- Decide who changes what Split the site between editors (content and Layouts) and developers (templates, settings) before building, so each change has an owner.
- Prototype a page in a draft Build the layout in the editor, look at it, and throw it away with Discard: nothing is published until Publish layout.
- Wireframe a page with titles and spacers Lay out the sections of a new page with Title blocks and Spacers before the real content exists.
- Plan which lists are hand-picked and which fill themselves For every list, decide manual collection (editors pick) or dynamic collection (a query) before building.
- Plan how items look in lists Item view types (Standard, Overlay, Card, Line, Mini, List item, with or without intro) decide each item's look; plan them per list.
- Plan the header and footer menus On the Fit & Healthy theme the header menu and the footer's first line are menu.ini lists and the footer's second line is content; plan who maintains which.
- Plan a second language Each language version is a siteaccess with its own settings (menus) and can get its own layouts through a Siteaccess condition.
- Plan the mapping priorities The first enabled mapping by priority whose targets and conditions match wins; plan priorities so specific mappings come first.
- Plan your design extension One extension for everything site-specific: templates, stylesheets, settings, translations - named, versioned and activated in the right place.
- List the block types you will need Compare the page designs with the block types the editor offers; plan new block types only for what is missing.
- Plan which cache each change needs Write down per kind of change which cache to clear, so launches and updates do not end in "it does not show".
- Plan how layouts are kept and versioned Layouts live in the database; plan regular exports (exp:layouts export) so they can be compared, restored and moved.
- Inventory layouts and settings from the console exp:layouts list and exp:ini where give a complete, scriptable picture of an installation's layouts and menu settings.
- Collect the node IDs the menus will use Menus and manual collections refer to node IDs; collect them (and their remote IDs) when the tree is built.
- Plan campaigns with start and end dates A mapping can have a Time condition (from, to); plan campaign layouts with it: since explayouts 1.4.42 the layout switches at the start and the end, without lag.
- Plan A/B variants of a page A Query parameter condition gives one address a second layout: since explayouts 1.4.42 /showcase and /showcase?variant=b each get their own layout on every request.
- Plan accessibility into the blocks Use the fields the blocks have for it - Image alt text, Heading level, link texts - and keep one h1 per page.
- Plan image sizes Galleries take a thumbnail size alias, templates an image class; plan which sizes the design needs.
- Plan the forms Forms on Fit & Healthy are content (Contact form, Feedback form, Lead form classes), shown by their full views; layouts place them.
- Plan a blog section Blog posts (class NG Blog post) already share the article mapping on Fit & Healthy; plan the listing page and its lists.
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