many as websites on the Web probably. In spite of this there still can be defined some major types of the templates which are spread in the Internet.
Web Templates (basic one) – they usually consist of a ‘home’ page and a ‘content’ page. They are rather cheap comparing to other website templates types.
Full Site Templates – website templates with a ‘home’ page and all the sub-pages. This is the best solution if you would like to start you website as soon as possible as you have to add content to your site only.
Flash Templates – website templates developed in Flash®. It is a nice solution if you would like to have a Flash site with strong animation to catch an eye of your visitors.
Flash Intro Templates – this kind of templates actually is an animated intro which can be used with your website for better introduction of your project/company/product.
osCommerce templates – this type of templates is a specially designed theme for osCommerce (ready made solution for on-line shop). They usually go with all the files necessary to install osCommerce so you get a not only design but a whole package.
SWiSH templates – website templates developed in SWiSH®. This is a special technology rooted in Flash® technology but the benefit of it is that it’s easier to deal with and it costs less comparing to Flash.
PHP-Nuke themes – website templates for PHP-Nuke content management system. You can easily switch between different themes once you use PHP-Nuke for your website.
