Home > Programming, Servers & Scripts >

Tool: Create Landers Fast From Templates (9)

06-09-2017 12:09 PM #1 caurmen (Administrator)
Tool: Create Landers Fast From Templates

A number of people have asked about a simple tool to rapidly create new landing pages from a template - so I created one!

You can download it here:

Download Templater for Windows

Download Templater for Mac

Currently for Windows and Mac only, but don't worry! Instructions for using the source script in Linux are below.


How To Use

Firstly, you'll need one or more landers you want to use as the base template.

Creating a template

What we'll do here is take your lander and convert it into a template that the tool can use.

First, make a list of the things you'd want to change each time you generated the lander. That'll usually be:



but if you want to change anything else in the HTML, you can do that too. For example, you could change colors used in the text.

For each lander you want to use, go through the HTML, and replace the sections you'll want to change with a single-word identifier for that section, with two | marks before and after it.

So if you were replacing a title, for example, you'd change

Code:
<title>Get Your Amazing Flashlight!</title>
to

Code:
<title>||title||</title>
Make a note of the identifiers you've used.

Save the HTML in the same directory as the tool's .exe file.



Creating a new lander

Now all you need to do is create a content file.

That file should be in the following format:

Code:
identifier: text that you want to put into the end lander
So, for example:

Code:
title: Buy your fidget spinners today! 
image: fidgetspinner.jpg
cta: Spin your cares away!
Make sure that you have covered all the identifiers in the template, and make sure that each line has no space before the colon, and a space after the colon. That's important!

If any of the text you want to use includes a colon, put the entire line of text in inverted commas.

Save that as a text file in the same directory as the .exe . Doesn't matter what it's called.

Now, open a command window in the directory with the .exe (hold SHIFT, right-click, and choose "open command window").

Type the following in there:

Code:
template.exe NAME_OF_CONTENT_FILE NAME_OF_TEMPLATE NAME_OF_FILE_TO_OUTPUT
So, for example:

Code:
template.exe fidgetspinner.txt ecomm_template.html fidgetlander.html
It'll spit out the HTML for the page. Just upload that, along with any other files the lander needs, and any images you added in the root directory, and it'll work!

Let me know if you have any problems with this tool and I'll help out.

And that's it! Hope this is useful for everyone. If you have any comments, suggestions, or queries, ask away below!

06-09-2017 12:15 PM #2 caurmen (Administrator)

Using This Tool On Linux

Linux tends to come with Python built in, so you should be able to use the script it's built from.

Firstly, download the script:

Download Script

Now, open a shell window,, and install the dependencies. There's only one:

Code:
pip install pyyaml
Once you've done that, you can just follow the tutorial above. Put things in the same directory as the script, and run the script as

Code:
python template.py
rather than

Code:
template.exe

06-09-2017 01:09 PM #3 twinaxe (Senior Moderator)

Nice one, I created a similar tool myself with Winautmation.
Can be really helpful when you work with many different offers.

06-09-2017 05:35 PM #4 vortex (Senior Moderator)

The BIGGEST time-saving task I could think of for this type of templates, is when you're having to translate landers into different languages.

Using these templates, you can now just assign one identifier to every line/blurb of text, get the translations, then put each language into a separate content file and you'd be done!

No more having to search and replace each line.



Amy

06-17-2017 10:55 AM #5 caurmen (Administrator)

Yup, that's definitely a great use for it. A minor adjustment to the script would let you put multiple languages in a single file too - I might make that change when I get back.

Although after our panel at AWE, I'm also thinking about a tool to automatically pull Google Translate translations...

09-15-2017 08:37 AM #6 vlapaev (Member)

How to use it for MacOs it is without zip or dmg?

09-15-2017 08:39 AM #7 cmdeal (Veteran Member)

Sweet thanks caurmen!

09-15-2017 10:06 AM #8 caurmen (Administrator)

@vlapaev - the download should be an executable file on Mac. Just run it from Terminal as above, but without the .exe.

Let me know if you have any problems!

09-15-2017 09:39 PM #9 vlapaev (Member)

Thanks I try it! All is ok

Home > Programming, Servers & Scripts >