Managing Pages

Screenshots

Fig. 1: Page Manager Fig 1. Page Manager Fig. 2: Adding A Page (Top) Fig 2. Adding A Page (Top) Fig. 3: Adding A Page (Bottom) Fig 3. Adding A Page (Bottom) Fig. 4: Managing a section and its pages Fig 4. Managing Pages Fig. 5: Deleting a page and its children Fig 5. Deleting A Page Fig. 6: A locked page Fig 6. A Locked Page

Overview

The content in FireControl is divided into two parts: Content Types and Pages. A Page’s content is generally static whereas Content Type records contain reoccurring content (e.g., News, Events) or dynamic content (e.g., Products, Property).

To manage Pages, click “Pages” in the dropdown navigation at the top of the page. The following screen allows you to add a new page or select a section in which you can add, edit, hide, or delete pages.

Anatomy of a Page

Each page in FireControl is made up of the following core attributes: Title, Section, Parent Page, Order, Body, Path, and Display. Each of these fields must be completed for a page to be added to the site.

The Title attribute is the title of the page, as it will show up on the website.

The Section attribute refers to what section of the site of which the page is a member. This could be something like “About Us”.

The Parent Page attribute determines the parent/child relationship of the page. Use the parent page drop down box to set the parent page. “History,” for example, could be a child of the “About Us” section.

The Order attribute determines in what order the page appears in relation to the other pages in the selected section’s navigation.

The Path attribute determines the URL (yoursiteaddress.com/path/) that a visitor browsing your website will use to access dynamic content or pages. FireControl generates paths automatically, but you can override it with anything you choose. When manually creating a path do NOT include slashes at the beginning or end. Valid characters are letters, numbers, dashes, periods and underscores.

Note: Clean URLs must be unique.

Finally, the Display attribute determines whether or not the page is displayed on the live site. Pages marked as “Off” or as “Pending” will not show up in the site’s navigation and but can be accessed by a web browser.

Meta Tag Data

FireControl also includes three optional Meta Tag fields for Pages. These fields are useful for adding description and keyword metadata to pages throughout the website. The metadata in these fields will only be visible in the HTML code of your website. However, due to the inappropriate use of metadata to artificially increase page rankings most major search engines now ignore these fields.

For more information about how search engines work and how to increase your page ranking legitimately check out these links from Google:

Google’s Technology
http://www.google.com/technology/index.html

Google’s Design & Technical Guidelines
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35770

Google’s Quality Content Guidelines
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35772

Page Relationships

All pages are related to another page in some way. These relationships, in conjunction with hyperlinks (or links for short), form your site's navigation. To best meet usability standards, FireControl supports a maximum of three levels of navigation.

A typical three level navigation relationship might look like this:

Page Name               Relationship
============================================
Our Products            (Grandparent or "Section")
    Machine Parts       (Parent)
         Widget A       (Child)

Pages created beyond this three level navigation scheme will not display in your site's navigation.

Adding Pages

To add a new page, click the “Pages” in the “Manage Content” dropdown navigation at the top of the page. Select a template from the template dropdown box. Fill out the form fields for the new page then click the “Insert Record” button.

Editing Pages

To edit a page, click the “Pages” link in the “Manage Content” dropdown navigation at the top of the page. Select the section that contains the page you wish to edit from the section dropdown box. Click the edit button Edit Icon next to the page you wish to edit. Make any necessary changes to the page then click the “Edit Record” button.

Deleting Pages

To delete a page, click the “Pages” link in the “Manage Content” dropdown navigation at the top of the page. Select the section that contains the page you wish to delete from the section dropdown box. Click the delete button Delete Icon next to the page you wish to delete. Please ensure that the page selected is the correct page. If the page you selected is NOT the page you wish to delete, click the back button on the tool bar of your web browser to go back to the previous page. Otherwise press the “Delete” button to delete this page AND ALL CHILDREN OF THIS PAGE.

Note: The deletion process CANNOT BE UNDONE.

Hiding Pages

To hide a page, click the “Pages” link in the “Manage Content” dropdown navigation at the top of the page. Select the section that contains the page you wish to hide from the section drop down box. Click the edit button next to the page you wish to hide. Scroll to the bottom of the page and find the display drop down box. Change the property to “Off” then click the “Edit Record” button.

Note: Hiding a page is an easy way to remove a page from the live site without deleting it.

Locked Pages

Occasionally when developing a website it is necessary to add pages to FireControl that act as a gateway to dynamic content (e.g., News, Events). These pages are accessible only to developers and are marked with a lock icon Lock Icon in place of the edit or delete icons. These pages do not show up in a site’s navigation.

Note: Locked pages can either be hidden or visible, depending on their function.