Legacy Documentation
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Saving Templates as Text Files¶
ExpressionEngine supports saving Template Groups, Templates, Global Variable, and Template Partials as regular folders and files on your server, so that you can use your preferred text editor (e.g. Dreamweaver, Coda, BBEdit, etc.) to edit Templates and then FTP the changes to the server.
- Template Group folder names must end with .group and the preceding name must be URL safe (contain only letters, numbers, dashes, underscores and dots).
- Template Files must be in an appropriately named group folder. They
must end with an approved extension and must be URL safe. Approved
extensions and the associated template type they will result in are:
- .html creates a ‘webpage’ template type
- .feed creates an ‘rss’ template type
- .css creates a ‘css’ template type
- .js creates a ‘js’ template type
- .xml creates an ‘xml’ template type
Enabling Saving Templates as Files¶
All templates will be saved to the system/user/templates directory.
1. Set folder permissions¶
Make the system/user/templates folder writable so that ExpressionEngine will be allowed to save the files as well as recreate your Template_Group/Template structure. See File Permissions for details.
Creating and Synchronizing Templates and Files¶
Once your site is set up to save templates as text files, the files and the database will be kept in sync automatically. An edited or newly created template file is synced when it is used in any way; this includes loading it on the frontend or opening it in the Template Editor.
Note
The templates are kept in sync based on their edit date. If the flat file has been edited more recently than the database, then its contents will be copied to the database. Similarly, if the database version is newer than the file, or a file does not exist, then the file will be written from the information in the database.
Deleting Templates Saved as Files¶
Templates can only be deleted in the Template Manager. Deleting a template file will not remove it from the database and the file will be recreated the next time that database entry is seen.
Saved Templates and the Multiple Site Manager¶
Sites under the Multiple Site Manager have their own preferences for saving templates as text files. As such, when setting up a new Site under the Multiple Site Manager, you must set up a new location for saving those templates.
When importing or duplicating to a new Site in the Multiple Site Manager, if you wish to use existing templates which are saved as text files, then the template directory must be manually copied to the directory for the new Site.