The ClassID of the panel and its objects is 8.

A list of all used panel statements can be found here.

• Button

1. Select a target frame in the document. That frame will be replaced by the template
2. If the target frame is linked with an object (e.g. in the product pool), all placeholders in the template that have the same class ID will be linked with that object and loaded. By holding down the Alt key you can suppress loading the placeholders.

• Drag and Drop

The properties of templates are saved in the table pageitems (ODBC connections) resp. in the file pageitems.xml (XML offline and SOAP/Pubserver connections).

To create new templates in XML offline and SOAP connections, the pageitems.xml file must have an entry with id 0.

In PubServer connections, pageitems.xml is generated automatically by the PubServer and contains the 0 entry by default.

Here is a complete definition of a pageitem entry with all supported features:

<?xml version="1.0"?>

<pageitems>
	<pageitem>
		<id>0</id>
		<name></name>
		<description></description>
		<color>-1</color>
		<data>
		<src></src>
		</data>
			<preview>
			<src></src>
		</preview>
		<type>
			<id>0</id>
			<name>no type</name>
		</type>
		<state>
			<id>0</id>
		<value>no state</value>
		</state>
		<domain>
			<id>0</id>
			<name>no client</name>
		</domain>
		<placeholder>
			<id>0</id>
			<name></name>
		</placeholder>
		<kind>frames</kind>
		<version>-1</version>
		<leftpos>0.0</leftpos>
		<toppos>0.0</toppos>
		<rightpos>0.0</rightpos>
		<bottompos>0.0</bottompos>
		<spread>
			<position></position>
			<leftitem>0</leftitem>
			<middleitem>0</middleitem>
			<rightitem>0</rightitem>
			<continue>0</continue>
			<scriptid>0</scriptid>
		</spread>
		<format>0</format>
		<magnets>0</magnets>
		<memberships></memberships>
		<active>3</active>
		<buildSupportScript>0</buildSupportScript>
		<hasShapes>0</hasShapes>
		<hasMinSize>0</hasMinSize>
		<realWidth>0.000000</realWidth>
		<realHeight>0.0</realHeight>
		<textflowPrefix1Action>0</textflowPrefix1Action>
		<textflowPrefix1></textflowPrefix1>
		<textflowPrefixNAction>0</textflowPrefixNAction>
		<textflowPrefixN></textflowPrefixN>
		<position>1</position>
	</pageitem>
</pageitems>

The corresponding template is determined as illustrated in the table below:

Since Version 2.1 R 1760 Templates are received in the template popup in the product pool. In this menu, only frame templates are shown, snippets and table templates are not included :

In the template settings (during creation or the button in the Templates panel) you can specify the visibility of the template in other windows. The following values are defined :

Before R1760 (22.2.2010), template visibility necessitates a data model extensions (because the setting has to be saved somewhere). Whether the extension exists is tested on connection with a data pool. If it does not, all templates are visible by default. The following values are defined :

Extend the table pageitems with the field active of type int. Set each of its values to 3 :

mysql> alter table pageitems add active int;
mysql> update pageitems set active = 3 where id > 0;

Extend all pageitems.pageitem-Element in the file pageitems.xml with the attribute active :

<active>3</active>

Since Version 1.3.1 R112

After the page type Templates are determined, the Template ID Script of the target template is executed. This script can, with regard to the target page and position, change the template ID that should actually be used.

Warning : Since v3.3 R2630 the script is also used during page build. You can find a full description of this here..

Template ID Scripte are defined in actions and have the ClassID 15.

The script is only executed when the script ID of the template is greater 0. If the script returns a value other than 0, the template is not inserted, and the inserting function throws the error pageItemNotDefinedErr (1247).

With the global variable gPageitemID (only defined in template ID scripts), the ID of the template about to be inserted can be changed. A complete list of global variables defined in template ID scripts can be found here. Here a simple example:

int main ()
{
	*gPageitemID = 123;

	return 0;
}

To activate Template ID Scripts, which are only needed in rare circumstances, you have to extend the pageitems table and/or the file pageitems.xml with the attribute/element scriptid. The following steps are required:

Extend the table pageitems with the attribute scriptid. The value for all entries is initialized to 0. Here the necessary SQL statement:

alter table PageItems add scriptid number (10);
update PageItems set scriptid = 0;
commit;

For XML and SOAP, the file pageitems.xml has to be extended with the element

   pageitems.pageitem.spread.scriptid

We suggest the following procedure:

1. Open the file xentities.xml and add the following lines:
   

   <dummy>
   	<file>pageitems.xml</file>
   	<attr>pageitems.pageitem.spread</attr>
   	<name>scriptid</name>
   	<type>name</type>
   	<writable>1</writable>
   </dummy>
   

2. Open the file with the Werk II application xmlquery and save the file with commit :

   > xmlquery
   > open pageitems
   > update scriptid = 0 node pageitems.pageitem 
   > commit;

3. The file pageitems.xml now contains the desired attribute, with each entry initialized to 0. To prevent the field from being added multiple times, remove the text inserted in step 1 from xentities.xml.

