Build a "DRY" Website

Don't Repeat Yourself or "DRY"

Nobody likes tedious repetition. We've found a way to minimize website repetition as much as possible. The industry word is "DRY".

My Market Toolkit (MMT) was designed with the concept of DRY in mind. Anything on the website that shows up on multiple pages should be placed in one location and then included into the appropriate templates. This way, if you need to make a change, you only have to make the change once and it automatically updates throughout the site.

Here's an example:

Imagine you have 10 pages on your site. Each shares the same Header (logo and top navigation). Imagine adding that header to all 10 pages. Now, what if we want to add social icons next to the logo. Should we do it on all 10 pages? Can you see how it could be very tedious to make the same changes to many pages every time?

MMT allows you to do something once and have changes render automatically on all related pages.

Separate Content from Design

Most web visitors visit a site for its content information (text and images). Most web designers want visitors to feel welcome and offer a graphically pleasing experience. In order to make design changes quickly across many pages, web designers separate content from site design. There are typically 2 ways to keep design separate from content:

  1. CSS stylesheets
  2. Template include files

Think of it as a hyerarchy. 

  1. Websites contain pages
  2. Pages are wrapped in templates
  3. Templates contain sections
  4. Sections contain elements

Pages

Before discussing pages or posts please read the brief topic: Volumes. You can build a site where the design is complete separated from the content. Learn how to edit pages here. Pages contain content web visitors are seeking after. Text, images, and videos are the gold of your site. We separate content from your site's so you can update design at will without going in to each page to make individual updates.

Templates

A template is like a wrapper around a page of content. Our templates can be changed to quickly modify the design of a site across every page.

Modules

Templates are constructed with modules - small sections of design that contain reusable design elements. Examples would be the header, footer, aside navigation, etc. You can create a header once and add it to multiple templates. For example, your web pages and blog may share the same header.

Elements

Elements are individual components of a page, module or template. For example, a logo image or social icons would reside in a template. A block of text may be in an individual page or post.