Creating Thumbnails for Templates, Menu Styles, and Headers

Thumbnails are reduced-size preview images of templates. They are shown at the Design step of Sitebuilder Wizard to help end users select proper combination of a colour scheme, menu and header banner. The recommended format of these images is gif or jpg.

Preview images of different color schemes must be of the same size and scale. If after scaling the image does not fit the proportions, it should be placed in the center of the canvas with required proportions and the #cccccc background color. Then the data is to be saved and used instead of the image. For instance, if you have a themename_icon.jpg which size is 70 x 43 px, create a 70 x 53 px canvas, fill it with the #cccccc color, put the themename_icon.jpg in the center of the canvas (vertically and horizontally), and save the merged image as themename_icon.jpg.

Creating Thumbnails for Templates

Create preview images that will best represent available color schemes. The width of a thumbnail should be 780px. The name of a thumbnail file should be themename.jpg(gif), where themename is a name of the scheme directory. Place the created thumbnail file into the Themes directory. For details on the location of the directory, refer to the Creating Template Logical Structure section.

Other preview images will be converted automatically. However, to increase their quality, you can make it yourself. These images should be placed into the Themes directory.

The names of these images and their maximal sizes are the following:

• themename_thumb.jpg(gif) (118x89)
• themename_icon.jpg(gif) (51x53)
• themename_small.jpg(gif) (86x89)
• themename_selected.jpg(gif) (252x189)

Creating Thumbnails for Menu Styles

Create preview images that will best represent available menu styles.

General rules for making thumbnails for menu styles:

• The number of thumbnail files depends on the number of color schemes and menu styles. Preview file must be created for each menu style in each color scheme.
• The maximum height of a thumbnail is 26px, and the maximum width is 69px.
• Recommended file format is jpg or gif.
• The name of a thumbnail file must be menuN.jpg(gif), where N is the menu index number. The thumbnail files must be placed in the /menus subdirectory of a color scheme.
• If the design (background and foreground colors) of menu buttons in different color schemes is identical, you can create thumbnails only for one color scheme and then copy them into other schemes.
• Menu item thumbnail should be the same size as menu item. If the thumbnail is bigger that 69 px, cut off the item thumbnail text.

Note: Creating thumbnails for menu styles is required for Sitebuilder for Linux/Unix templates and optional for Sitebuilder for Windows templates.

Creating Thumbnails for Header Banners

Create preview images that will best represent available header banners.

General rules for making thumbnails for header banners:

• The thumbnail must not contain text
• The number of thumbnail files depends on the number of color schemes and banners. A preview file must be created for each pair of color scheme and banner.
• The maximum height of a thumbnail is 56px, and the maximum width is 230px.
• Recommended file format is jpg or gif.
• The name of a thumbnail file must be headerN.jpg(gif), where N is the header index number. The file headerN.jpg(gif) must be placed in the Headers directory. For details on physical structure of a template, refer to the Creating Template Logical Structure section.
• If the design of banners in different color schemes is identical, you can create thumbnails only for one color scheme and then copy them into the other schemes.

Note: Creating thumbnails for header banners is required for Sitebuilder for Linux/Unix templates and optional for Sitebuilder for Windows templates.