A template is a reusable blueprint for a site: a platform, plus a chosen set of modules and themes, each pinned to a specific version or set to "latest". Once you have a template, you can stamp out new sites from it, complete with everything already installed.
Templates really shine when you need many similar sites at once. Teaching a class where every student gets their own Omeka site? Running a workshop? Build the template once and create a site for everyone in one go.
Templates are not part of every plan. If you do not see Templates in your menu, get in touch and we can tell you about plans that include them.
Creating a template
Go to the Templates page in the menu and click New template. Fill in:
- Name, for your own reference. Each of your team's templates needs its own.
- Platform, Omeka (Classic) or Omeka S.
- Version, a specific platform version, or leave it blank to always install the latest.
The platform and version cannot be changed once the template is saved, so pick them with care.
After you click Create, the template's page has Modules and Themes tabs. Use Attach on each to add whatever the sites should come with. Each attached item defaults to "latest", meaning new sites get the newest version at the time they are created. If consistency matters more, use the Versions list on its row to pin it to a specific version.
To take something off the template, open its row's ⋮ menu and choose Detach.
Creating sites from a template
This is the fun part. On the Sites page, next to the New site button, click Create Site From Template.
The form asks for:
- Template. Which blueprint to use.
- Name. A base name for the new sites.
- Circle. Optionally group all the new sites into a circle, which makes a whole class easy to find later. More on those in organizing with circles.
- Admin emails. A list of email addresses separated by semicolons, one per site you want.
If your plan limits how many sites you can have, the whole list has to fit. When it wouldn't, nothing is created and you are told how many sites your plan still has room for.
Click Submit. One site is created for each address. Each person's email becomes the admin login for their own site, and every site gets the template's modules and themes installed automatically. So a list of twenty-five students becomes twenty-five ready-to-use sites, each with its own login.
To keep them apart in your Sites list, each site's name combines the base name with the first part of that person's email address, like "HIST 101 Exhibits (avery.chen)".
The sites build in the background, just like a regular new site, so give them a little while. If you are curious what happens during setup, creating your first site walks through it step by step. Each site's admin password is on its Settings page, ready to share with its owner.