Template pages vs static pages

@vincent Hi there, I’m new to Webflow and do not seem to grasp the connection between the collection template pages and regular static pages. I understand that each collection has a template page. Does one copy the content onto a static page. How is it linked in the menu? It’s hard to put all the pieces together. Help? Thank you.

https://preview.webflow.com/preview/apostolic-faith?utm_medium=preview_link&utm_source=dashboard&utm_content=apostolic-faith&preview=4aa27236b7608ec17f4a29aef646b210&mode=preview

Here is my site Read-Only: LINK
(how to share your site Read-Only link)

I think this might help you: Webflow 101 crash course | Webflow University

Collection Templates page serve only one goal: To display the content of a collection item, one at a time. In the CMS world it’s also called “a node”, as it’s the smallest object of a CMS database.

So when yo design a template page, you dont need to bind it to a collection, it’s bound to one by nature. you design for one item but you can swap to show another item.

Links to the collection template page

There is only ONE place where you can create a link that’s going to lead to a collection template page: a collection list, wether this collection list is in a static page, or wether it’s inside of a collection template page.

So you create a collection list soemwhere, place any form of link, and when you set the link, chose the CURRENT item link. That’s all you need to understand to get how this works.

So, basically, you have a home page, with a collection list containing some parts of your collection items (generally called a “teaser”, with title and text excerpt and a litle image" and each of the teasers have a link set to “Current…”, which leads to the collection template page for this item.

@vincent @Ozone Thank you for your thorough explanation. I think I am finally getting it! I was over complicating it. Thanks again.

1 Like

I need some additional clarification on this. I am paying for the CMS package and I am now seeing the alert “you’ve reached the maximum number of pages for this site.” So I assume that refers to the 100 static pages. If that’s the case, then all of my pages should be part of a collection? That doesn’t make sense to me, because a collection page only offers a limited amount of functionality and layout options. I can’t add divs and sections, etc to a collection page, so I’m confused.

Read only link - https://preview.webflow.com/preview/cp-content-cpsite2?utm_medium=preview_link&utm_source=designer&utm_content=cp-content-cpsite2&preview=da5067445f161861432092499ad77907&mode=preview

When working on Webflow sites you have a hard limit on static pages of 100. How you use them up is really up to you. Since the number of collection items is much higher (2,000) in the CMS plan, you can leverage CMS pages for repetative or similar content structures. Your landing pages like “industry name Insurance” are good candidates for CMS items. The correct use of fields and sparing use of conditional elements give you ways to make those pages more unique. Again how you approach this problem is up to you. Webflow has its limitations. This is one of the biggest.

1 Like