Blue Coast Web: Plan templates carefully

Over in the “Sandbox” area of their website, Blue Coast Web has been dropping some knowledge on ExpressionEngine. In their article “Planning Ahead with your ExpressionEngine Templates,” they explained how to think ahead about creating templates so you don’t run into problems later.

Regardless of how you decided to set up your templates, the main issue was that once you created a site and got it up and running, there would inevitably be some changes from the client in terms of adding new pages, moving sections around, or completely changing the layout of an area. When you end up embedding sections with reckless abandon, those “simple” tweaks from the client can become hairy tangles of embeds that blow through your leftover budget.

So, what’s the best way to “future-proof” your template structure so that you can speed up development time, cut down on redundant code, and most importantly, make those later changes without much trouble?

Read the whole article to find out.