Template ID Scripts, like all other scripts, are managed in the actions table or in the file actions.xml. Set the actions' classID to 15.

1. Insert a new entry with classID 15 into the table actions or the file actions.xml.
2. Open the script from the Placeholder Options panel by entering the script's ID in the Script: field and clicking the button beside it.

[Since v4.1 R21612] The product building checks the size of the available space in the page element before inserting a product template. The template size is the size of the bounding box around all frames of the template. The size of the main template is displayed in the list of templates:

If the page element is too small, the next matching page element is searched for. In order to get as little white space in the document as possible, it is necessary to make the templates as small as possible. On the other hand, the small templates, of course, have the problem that they are quite hard to edit because all the frames have been reduced to their minimum height.

Using the option Expect minimal size of the dialog for the settings of a template (Button of panel Templates), you can set an expected minimum value for the template size. The product build then uses the values given here instead of the real size of the frames for size checking (and the frames in the template can be of any size). The specified minimum size applies to all subtemplates!

Templates whose minimum size is used for testing are marked with a red star behind the size specification in the panel:

Please note of the following hints:

1. To use the feature, an extension of the default table/file pageitems is required. See here for more informations.
2. "Old" templates have to be saved again to activate the option. To do this, open the template by a double-clicking it in the list and save the template using Alt click of the button panel Templates.
3. The lower size of the minimum size is 10 Pt .

The following commands can insert templates into the document :

Since version 1.4, placeholders can be linked with tables. The tables themselves are then managed as a template and the templates store their kind in an attribute (new in 1.4). The following kinds are defined :

To decide whether a template contains a table or a frame, the template data model has to be extended. The following steps are required:

Extend the table pageitems with the attribute kindID. The value for all entries is initialized to 0. Here the necessary SQL statement:

alter table PageItems add kindID number (10);
update PageItems set kindID = 0;
commit;

If you want to, you can add a table that maps kindIDs to a name, as shown above. This table is not required to use the plugins.

For XML and SOAP, extend the file pageitems.xml with the element

   pageitems.pageitem.kind

The following procedure is recommended:

1. Open the file xentities.xml and insert the following lines:
   

   <dummy>
   	<file>pageitems.xml</file>
   	<attr>pageitems.pageitem</attr>
   	<name>kind</name>
   	<type>name</type>
   	<writable>1</writable>
   </dummy>
   

2. Open the file in the Werk II application xmlquery and save it with commit :

   > xmlquery
   > open pageitems
   > update kind = 'frames' node pageitems.pageitem
   > commit;

3. The file pageitems.xml now contains the required attribute with all values initalized to 'frames'. To prevent the field from being created multiple times, remove the text inserted in step 1 from xentities.xml again.

[Since Version 1.4.2, R 504] Between a template's frames, magnets that determine the distance between the frames, can be defined. If frames change their position or size during loading, the distances are simply restored to their previous values. If there are nails defined at opposite edges, the frames do not change position, but size.

For magnetized templates the priint:adjust plugin must be installed.

When defining magnets between the frames of a template, you have to define nails at the opposite edge of the first frame.

When inserting a template, it is first checked for magnets. Only if it contains magnets at all, the (expensive) process of distance recovery is started. The required information is stored in the attribute

    magnets

If you want to use that attribute, the file/table panelstatements has to be extended analogously to the table placeholders with the attribute magnets.

InDesign^® documents are not backward compatible, i.e. documents created with a newer InDesign^® version cannot be opened by older InDesign^® versions.

To make the content of newer documents available in older InDesigns, you can export the document in the newer version in IDML format. IDML can be opened across all versions. In newer InDesigns, Adobe also automatically provides a cloud service that downgrades your document (and certainly runs the IDML loop of honor to do so as well).

Vice versa, a newer InDesign^® can open older documents. Adobe promises a two-version backward compatibility here, but it also opens older documents. Nevertheless, you should carefully check the content of older documents opened in this way!

Attention: Older documents are always opened as new and unsaved documents which will do not have a file path yet. All actions based on the file path of the document like document::save will fail therfor!

