Web Template System - Kinds of Template Systems

Kinds of Template Systems

There are many public software and commercial packages promoted as being web templates and template engines, but there is a great diversity of solutions. To select and group them in a systematic way, the first step is to characterize them as template systems.

A second step is to group and identify main properties of each characterized system:

• The architecture of these systems, into a client–server reference model, is the main division criteria for group then—although the use of diverse modern web cache strategies, architectures can be characterized. There are, as illustrated, three groups: outside server systems, server-side systems, and distributed systems.
• Main attributes:
  • Template languages may be:
    • Embedded or event-driven.
    • Simple, iterable, programmable, or complex.
    • Specification possession: the standards of the language are controlled by a public or not-public. The possession strategy and the ownership indicate the stability and credibility of the specification. Note that in most jurisdictions language specification cannot be copyrighted, so the possession is not absolute.
  • Template engine possession: it is public or not (ownership rights), indicating if source codes of the template engine are open, or not.

Many template systems are a component of a platform or framework. They are referred to as the "platform's template system".

Many template systems have options for change (plug) the template language or for change the template engine.