Sitecore SXA - How to have shared layout?

Question

I am trying to achieve the shared layout for all the languages of the item. Basically, I have a project where a multiple pages are already made, and for 8 languages. Now I need to change every page (they are basically product pages) with that same template to a newer design with a newer components.

Is there any way to make this achievable in not a long time (Basically changing every single page of a product in every single language)? I have heard about the shared layout but how to achieve that in SXA? Also, is it good that to make a new Page Design only for those pages? The problem there is that I need to change the data sources because I think every page will then have the same items with that same data source, and that is not good option if you think about it.

Answer 1

You could achieve this with SPE using Merge-Layout which copies the FinalLayout field to SharedLayout and resets the FinalLayout.

ex: (Filter by Product Template)

Get-ChildItem -Path "master:/sitecore/content/Tenant/Site" -Language * -Recurse | Where-Object { $_.TemplateName -eq "Product" } | Merge-Layout

Merge-Layout doco link Credits to SPE module

This helps to achieve a common layout across all languages and then you could only have language specific driven from Final Layout (this approach is a huge plus for translations too).

Regarding Page design, it is not ideal with components having Data Source unless you have the content driven from Page item itself this works well.