Pope Tech: Set Up Regions and Use Templates on Your Site

Website Regions separate a website into two region types: Template regions and Content regions.  

  • Template region -  Elements that are repeated on multiple pages (such as headers, footers, etc) and often cannot be modified by contributors.
  • Content region -  Elements that are different on each page (often the body of the page).

Table of Contents:

About Website Templates

What are the use cases for this feature?

This feature is helpful for two reasons:

  1. Users who can only change content on a website, but not headers/footers and other Template region content, can specifically view accessibility issues that are within their control.
  2. Site owners and developers can hone in on accessibility issues that are part of your website's Template region, which affect multiple pages. Addressing these issues can have a big impact on the overall accessibility of your site.

Who has permissions for this feature?

Both Content Contributors and Group Managers have access to setup and modify website templates within Pope Tech.

What does this feature do?

Creating a website template is how you tell Pope Tech what part of your website is the template region, or what's the same on multiple pages, and what part of your website is the content region, or what changes on every page.  Setting up website templates in Pope Tech allows you to filter results of future scans based on whether errors are in the template region or content region.

You can set up multiple website templates for a single website within Pope Tech if the wrapper around the content region is not consistent on all of your pages.

For example, in the screenshot below, there are two website templates: a College template and a Calendar template. The wrapper, or template, around the content is different on college and calendar pages, so each has its own template for the Template region. The college template may be using the ID "content" for the content region whereas the calendar pages may be using the ID "calendar" for the content region.
Pages and Templates window with two example templates created. The first is named College template and the second is named Calendar

Creating Website Templates

To create a website template, you need to know the following:

  • The Content Area - The HTML class or ID of the container that wraps around the content region. If your website doesn't have a defined wrapper for your content, the Website Region feature will not work.
    • For most Drupal sites, this is "content" (without the quotes).  If your site is highly customized, you may need to consult your developer(s).
  • The Page Matcher - Page Matcher(s) tell Pope Tech what pages or directories the website template is on. Is the template applied to all pages on your website or does it only apply to pages in a specific part of your website like the calendar template example above?
    • For most Drupal sites, the template can typically be used for all pages.  If your site is highly customized, you may need to consult your developer(s).

Once you have these, you're ready to create your website template:

  1. In the left main menu, select Websites.
  2. Select the Actions (>>) icon for the website you want to create a website template for.
  3. Scroll to the bottom of the page to see the Pages and Templates widget.
  4. Select the Templates tab and select New.
    Pages and Templates section in the Templates tab. The New button is selected
  5. Enter the required Name for your template.
  6. Under Content Areas, select the Type (class or id) and enter the identifier. You won't include "." or "#" before the identifier.  
    • On most Drupal sites, you can typically choose ID as the type and then type "content" (without the quotes) in the Identifier field.  If your site is highly customized, you may need to consult your developer(s). 
  7. Under Page Matchers, select the Type (pattern or exact) and enter in the path. For pattern type paths:
    • "/" would apply this template to the entire website.
      • For most Drupal sites, select Pattern and then enter "/" (without the quotes) in the path field. If your site is highly customized, you may need to consult your developer(s).
    • "/calendar" would apply this template to all the pages that have the "/calendar" path.
  8. Select Add existing pages that match? to add pages that existed before the template was created.
    Edit template window with example template items filled in

You've created a website template that separates accessibility results by template region and content region.  

  • The scans you did before will not sort the results into these regions. You will need to rescan any previous data to see results separated out by template and content.

Adding or Removing Web Pages from Website Templates

To manually add already existing web pages to a website template:

  1. On the Edit Website page for that website, scroll down to the Pages and Templates widget. Make sure you're on the Pages tab.
  2. Using the Template Filter drop down, select Not in Template or the specific template.
  3. Select the Apply Filter button.
  4. Select the checkbox next to the web pages that need to be added or removed.
  5. Select either the Add to Template  or Remove from Template  buttons.

Additional Information

Last modified

TDX ID

7459