XSLT Template Settings

Most Search & Preview Web parts that produce displayed output emit pure XML, which you can transform and style any way that you like. There are two elements in this process:

• XSLT Template: transforms the XML data into HTML, which includes markup for rendering tables, images, links, etc.

• Cascading style sheet: which controls graphical elements, such as text formats, table formats, spacing, coloring, etc. This is set for each Search & Preview Search Center page and applies to output from all Web parts on the page (after XSLT transformation).
All Web parts that use XSLT templates include a group of configuration settings named XSL Template.
Figure: XSLT Template settings

In all Search & Preview Web parts that include it, the XSLT Template area provides the following features and settings:

• Preview: shows a preview of how output from this control will look when the template currently highlighted in the gallery selector area is applied. This is available for the templates supplied with Search & Preview, but might not be available for custom templates.

• Gallery Selector: This large selector field shows a list of all of the templates currently stored in the Search Dialog folder of the Search & Preview Style Gallery. Select a template here to use it with the current control. If available, a preview of your selected template will be shown on the left. If you would like to use a template stored outside of the style gallery, then select the Specify custom location item and then enter the URL of the custom template in the Custom location field (shown only when Specify custom location is selected).

• Gallery Link: Below the gallery selector is a link that will open the gallery browser. Click here to browse the entire gallery and to upload new templates to the gallery.

• Custom template location: This setting appears only when Specify custom location is selected from the gallery selector. If you have selected this, then use this field to specify the URL of the XSLT template you wish to use for the control.

• Cache control: to improve performance, all Search & Preview Web controls are able to cache their templates locally rather than fetch them from the gallery every time they are needed. Usually you should use caching during normal runtime operation; however, while you are developing and testing your templates, you might disable caching so that you can immediately see the effects of your template as you modify and save it.