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 (left of page) 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, this will open a content management box (CRM)
• Type a title into the field box called Short Title (this names your folder)
• In the CRM type some text (body text) to describe the folder. By default the text appears in Verdana but will appear in Arial on the published page.
• When you have finished, you can choose to include the page in the navigation menu with the other pages on the site
• You can also choose to show the pages within the folder by clicking ‘Yes'
• You are then given the choice to ‘Save changes' or ‘Save and Publish' . ‘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

How to create pages within the 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