Santa Clara University

Step by Step Guides

How to Restore Content Inherited from a Template

Commonspot site templates typically include an image, navigation menu, and contact information that's intended to be used consistently on each template-based page.  That allows you to make changes to a single file - the site's template - and see that change inherited by all pages based on the template.  If a change is made to one of the template-based elements at the page level, this inheritance connection is  broken, and subsequent changes to that element in the template will no longer be reflected in the element that's been edited in an individual page.

This happens most frequently with the navigation menu in a subsite.  A site administrator might add a link to the menu in the home page, instead of the site's template.  That would result in the link not appearing on any of the other pages based on the template, and any future changes to the menu at the template level would not be applied to the home page menu.

There is an easy remedy for this problem - each element's Properties menu includes the option to "Restore Inherited Content".  Select that option for the element that has a page-level edit (not at the template level).  If you see a checkbox below the Content section, that means there's a difference between this element at the page level and at the template level.  The form will indicate

Check the box and click OK to restore the element content to the template's version.

How to avoid this problem

You can lock elements at the template level so that they can't be edited at the page level - this process is described in more detail in another Step By Step Guide.