As of v4.2 R32000, templates can be saved together with an InDesign version number. The priint:comet plugins then warn against editing and overwriting templates of older InDesigns and the use of templates of newer InDesigns is prevented in advance. Here you can find a description of how to activate the feature.

Templates from a different InDesign version as the currently used are marked with a red star in front of the name in the panel. For templates from more recent InDesign versions, the name and preview are also grayed out. Here is a screenshot:

[since Version 3.1, R1956, 17th June 2010] Before a template is deleted with , the data pool may be queried if this is allowed. The required statement for this is stored in

Panelstatement 118

The stament may be a database command (for SOAP, SOAP commands are also allowed) or a cScript.

Selects and SOAP statements contain a question mark ? which is replaced by the template ID. Exactly one result column of type string is expected, see here.

The following statement forbids deleting any templates.

select "beep" from pageitems where id = ?

The check to determine if a template may be deleted is usually very complex. Therefore, you can also use cScript to make the checks more involved. In any case, you have to set the return variable gResult (of type char[5000]) to one of the values described below, if the deletion should be prevented. The following global variables are defined in the script:

This example script forbids deletion of templates with uneven IDs.

int main ()
{
	if (gRecordID % 2)
		sprintf (	gResult,
					"Uneven Templates (%d) may not be deleted.",
					gRecordID
				);
	return 0;
}

Continuation frames are used when at least one text of a template has an overset after load, but the product (possibly with a mofified frame) should be continued.

The template may, for example, contain a table that could get so tall that it does not fit on a single page. Next to the table, a product image should be displayed. How do you get this image onto the next page?

To use continuation templates, you have to do three things:

1. Define template and continuation, see here.
2. You have to mark the text frame which should continue
3. To allow the text frames to be linked, you have to define the mapping of frames of the template and the continuation, the so called frame identifier.

If the template contains a frame that should continue, which has an overset after load, that frame is first set to its maximum height within the templaate.

If the current page element checks the size of inserted frames, the text frame is resized such that the page element is filled maximallyl. If the page element should not perform that check, the current template grows up to the bottom page boundary. In either case, overset is checked again after the resize.

If the overset could be removed successully, the frame size is adjusted to the content. If there is still overset after the resize, the continuation template is loaded and product continuation is attempted. The text frame with overset is automatically linked with the corresponding frame in the continuation.

The new template is placed in the next possible page element of the product build. If no viable element is found, a new page is created, as if the list of products to build contained another entry that should be processed now.

Like other templates, continuation templates are allowed to create new pages. Read more about this here.

If a frame's overset should be checked during page build can be specified in the frame properties (see here). You can mark any text frame as a continuation frame. If text frames are located below each other, only the upper-most frame is allowed to grow. Lower frames keep their size. Frames located beside each other can grow independently.

When changing a text frame's size, frames below have to be relocated downwards. To keep the distances in place, you have to define appropriate magnets between the frames. Do not forget, however, to fixate the opposite edge with a nail!

The linking of textframes between template and continuation is of course automated. You must however specify which frames should be linked with each other. For that, there's the frame identifier, which can be set in the frame properties. If two frames with the same identifier can be found in the template and continuation, these frames will be linked.

Any unicode character can servve as an identifier. Depending on which fonts are installed on you machine, some characters may not be displayed properly, though.

The unicode identifiers are also used to determine the order in which a template's layout rules are applied.

If the frame in the continuation is no text frame, it is converted to a text frame. Any images in the frame are deleted in the process.

Text links can only be set between two frames at once. You should make sure to only use the identifier of the frames you would like to link only once each. To spare you constant annoyance by warnings, the identifiers are not checked.

Templates can contain subtemplates for left and right pages and for continuations. To create a template group, follow these steps:

• Create the frames of the left page of the template and create a new template from those. When saving the template, make sure to select "Left Page" for its page type :
  
• Double click the new entry in the Templates panel
• Mirror the frame selecetion with in the Template Behaviour panel
• Update the template by alt-clicking in the Templates panel

[since Version 3.2.3 R2568] If a template is used during text flow builds, you can also set the delimiting text that a product gets from the template. You can specify two different delimiters :

• Delimiter for the first product
• Delimiter for all other products

You can use predefined delimiters (spaces, paragraphs), fixed texts (even TaggedText), or script generated texts. The setting can be changed in the template dialog in the region Textflow-Prefix.

To use this feature, the data model has to be extended,, read more about this here.

Delimiters can be generated by scripts. This allows specific delimiters depending on page template and element, template, page and product.

