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Page Content

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To add, edit or delete content on your site, you will use the Page Content editor.

Contents

Page Composition

Each page on your site is comprised of several sections. A typical page will have:

This contains the top rectangle of your site. It will be the same thing from page to page unless you have an image rotator or other active content in the header. The main navigation buttons will run across the bottom of this area. Most sites also have a top navigation row at the top right corner.
The left column of your site generally has all the sub navigation along with other content like login forms and meeting summaries.
The main content of your site will display here.
Some sites also include a right column. This can have the same type of content as the left column. This is optional and can be included on only some pages if desired.
The bottom of the page contains a rectangle that is your footer area. It contains your copyright notice and a footer navigation list. This is typically where your terms, privacy policy and admin links reside.

Example Page

Note that you will only see pages that have content defined for them in the Page Content editor. There are a number of pre-defined #Standard Pages that exist whether there is content for them or not. Linking to a standard page that has no content defined will just display whatever default content you have defined and an otherwise blank page. When you add content to standard pages, you flesh them out and they will now appear in the list of editable pages. If you don't see a page you are looking for that you know exists, you need to add content to it. See #Add Page Content for further information.


Standard Pages

Every StarChapter installation comes with a number of standard pages. These include About Us, Join, Members Area, Calendar, Newsletter and Meeting/Event information. Standard pages do not necessarily show on your site unless they have been included in one of your navigation lists.

To edit existing content to a standard page, go to the Page Content screen on your admin area. The pages that have content defined are listed here. Click on a page to toggle the display of the sections that comprise it. Click "Show All" to open all the sections.

Click on the "Edit" button for the section you want to edit. The screen will refresh with the page content editor showing the existing content and placement.

The section you are editing will have a description. This field exists so that you can identify easily what each section on a page contains. So for example, on the standard StarChapter package, there is a left column login on the home page. The description for that section is "Left Column Login Box".
Each spot on the page is selectable in a dropdown. The section you are editing will have been assigned a placement that determines where it displays when the page is drawn.
If you have multiple entries for a single section, you can control which floats above the other with the strength setting. Higher numbers will float higher on the page.
If you are using member groups, you will see a dropdown to select "All" for everybody (the default) or select one of your member groups. Only logged in members of the appropriate group will see content designated in this manner.
This checkbox is to flag a section that is on the #Default Page to show even if there is content defined for the specific page you are defining. See the entry below regarding #Default Page for more details.
This checkbox will only appear for users logged in with admin privileges. Check this box to lock the page from being changed by non-admin users.
The actual content for the section is edited using the Wysiwyg Editor. This is a very powerful HTML editor that you can use to format your content and add media such as images. See the section on Wysiwyg Editor for further details on its operation.

There may be other fields on the editor for certain sections. These are created by using Page Templates that have active code in them. The extra fields will be specific to whatever the template displays. See Page Templates for further information.

Custom Pages

To create your own content page, you would use a custom page. Custom pages are created in the Page Content editor and must then be linked to a navigation list. Note that you cannot create new standard pages but you can add content to them.

To create a new custom page, you would:

This will be the internal name of the page. It cannot be changed once you have created the page.
This is what the page will be called when displayed. This description can be edited after the page is created.
Select an existing navigation list to place this new page. You can choose --none-- if you plan to add it to a navigation list later or intend to use an imbedded link in your content to refer to the new page.
You can select an existing page (that has defined content sections) from a drop-list and the new custom page will be copied from it. If you are creating a new page with new content, leave this option blank. If you do choose to copy an existing page, the sections will be duplicated automatically and you will not proceed to the steps below.
Page Templates allow you to bring in a variety of pre-defined content. Normally you would choose "Blank" to create a content area that you will be adding text and images to.
The #Add/Edit Page Content screen will now appear for your new custom page. At this point you must add at least one section to your custom page for it to completely save. Once saved, you can add other sections to it just like you would any other page.

To delete a custom page, simply delete all the content sections that define it. Prior to the last section deletion, you will be notified that you will remove the custom page with the last delete.

