Create a default configuration for your viewer

Overview:
This article will show you how to create a default configuration for your viewers that will be applied whenever you add a new viewer to a site.  Note that your customizations will need to be reapplied whenever you upgrade your viewer, so it's a good idea to maintain a list of the modification that you make, so that when the upgrade is complete, you can reapply them to the new template.  

Solution:

1. Deploy your viewer to your site using the Post Installer
2. Navigate to C:\Program Files (x86)\Latitude Geographics\Geocortex Essentials\Default\REST Elements\Sites\Templates
3. Make a backup of the .VTE file for your current viewer.
4. Rename the original file.  Keep the name the same, but change the extension to .zip instead of .vte.  
5. Inside the zip file, navigate to the \Configuration\VirtualDirectory\Resources\Config\Default directory.  You will see the three json.js files that are used as the base templates for the Desktop, Handheld, and Tablet shells
6. Make your changes to these files.  Note that you cannot copy a json.js file from an existing site to your template, as the ones in the sites folder get modified and customized for the site once they are deployed, and are not suitable for templates.  
7. As mentioned above, as these changes will be overwritten when you upgrade your viewer, you should make note of what you are changing, so that it can be reapplied to the new version of the vte file later.
8. When you are done, save the file (you may need to save it to your desktop, and manually copy it into the Zip file)
9. Navigate to the Templates folder from step 2
10. Rename the extension on the zip file from zip back to vte.  Note that you may need to configure Windows Explorer to show the extensions for known file types.
11. Test your viewer by creating a new test site, and deploying your viewer from the template (or adding a new viewer to an existing site).  You should see your customizations applied.

When you need to upgrade your viewer, you will want to make your changes in the .vte file you deploy before you upgrade all your sites in manager.  

You will also want to add the new version of the viewer to a site to test the customizations before upgrading the rest of your viewers (in case there is a typo or a mistake that will cause the viewer not to load).  If there is, correct that issue before upgrading all your sites.