Help Sheet 4

 Creating Customised Pages
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Creating customised pages

So far the pages developed have been created using the standard services.  By creating your own customised content you can add as many pages, sub-pages and news articles as you like to build up the content on your site and add items of interest for your visitors.  This involves a different technique from using the standard pages and is slightly more advanced.

To create customised pages

Creating customised pages takes you to another part of the system which will not be branded with your look and feel.  When you are in this area and would like to return to your group website, click on the ‘Back to homepage' in the top left hand corner of your screen.
You can either:

• Go to ‘Manage Website' and then ‘Use customised pages'; or
• Select the page you want to customise and select the ‘Edit this page' link 

Create your own content pages

Using the customised pages section allows you to create and edit your own pages and folders.  Using folders allows you to organise your content as you would in a word processing program (such as Microsoft Word) when you use folders and files.

To create folders within the website:

• Select ‘Manage Website' and then ‘Use customised pages'
• As shown in image overleaf - click the ‘Content' tab (1)
• In ‘Site Map' (2) select the web page you want your new folder to appear under, or for a new folder click on the name of your website
• You will now see options for ‘Create Folder' (group of pages), or ‘Create item' (page)
• Click on ‘Create Folder'

A form for creating a page of text is shown below. It includes:

• Short Title (3) - title of the folder
• Body text (4) - add the text describing the subject of the Folder. By default the text appears in Verdana but will appear in Arial on the published page.
• Highlight any text you want to change. As you pass the cursor over the buttons in the toolbar a small popup label appears telling you the function of each button. Use these to make headers or bold the text etc.
• When you have finished, you can choose to include the page in the navigation menu with the other pages on the site (5)
• You can also choose to show the pages within the folder by clicking ‘Yes' (6)

• You are then given the choice to ‘Save changes' or ‘Save and Publish' (7). ‘Save changes' allows you to save and preview your work before making it public whereas ‘Save and Publish' saves your work and immediately publishes it to the website

Once published you can view your updated website by clicking ‘Back to homepage' in the top left hand corner then click on your page from the navigation side bar. You may need to refresh your browser screen to see the changes - press F5 on your keyboard or click the refresh link in your browser toolbar.

To create pages within this folder:

• You can create pages and news items to sit within this folder.
• Select ‘Manage Website' and then ‘Use customised pages'
• Click on the ‘Content' tab
• In ‘Site Map' select the folder where you want your new page to appear
• Click ‘Create Item'
• Select ‘Page' from the drop down menu, then click ‘Go'

A form for creating a page of text appears. It includes:

• Title - title of page
• Short title - option to provide an alternative title to be shown on the navigation menu, as the link to the document and in the web address
• Body text - content of the page
• Include in navigation menu - usually ‘No' if a page in a folder. More likely to be ‘Yes' if a single page not in a folder

You are then given the choice to:

• ‘Save changes' - allows you to save and preview your work before making it public or
• ‘Save and Publish' - saves your work and immediately publishes it to the website

Select the most appropriate - the page will appear within the folder on the site map, once saved. Select the ‘Preview' link to view your changes.

• Once published you can view your updated website by clicking ‘Back to homepage' in the top left hand corner then click on your page from the navigation side bar. You may need to refresh your browser screen to see the changes - press F5 on your keyboard or click the refresh link on your browser toolbar
• You can add pictures, documents and other elements to your page. See the ‘Adding images and documents to your pages' worksheet for more details

To create news articles within this folder:

• Begin the same as you would for creating a page, but select ‘News Story' instead of  ‘Page' from the drop down menu and click ‘Go'
• Enter the title and a ‘Teaser' (a short summary or introduction to the news article - it should be interesting enough to entice your readers to read the rest of the piece)
• Type in the full news story in the main body of the page
• You can add in links to other news stories and insert images into your article from the image library. When you choose to select an internal link, you'll be given a list of pages to choose from. Simply click the relevant one and click ‘add link'. Likewise, if you choose to add an image to your news article, a list of images which are currently in the image library will appear
• Publish your news page as before

Advanced - displaying includelets on your website

Includelets are small packets of information which you can select to appear on each page.  For example, the information you entered on your application form is now a package of information called ‘Community information'.  You can choose which bits of this information you would like displayed on pages of your site.

To add an includelet:

• Select ‘Manage Website' and then ‘Use customised pages'
• Select the page you wish to add information to in the Site Map

• Click on ‘Layout' (8) from the menu
• You will see the content items currently included on that page. If the items are greyed out and you want to add content into the layout, you'll need to click on ‘Create a new revision to make changes'. This will allow you to adapt the page layout
• To add in content, click ‘Add includelet'. You will see a number of options for inclusion on your page
• Select (for example) ‘Community information'
• Choose which information you would like to display (Community information is taken from your organisational details) and click ‘Save changes'
• To move your content around on the page drag and drop the items to the new location, or if you want to delete information, drag and drop it in the ‘trash' box.
• To view the content of an includelet double click on the includelet box
• To return to your page click ‘Edit'. You can then save and publish and the community information you chose to display is now on that page

To review past editions of pages

Under ‘Publish' you can view the different revisions you have made to that page and also which page is currently live.

You can also choose to take pages offline or set a date for when you want that page to appear live on the site or be removed.

You can reach the Help Desk on:01245 436559 or via email support@essexinfo.net

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