Adding and removing HTML templates

HTML content assist provides several templates, or chunks of predefined code, that you can insert into a file. You can use the default templates as provided, customize the default templates, or create your own templates.

About this task

For example, you can work on a group of HTML pages that all contain a table with a specific appearance. Create a template that contains the tags for that table, including the appropriate attributes and attribute values for each tag. You can copy and paste the tags from a structured text editor into the Pattern field of the template. Then, select the name of the template from a content assist proposal list whenever you want to insert your custom table into an HTML or XHTML file.

To add an HTML template, complete the following steps:

Procedure

  1. From the Window menu, select Preferences.
  2. In the Preferences page, select Web > HTML Files > Editor > Templates.
  3. Click New.
  4. Enter the new template name (a text string) and a brief description of the template.
  5. Using the Context list, specify the context in which the template is available in the proposal list when content assist is requested.
  6. In the Pattern field, enter the appropriate tags, attributes, or attribute values (the content of the template) to be inserted by content assist.
  7. If you want to insert a variable, click Insert Variable and select the variable to be inserted.
    For example, the word_selection variable indicates the word that is selected at the beginning of template insertion, and the cursor variable determines where the cursor will be after the template is inserted in the HTML document.
  8. Click OK to save the new template.

What to do next

You can edit, remove, import, or export a template by using the same Preferences page. If you modified a default template, you can restore it to its default value. If you have not exited from the workbench since it was removed, you can also restore a removed template.

If you have a template that you do not want to remove but you no longer want the template to appear in the content assist list, go to the Templates preferences page and clear its check box.