Add Page Content

To add content to a page, you would select Page Content from the admin navigation. You will see a button at the top of the screen to "Add a Section to an Existing Page" along with a list of the existing pages on your site. When you first see this list, it will be collapsed so that you just see the page names. Click on a page name and you will see the sections currently defined for it. Click "Show All" to show all the sections. You can then toggle them back the way they were by clicking "Collapse".

To add a new section to a page you would:

Page Templates allow you to bring in a variety of pre-defined content. Normally you would choose "Blank" to create a content area that you will be adding text and images to.
The top of the form will contain a dropdown list "--Select Page--" containing a list of all the pages defined in your site (including #Custom Pages). Select one and the form will be populated with the page name and description. You may edit the description but not the page name.
It is a good idea to label your sections so they can be easily identified on the list. So if you are adding content to the middle of the About Us page, you might add the word "Middle" to the description.
Each spot on the page is selectable in a dropdown. The default is "Middle".
If you have multiple entries for a single section, you can control which floats above the other with the strength setting. Higher numbers will float higher on the page.
If you are using member groups, you will see a dropdown to select "All" for everybody (the default) or select one of your member groups. Only logged in members of the appropriate group will see content designated in this manner.
This checkbox is to flag a section that is on the #Default Page to show even if there is content defined for the specific page you are defining. See the entry below regarding #Default Page for more details.
This checkbox will only appear for users logged in with admin privileges. Check this box to lock the page from being changed by non-admin users.
The actual content for the section is edited using the Wysiwyg Editor. This is a very powerful HTML editor that you can use to format your content and add media such as images. See the section on Wysiwyg Editor for further details on its operation.
Click insert to add the content immediately or Queue for approval to queue it for review.

Previewing Page Content

To preview content you must first use the "Queue for approval" button. This will mark the section as queued. If you are editing an existing section, the original will remain on the site and you will see two buttons on the Page Content list, one for the existing content and the other for the queued content. The queued content will have a red border around it to indicate that it is not active yet.

Once you click on Queue for approval, the page will redraw with a red border and a message indicating it is queued. The "Queue for approval" button will go away and two new ones will appear: "Preview" and "Approve". "Approve" may not appear depending on your login privileges and site settings. The setting RESTRICTED_NO_UPDATE stops any restricted admin users from approving content changes when it is turned on. Click on the Preview button to popup a new browser window with the content you have queued. You can make updates to this section and they will remain in the queued state until you click on the "Approve" button. Clicking Approve will save the content, replace any existing section that you started from, and mark the content as active. If you decide to not roll this content out, simply delete it. If there was an original section this content derived from, the original will not be affected.

Undoing Page Edits

If you make a change to a page section and update, the original is saved in a log and can be restored if you decide you do not want to keep the change. Any section with one or more saved states will have an additional button "Undo Last Update". Clicking this button will restore the last version of the section. Note that this will discard the current section so be careful that you are not undoing something you want to keep. You can undo all the way back to the first version of the section. If you had a section marked "Queued for approval" and approved it accidentally, you can use the undo button to roll back to the content that was there before the approval.

Default Page

Most of the pages in the Page Content editor are actual pages that can be linked to using your navigation lists. There is also a "Default Page" that contains sections that will display by default on all pages on the site. An example of this type of section is the Quick Links navigation that comes standard on StarChapter.

If you click on the "Default" page in the page content editor, you will see the sections that are defined. Click on Quick Links to call up the content for that section.

Note that the "Always Show" checkbox is selected for this section. This indicates that the section will display on all pages even if there is content on the specific page you are on that is in the same area of the screen. This means that if, for example, you are on the About Us screen and there is a left-column bottom section defined for that page, the quick links section will still show. Unchecking the "Always Show" option would mean that any content in the same section specific to the page you are on will override the default section.

Typically, the navigation lists are setup to be in the default page with "Always Show" selected. You could add things like announcements or sponsor image rotators to your default section and they will appear site-wide.

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