### Creating, editing and setting home page, layout page and style definition

When you want to have a new home page, layout page or style definition for a website folder, create a new page or definition. Thereby, the old page or definition is deactivated. Now you can edit the new page or style definition according to your intentions. You proceed as follows.

• Create a new page or definition choosing File New Home Page , File New Layout Page or File New Style Definition in the top menu of the website folder which you have opened as a normal folder (using Open ). The new page or definition is now active. The old page or definition is not deleted, so that you can easily return to the old design.

• Edit the new page or style definition by choosing Change Edit in the action menu of the document concerned (or by choosing File Change Home Page etc. in the top menu).

You could also create HTML documents to serve as home or layout or home pages on your local computer and upload them to your website folder. In the same way, you could turn a locally created style sheet into the style definition of a website folder. You can also copy and paste home layout or pages from existing website folders. You activate a new home page, layout page or style definition as follows.

• Select File Change Properties in the top menu of the website folder.

• You declare the new HTML documents or style sheets as the home page, layout page or style definition of the website folder by selecting them in the respective sections of the action form. For the home page, e.g., you go to the section ‘Home Page’ and select the new home page in the selection menu ‘Select home page’.

When you specify a new home page, layout page or style definition this way, the former page or definition is deactivated, but not deleted, so that it may be reactivated later on.

You can also directly edit an active home page, layout page or style definition using Change Home Page , Change Layout Page or Change Style Definition . If you have activated automatic versioning for the website folder, these actions generate new version of the documents edited. In this case, you can return to a former design by deleting more recent versions of home page, layout page or style definition.

While an active home page is mandatory for the primary function of a website folder, i.e. to appear as a sort of website instead of as a normal folder, the layout page is optional. It is, however, very useful to achieve a consistent page design and may help with navigation in the website folder and provide additional information on its pages.

When you plan to design your own layout pages, have a look at the source code of the predefined layout pages first. You should keep in mind two facts. Layout pages have to contain the special element `[element content]` exactly once. This is the place where the other pages of the website folder, the content pages, are embedded in the layout page. Further, you are free to use all BSCW elements (see 5.5.5 Using BSCW elements) also in layout pages. These elements, however, will be evaluated against the embedded page, not against the layout page itself. If you have, e.g., included a BSCW element to display the page’s size, the size of the embedded page will be displayed, not the size of the layout page.

For creating your own style definitions you have to be familiar with style sheets. In any case, have a look at the predefined style definition that comes with a freshly created website folder.

For details about editing HTML pages in website folders see two sections further down.

You may also use the action Change Properties to deactivate a home or layout page by selecting ‘No home page’, ‘No layout page’ or ‘No style definition’ in the respective selection menus of the action form. Deactivating the home page (for reasons whatsoever) makes a website folder appear as an ordinary folder.