Default page delivery in Text Class is done via class-level templates that are shared by all instances of the class, though the middleware also supports collection-specific templates for any or all page-based behavior within the class. All default Text Class page templates are based on the same layout approach, which relies on tables (along with transparent spacer gifs) for all positioning and general color or graphic appearance. General layout is shown in Figure 1 , which shows top-level tables with borders showing, and using the color scheme for the Voltaire √©lectronique collection. All table cells for header and navigation bar content at this level have default values for the bgcolor attribute for browsers that are not CSS-capable. Each header and navigation cell also has a default CSS class value and default background image specified in thebackground attribute. The background colors created by class and gif allow for flexibility to change appearances for different collections based on the same template. For more on specifiying individual collection appearance, see Specifying individual collection characteristics.

Figure 1 : top-level table structure of a typical page.

Figure 2 shows the simple search page for The American Verse collection as it appears normally. Navigation bar labels, page text header markup (not header text content, e.g., "Basic Search"), instruction text and footer text are hard coded, and thus identical across all collections. All other content is specified per collection by processing instructions.

Figure 2 : Basic search page for American Verse.