Propagating Changes from Site Templates to Sites

Site Template administrators can add, update, or delete Site Template pages. Changes made to a Site Template can be propagated to Sites whose page sets are linked to the Site Template. When you create a Site based on a Site Template with the Enable propagation of changes from the Site template box checked this link is created. To configure propagation of changes:

  1. Select the Site from the Sites dropdown in the Menu by selecting the Site Selector button (Compass).

  2. Navigate to the ConfigurationSite Settings page and uncheck or recheck the Enable propagation of changes from the Site template checkbox.

In this section, you’ll learn about the propagation of changes from Site templates to Sites and discuss the options available to Site administrators and Site template administrators.

Site Template Page Behavior

If a Site’s page set has been created from a Site template and the propagation of changes from the Site template is enabled, Site administrators can add new pages but cannot remove or reorder the pages imported from the Site Template. If a Site has both pages imported from a Site template and custom Site pages, the Site Template pages always appear first in the Site page hierarchy; custom pages added by Site administrators appear after the Site template pages. Only Site template administrators can remove, reorder, or add Site template pages. Site administrators can add or remove custom Site pages. They can also reorder custom Site pages as long as they’re all positioned after the Site template pages. Site template administrators cannot add, remove, or reorder custom Site pages.

If a Site administrator changes a page that was imported from a Site Template and refreshes the page, the following Information icon (Information) appears in the Control Menu with the following message:

This page has been changed since the last update from the Site template. No
further updates from the Site template will be applied.

Figure 1: You can click the Information icon to view important information about your Site template.

Figure 1: You can click the Information icon to view important information about your Site template.

Merging and Resetting Changes

If the Site administrator clicks the Reset Changes button, changes are propagated from the Site template page to the corresponding Site page that was imported from the Site template. Clicking the Reset Changes button makes two kinds of updates to a page. First, changes made by Site administrators to the Site page are undone. Second, changes made by Site template administrators to the Site template page are applied to the Site page. Note: clicking the Reset Changes button only resets one page. If multiple Site pages have been modified and you’d like to re-apply the Site template pages to them, you’ll need to click the Reset Changes button for each page.

Site template administrators can set preferences for apps on Site template pages. When a Liferay administrator creates a Site from a Site template, the app preferences are copied from the Site template’s apps, overriding any default app preferences. When merging Site template and Site changes (e.g., when resetting), app preferences are copied from Site template apps to Site apps. Only global app preferences or local app preferences which don’t refer to IDs are overwritten.

In some cases, merging Site template and Site changes fails. For example, if pages from a Site template cannot be propagated because their friendly URLs are in conflict, Liferay DXP could try to continuously merge the Site changes. Instead of entering into an infinite loop of merge fails, Liferay DXP stops the merge after several unsuccessful attempts. Liferay DXP, however, doesn’t stop there: your merge is temporarily paused, you’re given an indication of the current merge fail, and then you have the opportunity to fix your merge conflicts. After you’ve squared away your conflict, navigate to your Site’s Site AdministrationConfigurationSite Settings and click the Reset and Propagate button.

Figure 2: This type of warning is given when there are friendly URL conflicts with Site template pages.

Figure 2: This type of warning is given when there are friendly URL conflicts with Site template pages.

The Reset and Propagate button resets the merge fail count and attempts to propagate your Site changes again. This process gives you the opportunity to detect and fix a merge fail when problems arise. This helpful process can also be done with page template merges, which follows similar steps.

Site administrators can also add data to Site template applications. For example, Site template administrators can add the Wiki app to a Site template page and use the Wiki to create lots of articles. When a Liferay administrator creates a Site from a Site template, data is copied from the Site template’s apps to the Site’s apps. The preferences of the Site’s apps are updated with the IDs of the copied data. For example, if a Site is created from a Site template that has a Wiki app with lots of wiki articles, the wiki articles are copied from the Site template’s scope to the Site’s scope and the Site’s Wiki app is updated with the IDs of the copied wiki articles.

For example, consider a Site template administrator who includes a Message Boards app as part of a Site template. They even create Message Board categories and configures permissions over the actions of the categories. The first time a Site is created based on the Site template, the categories (app data) and related permissions are copied to the Site. If the Site template administrator adds, removes, or deletes some categories, however, such changes aren’t propagated to the Site.

Now that you’ve learned how Site templates work, you’ll learn how to share Site templates.

« Managing Site TemplatesSharing Site Templates »
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