ref: 5d2fceecafe182c6ddebc57475a4c1b2317e6216
dir: /docs/content/en/templates/views.md/
---
title: Content View Templates
# linktitle: Content Views
description: Hugo can render alternative views of your content, which is especially useful in list and summary views.
date: 2017-02-01
publishdate: 2017-02-01
lastmod: 2017-02-01
categories: [templates]
keywords: [views]
menu:
docs:
parent: "templates"
weight: 70
weight: 70
sections_weight: 70
draft: false
aliases: []
toc: true
---
These alternative **content views** are especially useful in [list templates][lists].
The following are common use cases for content views:
* You want content of every type to be shown on the homepage but only with limited [summary views][summaries].
* You only want a bulleted list of your content on a [taxonomy list page][taxonomylists]. Views make this very straightforward by delegating the rendering of each different type of content to the content itself.
## Create a Content View
To create a new view, create a template in each of your different content type directories with the view name. The following example contains an "li" view and a "summary" view for the `posts` and `project` content types. As you can see, these sit next to the [single content view][single] template, `single.html`. You can even provide a specific view for a given type and continue to use the `_default/single.html` for the primary view.
```
▾ layouts/
▾ posts/
li.html
single.html
summary.html
▾ project/
li.html
single.html
summary.html
```
Hugo also has support for a default content template to be used in the event that a specific content view template has not been provided for that type. Content views can also be defined in the `_default` directory and will work the same as list and single templates who eventually trickle down to the `_default` directory as a matter of the lookup order.
```
▾ layouts/
▾ _default/
li.html
single.html
summary.html
```
## Which Template Will be Rendered?
The following is the [lookup order][lookup] for content views:
1. `/layouts/<TYPE>/<VIEW>.html`
2. `/layouts/_default/<VIEW>.html`
3. `/themes/<THEME>/layouts/<TYPE>/<VIEW>.html`
4. `/themes/<THEME>/layouts/_default/<VIEW>.html`
## Example: Content View Inside a List
The following example demonstrates how to use content views inside of your [list templates][lists].
### `list.html`
In this example, `.Render` is passed into the template to call the [render function][render]. `.Render` is a special function that instructs content to render itself with the view template provided as the first argument. In this case, the template is going to render the `summary.html` view that follows:
{{< code file="layouts/_default/list.html" download="list.html" >}}
<main id="main">
<div>
<h1 id="title">{{ .Title }}</h1>
{{ range .Pages }}
{{ .Render "summary"}}
{{ end }}
</div>
</main>
{{< /code >}}
### `summary.html`
Hugo will pass the entire page object to the following `summary.html` view template. (See [Page Variables][pagevars] for a complete list.)
{{< code file="layouts/_default/summary.html" download="summary.html" >}}
<article class="post">
<header>
<h2><a href='{{ .Permalink }}'> {{ .Title }}</a> </h2>
<div class="post-meta">{{ .Date.Format "Mon, Jan 2, 2006" }} - {{ .FuzzyWordCount }} Words </div>
</header>
{{ .Summary }}
<footer>
<a href='{{ .Permalink }}'><nobr>Read more →</nobr></a>
</footer>
</article>
{{< /code >}}
### `li.html`
Continuing on the previous example, we can change our render function to use a smaller `li.html` view by changing the argument in the call to the `.Render` function (i.e., `{{ .Render "li" }}`).
{{< code file="layouts/_default/li.html" download="li.html" >}}
<li>
<a href="{{ .Permalink }}">{{ .Title }}</a>
<div class="meta">{{ .Date.Format "Mon, Jan 2, 2006" }}</div>
</li>
{{< /code >}}
[lists]: /templates/lists/
[lookup]: /templates/lookup-order/
[pagevars]: /variables/page/
[render]: /functions/render/
[single]: /templates/single-page-templates/
[spf]: https://spf13.com
[spfsourceli]: https://github.com/spf13/spf13.com/blob/master/layouts/_default/li.html
[spfsourcesection]: https://github.com/spf13/spf13.com/blob/master/layouts/_default/section.html
[spfsourcesummary]: https://github.com/spf13/spf13.com/blob/master/layouts/_default/summary.html
[summaries]: /content-management/summaries/
[taxonomylists]: /templates/taxonomy-templates/