Managing your pages
You may want more than just the default page of content. Here are the steps to follow in order to create and manage your own website content. First you need to create your root page.(This step may have been done for you by your website administrator.)
Create your root page
From the organisation admin page select website pages.
You should see the following page. Click the button ‘create root page’ – congratulations, you’ve created your first page!
(If your page looks different, your website administrator has probably done this step for you – go straight to anatomy of the root page.)
Anatomy of the root page
Under the organisations admin - website pages, you will now see a list of all the pages you are allowed to edit. The page listed is the root page that you just created. Select the checkbox next to your page and click edit.
The content tab of the WYSIWYG editor for your root page should look similar to the following. The content in curly braces { } are ‘views’ and ‘widgets’ that have been automatically created for you (see ‘what are widgets’). The initial content of your root page matches what was on your default page.
The WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) editor lets you add and style content using a familiar word-processor-style interface. You can edit the page by adding text, images, or widgets. You can type anywhere outside the curly braces. For more technical users, the html can be edited by hand by unchecking ‘use WYSIWYG editor’.
It is a good idea to preview your changes before publishing by clicking the ‘preview’ tab on the editor.
For more info see Editing Pages Quickstart.
For detailed guidance on the WYSIWYG editor see Introduction to the WYSIWYG editor.
What are widgets?
Widgets are custom made functions that help you add dynamic content to your site quickly and easily. For example you can create widgets to add a news list or a poll to your page. You create widgets in the 'widgets' tab of the WYSIWYG editor and then add them to your page in the content tab using curly braces, eg { news }.
The widgets on your root page have been automatically created for you to start you off - here’s what they are doing:
- { name }
- Displays the organisation name as set in organisation properties
- { emailaddress }
- Displays the contact email address that you set in organisation properties
- { webaddress }
- Displays the alternative website address that you set in organisation properties
- { organisationdescription }
- Displays the description that you set in organisation properties
- { news }
- Displays a list of any news articles for your organisation. This will display nothing initially until you add news items (see the news support section).
- { join }
- Allows people to purchase membership of your club or society online. See selling membership online.
- { products }
- You can use your microsite to sell merchandise, event tickets, anything! Your SU will have its own procedures for setting the products up but once they are in the system you can use this widget to display them on your pages. Any products that have been allocated to your organisation will be displayed allowing your members to buy them online. You can download sales reports at anytime in the organisation Admin area.
- { signups }
- Displays any signups for your organisation. This will be blank initially until you create any signups (see signups section).
- { photos }
- Displays any photos that have been assigned to your organisation.
- { msl_view_member }
- content inside msl_view_member and /msl_view_member indicates that content specific to your member will appear here. In the example above the contact options and admin list
- { contactoptions }
- Displays a list of exec members of your organisation, with links to their profiles.
- { adminlist }
For instructions on how to edit and delete widgets, see Widgets Quickstart
For detailed information on all available widgets and their properties, see The complete guide to widgets.
Adding pages
To add a page to your area, go to organisations admin - website pages
Select the checkbox next to the root page and click the “create child page” button. You will be prompted to add page name and page title. Click 'Add Page' and you will be taken to the WYSIWYG editor where you can add content to your page.
The page you have created has the root page as a parent page. You can create child pages underneath any page, not just the root page. In this way you can build up a hierarchy of pages and subpages for your site.
To create a child page from any page, select the checkbox next to the page and click the 'create child page' button. You can create as many additional pages as you like using this method. Don’t forget to include navigation links back to your homepage on any additional pages you create, to help your members navigate around your site.
When viewing your pages under website pages, if a page contains child pages it will appear with a plus icon next to it. Click the plus icon to expand the section and view all child pages that live beneath that page.
What next?
Now you've got started, you might find the following guides useful:
Editing pages - Quickstart
Add news to your pages - Quickstart
The complete guide to widgets