SimpleUpdates Support Site

Getting Started, Helpful Tips, and FAQs

In addition to content that is shared with your site visitors, there are other ways individual pages can be setup with unique characteristics that affect how it looks, how it behaves and how it communicates with the World Wide Web.

These individual page instructions are managed on the tabs.

When you are in edit mode on a page, you will notice to the right of the editing area are two tabs - Basic and Advanced.

If you do not see these tabs, check the top of the page, just a little to the left of the blue [publish] button, there is a button for Settings. It is gray when it says [Show Settings] and white when it says [Hide Settings]. If it is white - [Hide Settings] look to the right to see the 'Basic' and 'Advanced' tabs. If it is gray - [Show Settings] - click it.

Remember that you must use the [Publish] button to save change to fields in the tabs area.

There is no autosave for Tab edits. If you close the page without saving, you will loose changes you've made in tabs.

 

Basic Tab Fields

Title

The title is used in two basic places

  1. As a label for the page
  2. In the various navigation options on your site. 

It will initially display as whatever title you gave the page when you created it. If you change the title in the Basic Tab field, It will also change your page title and your navigation title.

Note: if you with to change only your page title, use the field just above the content on your page. If you want to change only the navigation title, you may to that on the Advanced Tab.

 

Authors

The Author(s) field will automatically be populated with the name of the User who created the page. If you have enabled 'Show Authors Name' in the Theme Customizer, this name(s) will display on the page.

Note: this name(s) will display on a Blog Post by default.

To delete the name that is there, click the 'x' following the name.

To add another name, click in the field and choose from the list of users.

If you would like to add a name that is not on the list, add them as a user. They will then display on the list.

 

Description

The description is used in various lists on the website, by social media sharing and by Search Engines. It is a good idea to use this field to describe your page content. It is also a good idea to keep the description short!

 

Featured Image

On some themes / some layouts, the featured image is used in the banner area of the page. Where this is the case, there will be a default image used that will be overwritten by the featured image if you supply one.

You may click to begin the upload process or you can drag and drop an image in that space.

Once the image is uploaded you will see the focal point that can be moved to create a different center for your image display.

Note: There are a few use cases for the featured image that will disable the focal point.

Even if the page has no image in the banner, it is still a good idea to upload a featured image. This image is used as a thumbnail in various lists on your website and for social media sharing.

 

Tags

Tags are optional. They may be used for a variety of sorting, filtering and listing on your website.

You may use Tags to filter page lists and blog lists

Note: There are similar sorting/filtering options called 'Categories' used with the Store, Events (the Calendar) and Media. The biggest difference between Tags and Categories is that Tags have a field where you can add a tag or tags during the creation/edit process. Categories need to be setup and saved before they can be used and usually, where there are categories, at least one Category is required.

 

Advanced Tab Fields

Layout

You may change the layout of a page at any time by clicking 'Change Layout' and choosing a different layout.

While you can use the Home layout on any page, we advise that you don't.

 

Publishing

There are four ways of publishing your page to make it more or less accessible. There are also publishing options that make life just a little easier for you.

 

Publish immediately - this is the default setting. It instructs the site to make the information you are adding/editing available as soon as you Publish. 

When you click 'edit' to the right of 'Publish immediately' you will be give two options.

  1. Publish On - allows you to set a date in the future when this page will become available to website visitors
  2. Publish Until - allows you to set a date on which this page will no longer be available to website visitors

Click the blue [Done] button to save the specific Publish dates.

Note: these dates are editable at any time

Note: you do not have to fill in both dates.

 

Access: - Inherit is the default for this one. Usually there is no need to bother with this setting, but if you have reason to restrict the page to a select group of people, this is the way to do it.

Click the 'edit' link, uncheck 'Inherit Permission'

The first option you will see is a Password. This is a password you make up and enter in the Password field. You then give this password to everyone who needs access to this page. When the link to this page is clicked a message will display identifying this page as a restricted page. It will provide a field in which the password can be typed. If the password is typed correctly, the page will open for viewing.

The second option is to create a login for each person needing access to this page. Check the box next to 'Require User Level'  and choose the level you wish to use. This will require a User entry for each person to whom you wish to give access. They will have to be logged in to access the page.

The level chosen will depend on the group's needs. Typically Viewer is the chosen level because it is likely you will want to give viewing access, but not editing access. See more about Users.

While you can use both a user level and a password, it is not recommended.

Note: Whichever level is chosen, that level of user will be able to access ALL restricted pages with the same level designated.

Click the blue [Done] button when you're finished

 

Navigation - this will display as the name of the page. This is the name used in the navigation on your website. While it may be helpful to give your page a longer, specific title, it is problematic to have long titles in your navigation. Use this navigation 'edit' option to shorten the navigation title as short as you can while still clearly identifying the page.

Click the [Done] button when finished

 

The URL - this will display as the current URL for the page you are editing. You may change the URL for the page at any time. As with Navigation titles, shorter URLs are better.

Remember that all URLs must be unique

Click 'edit' to open the URL field. Click the [Done] button when finished.

 

Navigation

In contrast with the Navigation options in the Publishing section, the section titled 'Navigation' has only two simple options.

  1. Include your page in Navigation - or not. By default your page is included so site visitors can use the various links or the sitemap to access your page. If you do not want a page included, simply uncheck this option and Publish the page. Admins will still be able to access this page by going to Pages on the black Admin bar to the left and searching for the page, but it will not be found in the public navigation.
  2. Open in New Window. This allows the page to be opened in a new tab. Instead of switching from one page to another as is the usual way to move through a website, you may request - by checking the box - that the page be opened in a new tab. Be careful using this option. Your viewers could end up with many tabs to your website open on their browser. It is not a pleasant activity to have to close many tabs when they are ready to leave your site.

 

Child Page Sort Order

Be default, Child pages will list in Alphabetical order by their Titles.

Sometimes there are reasons to list the pages in a different order. To do this:

  • Click on 'Alphabetically'
  • Choose 'Manually'
  • Publish so the new Sort Order take affect.
  • Edit the page, come back to the Advanced tab and click the [Rearrange Page Order] button.
  • Use the cross on the left of each page title to click and drag it to create the desired display order.
  • Publish the page.

 

Remember to publish the page to save change to any / all fields on Tabs.