Best Practices – Templates and _Standard Values

Sitecore recommended practices for templates and _Standard Values:

• Naming conventions —Use simple, relevant, and easy to understand names for templates, fields, and sections. By default, Sitecore displays the names you provided to both technical and non-technical users. Choose names that business users, such as content authors, will easily recognize and understand.
• Folder structure — Provide a folder structure to classify by web site, site section, section content, function, and so on. This makes it easier to navigate and find a given template.
• Make good use of inheritance — Place commonly used sections and fields in their own template, so that more specific templates can inherit them. For example, the Title and Text fields in the Page Title and Text section are used in multiple different content templates. Rather than duplicate theses fields in each content template, simply inherit the Page Title and Text template.
• Avoid duplicate field names — Even though sections separate fields, do not reuse a field name within the same template. Be careful not to have two fields with the same name in the inheritance chain either. If you really need two fields with the same apparent name in different sections in the Content Editor, use the Title field of the field definition item. Whenever this field is set, it is used by the Content Editor instead of the name.
• Assign icons to templates — This provides a visual clue to the type of item that will be created.
• _Standard Values — Define layout details, initial workflow, and insert options to a template. This reduces administration and centrally manages system settings, rather than setting them on individual items.
• _Standard Values — Use tokens that are meaningful and provide clues to business users, such as content authors, as to what information is expected in a given field to provide default values.
• _Standard Values — Use tokens, such as $name, to reduce the amount of text that a content author is required to enter when creating a new item.
• Image Fields — Define the source field to show the point in the media library that is relevant to the item being created.
• Rich Text Editor Fields — Set the source property to a profile (found in the core database under /sitecore/system/Settings/Html Editor Profiles) that only shows the controls you want to make available to your business users.
• Do not override, or delete any templates located under /Sitecore/Templates/System.
• Use the Help option in the individual field definition items to provide extra information to users about fields. Also consider using the Title field of the definition item to present a different name for the field to the user.
• Remember that the name of your templates appear as insert options. Try to give them meaningful names. Use the Display Name field to provide a different text for the user than the name of the template.