Views

Control site visual presentation with a Template Toolkit view template.

Views

A view is a Template Toolkit file (view.tt) that wraps rendered page content. It controls the HTML structure, styling, and layout of every page on the site.

Location

public_html/lazysite/templates/view.tt

Fallback chain

When rendering a page, lazysite looks for a view template in this order:

Per-page layout: front matter value (checked as theme, then named template)
Site-wide theme: from lazysite.conf (checked as theme, then named template)
Default lazysite/templates/view.tt
Built-in fallback (minimal HTML with inline CSS)

The built-in fallback ensures pages always render, even without any configuration.

Available TT variables

All variables from lazysite.conf, plus:

content - the rendered page body HTML
page_title - from front matter title:
page_subtitle - from front matter subtitle:
page_modified - formatted mtime ("1 January 2024")
page_modified_iso - ISO mtime ("2024-01-01")
nav - navigation array from nav.conf
theme_assets - asset path for remote themes (when applicable)

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <title>[% page_title %] - [% site_name %]</title>
</head>
<body>
  <h1>[% page_title %]</h1>
  [% content %]
</body>
</html>

Notes

Delete all .html cache files after changing the view template to see the new layout on all pages
The view template has full TT capabilities including INCLUDE, PROCESS, conditionals, and loops
The built-in fallback displays a footer noting that no view.tt was found
Download ready-to-use themes from lazysite-views
Views and Themes guide - full documentation
Themes - theme resolution