Delimiter scripts, lika other scripts, are defined in actions and have the ClassID 46. The following global variables are defined in addtion to the usual gRecordID, ..., gFrame, ...:

The first product is prefixed with a 1. Keep in mind: If the new paragraph should have a different paragraph style than the current text end, you have to explicitly set a paragraph style: If the delimiter is inserted before the product, its paragraph style if not yet known. If the delimiter is inserted after the product (which is possible in principle), the new product text's first paragraph gets the paragraph style from the current text end.

int main ()
{
	sprintf (gPrefix, "%%!TT<ParaStyle:Titel>1. ");

	return 0;
}

For all other products start with a new paragraph and are counted. A placeholder (11 in this example) is used for counting, which is used only once per round.

int main ()
{
	LinkList 	lli = linklist::alloc ();

	linklist::text_collect (lli, gFrame, 0, -1, 1, 11);

	sprintf (gPrefix, "%%!TT<ParaStyle:><ParaStyle:Titel>%d. ", linklist::length (lli)+1);

	return 0;
}

[Since Version 3.2] The panel Template behaviour shows the template-relevant data of the current frame selection or Comet Group.

The list automatically is adjusted to the current document selection. Conversely, entries in the list may be selected via the document frames. The list is sorted by template kind (left, right, continuation) and by the frames' sequence numbers.

Three possible selections are distinguished:

If at least one frame in the current document selection shows its template behaviour, all frames on the page belonging to the same template are shown. The list's heading is set to the template name and displayed in orange.

Group membership is implemented with internal marking in the frame. The marking cannot be affected. It consists only of the user name and the current data and time. The marking is updated when saving a template, or when creating the mirrored (and continuation) frames with the mirror button in the panel (). When creatin frames via copy and paste, the marking persists.

If no frames in the selection show their template behaviour, but all frames belong to the same comet group, all frames in the comet group are shown. After the name of the comet group (i.e. its ID), the name of the template that inserted the frames into the document, is shown. If the frames were not inserted by template, this part remains empty. If multiple templates were used, all template names are shown.

The list heading contians the comet group ID and the template name/s:

If no frame in the selection shows its template behaviour, and the frames belong to no (or multiple) comet groups, the current frame selection is shown.

The list heading in that case:

Button	Description
	Create the mirrored frames. Only the positions are mirrored, not the frames themselves. Alt Key : Hold the shift key to also create the frames for the continuation. Text frames with no other text frames below them are automatically marked as continuation frames.
	Show and Hide template settings of the selected document frames. Alt Key : Hide for all frames in the documents.
	Change the Sequence Number
	Change the Identifier
	Select all frames in the list with the same identifier as the first selected entry.

What do the entries in the panel show?

Column	Description
1	In a rectangle with the same proportions as the current document page, display the approximate position and size of the frame on the page.
2	Identifier of the frame and type of the template. Change the identifier like this.
3 (top)	Frame type and ID
3 (bottom)	Image path or text opening (where available)
4	Additional frame properties. The properties can be changed by mouse click. Column Function Description Values 1 Page Transitions Page Transitions can be set at any frame in a template. The page transition applies to the whole template. Find out more about this here. Empty Normal Build New Left Page New Right Page New Page since v4.0.5 R9730 For 1:N page elements, next page element, otherwise skip a page element 2 Overlap Which area of the frame should be considered when overlap checking during product builds? Find out more about this here. Bounding Box Frame/Image edges (ignored for 1:N-Elements) Frame/Image edges with gaps (ignored for 1:N-Elementen) Ignore 3 Text Continuations / Content Copy Should content from previous templates be continued / copied? More about text overset and linking see here. Empty No Text Continuation and no Content Copies Text frames only: If the text frame has a text overset, the continue template is inserted and the frame is linked as a text chain to the frame with the same identifier in the continuation. The height of the frame is not changed in the process. Text frame only: If the text frame has a text overset, the frame is first adjusted to the height limited by the page element. If this does not resolve the overset, the continuation template is inserted and the frame is linked as as a text chain to the frame of the same identifier in the continuation. [since v4.1 R20224] For frames to build Repeating Elements.: If the filled triangle is set, the frame is resized to the maximum possible height set by the page element before loading the repeating elements. After loading the elements the frame is adjusted to the size of all loaded elements. You can find more info here. [since v4.2 R33710] Continuations copy the contents of the frame with the same identifier of the main template. Placeholders on or in these frames are ignored and not loaded. Texts are copied including all formatting. If the text in the continuation is to be formatted differently, the Content Copy cannot be used. 4 Content Adoption in Reorganisations Which content of befriended frames should be taken over when templates of existing Comet groups have to be changed? Find out more about this here. Empty If there is a befriended frame, take the contents of that frame. Reload frame placeholders even on befriended frames Reload text placeholders even on befriended frames Reload all placeholders even on befriended frames 5 Use in text flow Use of the frame in page elements with text flow Empty Do Not Use Insert text content for frames Insert frames as inlines 6 Use in Product Build Use frame in product builds? Do Not Use Use Frame [Since v4.0.5 R17030] Use frame, but exclude from reorganizations To exclude a Comet Group from reorganization, all frames in the group have to have this setting!

