I have been trying to wrap my brain around this for half a day without success. I have looked up and down the online resources and Google etc and they always concentrate on a Page as the way to add additional webpages not provided by a theme. However, Templates can also be created.
I am trying to under when I should create my web pages in Pages and when in my own created Templates. Are there advantages and disadvantages?
I notice that Pages are in the main menu and therefore can be accessed between Themes. Therefore if I change themes I can use the existing Pages but not the templates I create.
Are they interchangeable as a concept? Pages lend themselves to blog-style webpages and templates just a different more flexible interface, but for the same goal.
The Pages have templates from the Themes, offered to them but not the ones I create?
I can see how meta fields with templates can give real flex for dynamic universal layout templates. Is this why it has been created and thus the Pages and Templates are really doing the same job?
If there is an article that covers all these concepts that I can be pointed at that will be amazing!!
From my experience both building and customizing themes for clients, I would recommend custom pages only if there’s going to be unique information for that exact page, i.e. About us, Featured This week.
Templates, or sections, on the other hand, can be used anywhere throughout the website, like a slideshow template or image with text template.
I understand your confusion regarding the use of Pages and Templates in Shopify. Let me provide some clarification and guidance on when to use each of them:
Pages:
Pages in Shopify are typically used for static content pages such as About Us, Contact Us, FAQ, etc. They are often included in the main menu and accessible from various themes.
Pages can be created and managed directly within the Shopify admin without the need for coding or custom templates.
If you change themes, the Pages you’ve created will still be available and can be assigned to the main menu or linked from other pages.
Templates:
Templates are custom-designed layouts and structures for specific types of content or pages on your Shopify store.
Templates are created using Liquid, the templating language used in Shopify, and allow for more flexibility and customization than regular Pages.
Templates are typically used for dynamic content that requires specific layouts or functionality, such as product pages, collection pages, blog posts, etc.
Templates can be created, modified, and managed in the theme code editor within the Shopify admin.
Advantages and Disadvantages:
Pages are easier to create and manage without coding knowledge, making them suitable for simple content pages.
Templates offer more control and customization options, making them ideal for complex and dynamic content layouts.
Pages are more portable and can be used across themes, while custom Templates are tied to a specific theme and need to be recreated or adjusted when switching themes.
Regarding your fourth question, meta fields and custom Templates are indeed powerful tools for creating dynamic and flexible layouts. Custom Templates allow you to define unique page structures, while meta fields provide additional data and options for customization within those Templates.
While I don’t have a specific article to point you to, Shopify’s official documentation is a valuable resource for understanding the concepts and best practices related to Pages and Templates. You can find detailed information in the Shopify Help Center under the “Pages” and “Theme Development” sections.
Hope this can help. Let us know if you need any further support.
Thanks, David. I really appreciate your reply to my message. Yes, that is my thinking. The answer below gives what I was looking for from the structural perspective.
Hi AliReviews, this amazing response is what I have been looking for, much appreciated. A proper breakdown of the differences and when to use Pages and Templates for web pages. You guys smashed it! This should be in Shopify’s official documentation, I could not find an equivalent anywhere… well now we have it! Thanks for being so helpful so quickly.
I now can plan my approach. I will create my ‘bread and butter’ web page components in Pages whilst I decide on a Theme. I will then look at Templates for the more expressive pages. Thanks, guys.
Another key point. I did not spot in the documentation that you can only see Templates on the Page pull-down list IF you are working on the LIVE Theme.
What would be really good is if Shopify stopped using the same Word for two different concepts! The dropdown in the editor under “Home” shows “Pages”, when it should actually say “ Templates”. This is why so many people like myself get confused! You should never use the same term for two completely different things!
The drop-down at the top-center of the thene editor are all the templates that the theme has. Within the templates, there are Products, Pages, Homepage, Search, etc. All these are templates. A template is like a stencil. It outlines what content the page has.
While there are various definitions of what page means (for instance Google says any individual url is a page), for and within Shopify, a Page is literally a certain type of page that is within the /Pages url structure path.
So in the drop-down, it lists the different kinds of templates. One says Pages. These are the templates of the Pages you create in the menu tab in admin. They are the Pages templates, just as Products are the Product templates. The whole drop-down is full of templates. So why would you re-name the Pages, and make it say Templates? Of course they are templates. So are Products. You need to understand what kind of templates. The Pages templates tell you what kind of template they are. That’s why is says Pages.
Confusing maybe to an outside perspective, but for someone who deals with their own website and the theme editor daily, it should not be confusing at all.
Templates and Pages are not interchangeable. They don’t mean the same thing. And they’re not used in the same way. You may use them each for different reasons or say them in a different way. For instance you can say “product page”. In this sense, “page” is not the same thing as “Pages”, because we know “Pages” means the Pages you create in Admin which have the /pages path.
You can’t tell me this is an inaccurate assessment when I’m referring to my own confusion. Also, when I asked your AI about this, it told me that it gets this question a lot from customers and that YES it is confusing. So perhaps you need to explain to the AI that all those customers who’ve asked it about this confusing topic should be ignored and to stand by the developers who built this?
As a former VP of Software development who just pickup up Shopify and began messing with it, I fully understand how it operates, but they’d avoid confusion if they didn’t use the same term for two different concepts. I’ll stand by that - its common sense, and the AI agrees! LOL (not that AIs are all that intelligent - but they do learn and do aggregate feedback really well and it is often accurate and very inciteful (but not always).
Sure if you’ve been working on shopify for a while this is 2nd nature. To new customers it is not, and it is clearly confusing and something that is asked of the AI freqently enough that it told me its heard this before.
Shopify clearly grew organically over time. Its fascinating to a new user to see how that growth via API developers has resulted in a less than stellar platform. Cracks me up that there is ZERO built in discount display code except for the nearly useless “Compare at” function. All discount display features come from 3rd party apps. This will likely change as the AI gets better and better at writing code and makes modifying shopify easier and faster - especially for non coders.
Lol Sidekick will apologize if you tell it that it’s wrong, and it’s wrong quite a lot. If you ask it to analyze your cystom snippet on 3 separate occasions, it will give you 3 completely different answers…. ai has a LONG way go…
Not that it’s useless, it’s probably better at getting the job done for the vast majority of issues in this forum. But taking it as law is entirely crazy.
As to the Pages vs Templates, I still stand by what I said. It’s not an accurate assessment. And I don’t see anywhere that the same term is used in 2 different ways. Pages are Pages, Templates are Templates. A Page Template is… a Page Template…
For discounts, all I’ll add is that Discounts, yes with the capital D, is built for checkout/cart. It’s a design choice, not a limitation. But Sidekick is more than capable of giving you an integration solution.
