How To Modify RTML Templates

Every Yahoo! Store is built using templates. Templates are programs written in Yahoo! Store's proprietary programming language, RTML. While it is not possible to modify the built-in templates, you can make copies of those built-in templates, and then change them as needed. The following describes how to go about copying the built-in templates and begin using the copies instead of the originals.

1. To begin, log into the Store Manager and edit your store in Advanced Mode.
2. Once in Advanced Mode, click the Templates button. You will see a table with two columns listing all the built-in templates.
3. Locate and click on the template named home.
4. Click the Copy Template button. When prompted for the name of the copy, enter the Yahoo! Id of your store followed by a hyphen and then the word home. My store's ID is ytimes, so I would type ytimes-home (do not include the period at the end.)
5. Click "Copy". The template will be copied along with a number of other templates that are referenced by the home. template.
6. Now locate and click on the template named index. and make a copy of that too, except name this copy the ID of your store hyphen index. In my case, this would be ytimes-index
7. Repeat these steps for (make copies of) these templates: info., order-page., page., and privacypolicy.

Now that you have copies of the built-in templates, you need to tell the store software to use them. There are many ways to do this:

A. Specifying Templates Manually

1. In Advanced Mode, click Contents. You should see a list of all the pages in your store.
2. Click the first link (page) that has item. page. written next to it.
3. Click the Edit button.
4. Under Template, erase page. and replace it with the name you gave your copy of the page. template. If you followed the instructions above, this name would be your store's ID hyphen home.
5. Click Update.
6. Repeat these steps for all the pages that have item. page. written next to them.
7. You can replace the template in any of the other pages (such as the home page or the index page, etc.) by clicking their name and changing their template to the appropriate copy. The appropriate copy would be, again, your store's ID hyphen and the name of the built-in template  less the period at the end. For example, for my home page, I would type ytimes-home for Template.

B. Specifying Templates Automatically

If you are normally using the Database Upload feature to populate your store, you can specify your copy of the page. template for items and sections right on the database upload screen. Simply select your copy of the template next to Item Template and Section Template. To make these selections permanent (for all new uploads,) click the Config button, and select your copy of the page. template from the drop-downs next to Default-item-template and Default-section-template (don't worry about Default-group-template on that screen: groups have never been implemented in Yahoo! Store, so that setting is not used for anything.)

Once your existing pages use your copies of the built-in templates, you can make changes to the copies and these changes will be applied to all of your store pages.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. How can I change the template of the index page?
   Because the Index page (site map) is of type Empty., it has no editable fields, therefore, it is missing an Edit button. In order to change the template of a page, it needs to be edited. To edit the page, click Controls in Advanced Mode, click "Edit By Id", type ind for Id, and click Edit.
    
2. I made a mistake, and now all my page says is that something-something is not the name of a template. What can I do to fix this?
   Simply edit the page in question and make sure that the name of the template you have entered exists. Check for spelling errors.
    
3. I really messed up a template and now my pages look completely garbled.
   You have three choices:
   1. Fix the problem. Yeah, sometimes this is easier said then done.
   2. You can delete all the template copies you made. Start by clicking on the major ones such as ...-home, ...-page, etc. Once you deleted the main ones, keep clicking "Delete Uncalled" templates until all of your custom templates are gone. Then, make new copies of the built-in templates by going through the steps at the beginning of this page.
   3. You can simply go back to the built-in templates. Since they cannot be modified, they will always work.