Order, label and continuation type of the frames can be shown in the document.

How to turn on and off the template behavior on frames:

• Menue Show -> Template Behavior
• Menue Document Context -> Template Behavior
• Button at the bottom left of the panel Template Behavior

If a template is opened by double-clicking, the template behavior of all frames is visible automatically.

The order of the frames in the panel Template behavior determines the sequence in which the frames can be processed in Product Building and Reorganization. In Text Flow Builds the order determines in which order the frames (or their contents) are inserted into the current text. The sequence number is highlighted in black at the bottom of the frame:

To change the order, use the buttons and in the bottom left corner of the panel.

Please note: If you turn existing frames into templates, the frames may have no different sequence numbers yet. Please check if the sequence numbers of the frames are fixed for new templates. If the Sequence numbers not yet defined, click at least one of the following buttons or .

The Label is an identifiaction code and gives a frame a unique and permanent identification within the template resp. its Comet Group. Please note that the identifiers must remain unique even after product build-ups. Any frames added during the construction must therefore each be given further and different identifiers. To set the frame label you can use the frame::set_smart_item_data function.

The label consists of a single Unicode character and can be found in the Label field in the panel Template Behavior. The label is highlighted in red at the right top of the frame:

Labels are used in the following situations:

1. Continuing Templates : The label determines the frame of the continuation the text chain is to be formed.
2. Template Changes : If a template change is necessary for a reorganization, the contents is transferred from the old template to the new template (and not specially reloaded!) for frames of the same label. Please note, however, that continuations are always reloaded during reorganizations and so the contents of continuations cannot be transferred to the new template.
3. cScript : Using the function frame::get_cometgroup_member you can find the according frame the Comet Group of the given frame.

If you do not require any of the above functionalities, the label can be omitted. But if you assign labels, you must make sure that the labels are unique inside Comet Grous!

Templates can create new pages or skip to the next page element. When a jump to the next element is attempted (setting ) and the build is on the last page element, a new page is created automatically and the build is continued on its first element.

This setting can be made on any frame in the group. For better visibility, the small image is stored in every frame in the group in the first line in the list Template Behaviour, highlighted in green. The same color is used in the preview of the template in the Templates panel.

For the "Next Page Element" property, you need at least v4.0.5 R9730.

Too create new pages, the Table/file framerules has to be defined in the data pool.

The Table/file framerules was introduced in Comet 2 to support the Layout Rules panel. This panel has become obsolete in Comet 4. framerules is still required for the template behaviour "New Page/Next Page Element", however.

[since v3.3 R2688, 28.10.2011]

Page build and reorganization have to check in different places, whether existing page content is overlapped. In that case, the next free location is searched based on the settings of the page template and element.

A new product does not have document frames that could be checked, though. Thus the bounding box of the template frame during template saving is used. That box is visualized in the Templates panel:

In some circumstances the bounding box test is not precise enough, so you may want to use the actual frame edges for textin. In the image, the text of the predecessor product should be allowed to reach into the free space of the star. The usual bounding box test would fail here.

You can specify for each frame in the template, which area should be tested for overlap, whereby :

• If the frame edges of one frame are used for testing (setting or ), the bounding box is no longer used for testing, but the specified frame areas.
• If images use a clipping path and the frame background is transparent, the clipping path is used as frame edge.

and are not supported in 1:N elements - the build checks if a template can occupy a space; it does not check where it might be placed. This is a rarely encountered problem with relatively high mathematical complexity, which we will gladly solve for you on request.

In XML and SOAP, the elements pageitems.pageitem each have to be extended with the hasShapes element. Each entry gets the value 0.

Here an example for an extended pageitem element:

<pageitem>
    <id>1199</id> 
    ....
    <hasShapes>0</hasShapes>
    </pageitem>
<pageitem>

The required information about the frame edges and gaps are simply stored next to the template file with the extension shapes. The Shapes-file is automatically written when saving the template.

In SQL the table pageitems has to be extended with the attribute shapes of type CLOB/text.

Here the required SQL statement for a mySQL data base:

alter table pageitems add shapes text;

The feature will be available after the next connection to the extended data pool. You should then see the following line in the logfile after login:

# Support page item shapes : yes