Managing page templates

Templates are the layouts behind your storefront's built-in pages: home, product, category, cart, search, blog and 404. Your popups, banners, headers and footers live here too. You manage them under Storefront, then Templates, and design each one in the page builder.

Considerations

• Orbit creates one template for each page type when you activate a theme, so the list is never empty.
• Each type has one primary template. The primary template is the one shoppers see. Only one template can be primary per type.
• A template's type cannot be changed after you create it.
• New templates start as a Draft. A draft is not shown on your storefront.
• This page used to be called Page Templates. Popups and Layout used to be separate items in the Storefront menu. They are now tabs on this page.

Find a template

1. From your Orbit dashboard, go to Storefront, then Templates.
2. Click a type tab, such as Products, to show only templates of that type. All shows every template.
3. To narrow the list further, click Add Filter, or type in the Search by name or handle box. Filters show as pills above the table. Click Clear all to reset them.

Each row shows:

• Template Name: the name, with a small preview of the layout.
• Type: the kind of page the template is for.
• Handle: the path the template is published to. The primary template shows Default.
• Visibility: Published (live), Draft (not live) or Archived (retired but kept).
• Primary: a switch. Turn it on to make that template the default for its type.
• Updated: when the template last changed.

Hover over a row to see its Edit design and Settings buttons. A published primary template of some types also has a View live icon, which opens it on your storefront.

Create a template

1. Click Create template.
2. Enter a Name, for example Detailed product page.
3. Choose a Type, such as Products.
4. To make this the template shoppers see, tick Set as primary template for this type. It takes over from the current primary template.
5. Click Create Template. The message Template created appears.

What happens next depends on the type:

• Products: the page builder opens and asks How do you want to build this page? Choose Basic for a single Product Page element with built-in settings, or Advanced for separate elements you can arrange yourself: gallery, title, price, variants, add to cart, tabs and related products. Advanced saves the layout for you.
• Any other type: the dialog closes and the new template appears in the list as a Draft.

Edit a template's design

1. Hover over the template's row and click Edit design. Clicking the row does the same.
2. Make your changes in the page builder, then click Save.

For help with the builder, see Building pages with sections and columns.

Change a template's name or primary setting

1. Hover over the row and click Settings. The Edit Page Template dialog opens.
2. Change the Name, or tick Set as primary template for this type. The Type cannot be changed.
3. Click Save Changes. The message Template updated appears.

Tip: To change the primary template without opening a dialog, turn on the Primary switch in the list.

Publish, unpublish or delete templates

1. Tick the box beside one or more templates. A bar replaces the column headers.
2. Click Set as published to put them live, or Set as draft to take them off your storefront.
3. To delete, click the ... button, choose Delete pages, then confirm with Delete. Deleted templates go to the trash.

To see deleted templates, click the Page Status filter pill and choose Include Deleted. Tick one and click Restore pages to bring it back as a draft.

Save a section to reuse

You can save any section of a template and drop it into other pages later.

1. In the page builder, switch the editor from Basic to Pro.
2. Click the section. A teal outline shows it is selected.
3. On the section toolbar, click the three dots, then Save as Section.
4. Give it a Name you will recognise, then click Save.

To use it, open Templates in the builder rail, click View all templates, then the My Templates tab, and click Insert. See Reusing layouts with templates and saved sections for the details.

Choosing which template a product or category uses

Orbit decides which template a page uses. There is no template setting on a product or a category. The choice comes from two things: which template is primary, and the template's handle.

• Primary: the default for its type. Orbit uses it when a visitor opens that page type without a specific handle, for example /categories rather than /categories/summer-sale. Only one template per type can be primary.
• Any other template of that type: it keeps its own handle, shown in the Handle column as /handle. Orbit uses it for the page at that handle, which is the product or category with the same handle.

To see which template a page type uses now:

1. From your Orbit dashboard, go to Storefront, then Templates.
2. Click the type tab for that page, such as Products.
3. Read the Handle column. The row that shows Default is the primary template, and it covers the whole type. A row with a handle, such as /summer-sale, covers only the product or category with that handle.
4. To make a different template the default for the type, turn on its Primary switch.

Orbit builds the handle from the name you give the template, so a template named Summer Sale gets the handle summer-sale. The Create Page Template dialog has no handle field. To point a template at one product or category, name it to match that product's or category's handle. If another template already uses that handle, Orbit adds a number to the end.

Note: If a product or category page looks wrong, check the primary template for its type first, then look for another template of that type with the same handle as the product or category.

Related guides

• Reusing layouts with templates and saved sections
• Creating and publishing pages
• Creating a popup
• Choosing and activating a theme