Template Thumbnails for Correct Template Selection

It would be great if the templates I created could be automatically rendered thumbnail images in my template list, instead of the blank, white rectangles. That way, my end-users would have a better idea of which template they are selecting, and we could avoid problems with having to re-create pages due to wrong template selection.

You can actually add your own thumbnail for a template into the web_resources/templateimages folder. For each template, you can create an image in this folder to represent the template. CM1 matches the template name to the image name. If you name the Image the same as the template name, it will automatically display it in the template tray.

I’d really like to try to avoid having my marketing team go into the filesystem, though. Could any documentation be made/available to address this?

We have a “Design” section in finder that allows you to manage your theme files. Are you imagining something similar for the template images?

This video tutorial shows the Design in Finder functionality: http://help.percussion.com/how-to/vid…

There is no other direct method to manage these images through CM1 at this time.

Some functionality that can be used in the finder would be excellent. It would be cool if there was a ‘template’ folder of sorts.

I have marked this under consideration. Engineering is discussing an approach for the thumbnail management in CM1 for templates. We can update the status once this is confirmed for the pipeline.

This is exactly what I need, although it doesn’t exactly seem to be working…

I’ve created a template for my site “lwdt-domain.co.uk”, called “LWDT-plain”, based on the Percussion plain template “perc.base.plain”, which gives the template this accurate, though uninspiring, graphic:

  • /Rhythmyx/rx_resources/images/TemplateImages/AnySite/perc.base.plain_Thumb.png

So what do I name my slightly funkier image, and where exactly do I save it? Do I need to restart to make it stick?

Thanks,

Oliver

Hi Oliver,

To apply a custom image to your “LWDT-plain” template, you will want rename your custom image to “LWDT-plain.png”, and place it in the [cm1_root]/web_resources/templateImages/AnySite/ folder on the CM1 filesystem. Your template should automatically pick up the image, no restart required.

Aced it again Nathaniel!

This must have changed because the image template thumbnail for me did not take effect until I put the images in the following folder:

[cm1_root]/rx_resources/images/TemplateImages/[Your_Site]/

Hi Paul,

You are correct, as of version 3.0 template images are generated automatically. Since the thumbnails are auto-generated, I would advise against manually adding images to prevent any unexpected behavior.

  1. The auto generated thumbnail image is not taking into account my styling via stylesheets

  2. I don’t want the thumbnail to even show the site itself, I want it to show a pre-made graphic i designed so it’s easier for our users to understand which template they’re accessing (our templates are very similar looking but contain varying layouts, so the tiny thumbnails showing the site itself does not provide enough distinction and ends up being more confusing, thus our need to have explicit custom thumbnails (i.e. my thumbnails say: Template 1 and then describe what it should be used for)

To be honest, you guy should allow us to simple select whatever thumbnail we want for our templates and themes via an image selection box on the screen.

this business about having to find the storage location on the server and then copying our images in there just is not very user friendly.

I understand your need for thumbnails containing more detail, but I do want to point out that the auto generated thumbnails should certainly pick up your CSS. Essentially the thumbnail should be a snapshot of the top page using the template as it would appear in Preview.

If the thumbnail was generated before the template’s CSS was fully linked up (or if an error occurred during the thumbnail generation), you can have CM1 regenerate the thumbnail by simply deleting the image file from [cm1_root]/rx_resources/images/templateimages/[sitename] and then reloading the Design section.