History: Layout Templates in Tiki 13 to 18
Preview of version: 8
As of Tiki 13 (and further developed in subsequent releases) Tiki offers a "layout template" choice. Configured on the Look and Feel admin page, this option switches the overall page layout template to enable a page-top fixed navbar or standard scrolling navbar, classic Tiki div arrangement, different default widths for side columns, and so on.
Table of contents
Tiki default available choices
| Layout template name | Directory name* | Description |
| Standard Bootstrap | basic | This layout is a simple one with everything in one container div. |
| Classic Tiki with shadows | classic | This is an implementation of the legacy Tiki layout, including "shadow divs" which are optional div wrappers around major parts of the page. |
| Fixed_top_modules | fixed_top_modules | This layout has a page header fixed at the top of the page, and uses the top module zone for content (there is no hard-coded content in the page header/navbar). |
| 3 separate header, middle, footer containers | header_middle_footer_containers | This is similar to the "Classic" layout but is somewhat simplified and doesn't have the shadow divs. |
| 3 separate header, middle, footer containers with 3-6-3 columns | header_middle_footer_containers_3-6-3 | This layout has wider side columns by default. The other layouts have main content columns with 2-8-2 grid widths, but switch to 3-9 or 9-3 if the right or left column has no content. |
| Social networking style | social | This layout is the closest to a generic Bootstrap fixed-navbar design. The logo, site title, and search form are hard-coded in the navbar, and the topbar module zone can be used for additional content. This layout may be the easiest to produce a good small-screen page-header/navbar. |
*These directories are in tikiroot/templates/layouts/.
Comparison of layouts
For reference, a typical simple Bootstrap layout (this is not a Tiki layout)
Standard Bootstrap
This is a simple diagram of Tiki's "Standard Bootstrap" layout:
There appears to be some redundancy with the "top modules" zone and "topbar modules" zone, but having two areas for page header content reflects a Tiki legacy design preference. Site admins can use either of these or both (or neither) in various ways. A typical approach is to put the site logo and/or title in the "top" zone, along with a banner or other content, and use the "topbar" zone for a navbar (horizontal menu) and search form, for example.
Classic Tiki with shadows TODO
Diagrams of the other layout templates will be posted here soon. They are similar to these diagrams but with fixed page-header navbars or other variations.
Fixed_top_modules TODO
Diagrams of the other layout templates will be posted here soon. They are similar to these diagrams but with fixed page-header navbars or other variations.
3 separate header, middle, footer containers
Here is the "3 separate header, middle, footer containers" layout:
The complexity of this layout originated with the FiveAlive theme, which has liquid, full-width page-header and footer backgrounds, but fixed-width (Bootstrap .container div width) content areas in the page header, middle, and footer.
3 separate header, middle, footer containers with 3-6-3 columns TODO
Diagrams of the other layout templates will be posted here soon. They are similar to these diagrams but with fixed page-header navbars or other variations.
Make your own layout
A custom or site-specific layout template can be made and used if desired. In this case, make a new directory in templates/layouts/ and be sure to have both a layout_edit.tpl and layout_view.tpl in the directory.