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Save Time With Development Templates

Whether I’m creating a small 10 page web site or just some documentation for myself, templates save me time. I suggest that you create your own templates based on the resources below and integrate them into your workflow.

Directory Structure

I suggest that you create the following directory structure in an actual directory or store it in an archive. Create a script that creates a copy of this structure in your working directory where you will create a web document. You will be filling in this structure with a few files from the later sections.

./assets
./assets/images/
./assets/docs/ # any documentation should go here
./assets/downloads/ # you may want to have sub directories for public and private
./assets/stylesheets/  # home for your .css files
./assets/scripts/ # home for your .js files
./assets/flash/
./assets/sources/ # you may want to have sub directories for the types of sources
                   # you usually work with
./assets/modules/ # frequently used scripts in the language you prefer go here, for
                   # me thats PHP.
./assets/database/ # store your database schema here

Favicon

Create a default favicon that brands yourself and place it in the root of the above directory structure. This site will help with creating one.

XHTML

You will need to have a skeleton XHTML file that you will name index.html and place in the root of the above directory structure. I suggest that you use the templates here. Each of the three XHTML templates there will come in handy.

CSS

The above link to the XHTML templates also have corresponding CSS templates. I suggest that you append this one for color testing.

SCRIPTS AND MODULES

I like to separate the header and footer into a module (when I say module I’m talking about a PHP file). In that case you create another template file, index.php and place that in the root of the above structure. The header and footer would be included in the module and only the body would be present in the index.php file.

Common functions you use on a normal basis should be put in the .js and .php files. For example, database connection.

Share your starting template environment below.