Content Pages and Content Blocks

It goes without saying that content is fundamental to any web presence. You need to be able to add pages to your website with whatever content is important for your business. SoftSlate Cloud Platform (SCP) offers a number of flexible and powerful content features.

Basics: Adding and Managing Content Pages

Out of the box, SCP installs with a few of the most common content pages such as the home page, an "about" page, and a privacy policy page. You can find them under Site Content -> Content Pages:

You can also create any number of new content pages, by clicking the plus icon on the upper-right.

Managing the basics of each content page is very simple. At its very simplest, you can create a content page, click into it, add a name for the page, add your content to the Description field, and you're done:

Note the following about the above form:

• As you can see there is a tool available to help you format the content, including tools for changing the font styles, font sizes, font formats, indentation, and other tools.

• If you are familiar with HTML coding, or are pasting HTML in from another source, you can also disable the tools, by clicking the "Disable Editor" link in the lower right. This button can be very useful anytime you are entering raw HTML.

• The Code field determines the public URL for the page: in the above example the URL will be "/content/_privacy". If you leave the Code blank the system will create it for you from the Name. If you desire the page to be under a different URL, you can simply create a Redirect for it (Site Content -> Redirects).

To view the resulting page, simply click the page's three-dots menu and select View in Customer Interface:

Adding Content Pages to the Global Header and Footer

A link to each content page may be added to the global header and/or footer of the site, using the Is Linked In Header? and Is Linked In Footer? flags. If those are flags are enabled, a link for the content page will show up within a few minutes. Because the global header and footer are cached in memory it will take up to 5 minutes for new links to appear. Please be patient.

For more information on controlling the global header and footer, please see the document, How To Add Links To the Header and Footer .

Reusable Content Blocks

A content block is any old chunk of content, formatted in plain text or HTML, that can be referenced in a content page, category page, product page, or form page, and included dynamically on that page.

As an example, let's pretend you have a lawyer who insists on including a disclaimer at the bottom of all your pages: "This website may be too much fun, leading to unexpected happiness!". Not the most likely language for a disclaimer, but this is just an example.

Rather than copying and pasting that text into every page, you can create a content block for it. From the Site Content -> Content Blocks screen, click the plus icon to add a new content block. Enter the text and give the content block a name and code:

After you create the content block, you can include it in another place using a placeholder in this form:

${block.[content block code]}

In our example, the placeholder is:

${block.productDisclaimer}

Here is an example of how to add the placeholder to a content page's description:

Remember that in addition to content pages, you can also add content block placeholders to the following areas:

- category descriptions
- product descriptions
- form descriptions

One of the advantages with using a content block is that, if the disclaimer ever changes, you only have to change it in one place, making maintence much easier.

Including References To Site Settings In Content Blocks

Another nice feature of content block is that you can include references to site settings inside the content block itself. For example, let's say you wanted to add a note to tell people to call you with questions. The simplest way to do this is to create a content block where the phone number is part of the content block's content. A better approach is to refer to the Store Phone site setting. The Store Phone setting can be set under Settings -> Store Info Settings. The code for the store phone setting is "storePhone", and so the placeholder in the content block is:

${settings.map.storePhone}

Here's this example at work:

Including References To Site Settings In Page Descriptions Directly

Please note, the above placeholder for a site setting also works if you put it directly into the content page's description, as well as the other areas that support content blocks:

• category descriptions

• product descriptions

• form descriptions

In other words, you can also put ${settings.map.storePhone} directly in the content page's description.

Parent Content Pages and Subpages

A content page can have a "parent" content page, which allows for a couple of navigational features. First, links to the subpages under a parent content page are shown by default, after the parent's description on the parent's page:

Second, if both a parent page and one of its subpages have their "Is Linked In Header?" flags set, the main navigation bar will group them together with a dropdown menu. A drop down icon appears after the parent's name. Clicking the icon opens up a menu with links to both the parent page and of all the subpages that have their "Is Linked In Header" flag set. This allows for more flexible navigation options in the header:

How To Add FAQs To a Content Page

Adding FAQs is a very common practice for websites, and the system makes this a little easier via content page settings. To add FAQs to a content page, follow these steps:

1. Create a content page if you haven't already. In our example, we'll simply name the content page "FAQs". You do not have to create a dedicated page, however. You can add FAQs to any existing content page.

2. For each question and answer in the FAQ, create a content page setting. Under the content page's three-dots menu, select Content Page Settings, and then click the plus icon to create the first one.

   

3. For the Name field, enter the text of the question.

4. For the Code field, enter a code like "faq0001". The code field must be unique under the content page, and this field is what the system will use to sort the questions and answers. For example, "faq0001" will come first, followed by "faq0002", "faq0003", etc.

5. For Setting Type, select FAQ.

6. For Value Type, we suggest selecting Text Value or Rich Text Value.

7. The answer to the question will go into the Setting Value field, but before pasting or typing it there, we suggest clicking Add New Record first, and then Edit New Record.

8. When you are editing the content page setting, if you've selected Rich Text Value, a toolbar of formatting options will appear, which can be helpful for formatting the answer:

9. Continue by adding new content page settings under the FAQs content page, one for each question and answer.

In the customer interface, the resulting content page will look something like this:

How To Add Testimonials To a Content Page

Another common task for websites is to provide a list of testimonials from customers. This is also supported in a similar way to FAQs, via content page setttings.

1. Create a content page if you haven't already. In our example, we'll name the content page "Reviews". You do not have to create a dedicated page, however. You can add testimonials to any existing content page.

2. For each testimonial, create a content page setting. Under the content page's three-dots menu, select Content Page Settings, and then click the plus icon to create the first one.

   

3. For the Name field, enter the name of the person providing the testimonial.

4. For the Code field, enter a code like "testimonial0001". The code field must be unique under the content page, and this field is what the system will use to sort the questions and answers. For example, "testimonial0001" will come first, followed by "testimonial0002", "testimonial0003", etc.

5. For Setting Type, select TESTIMONIAL.

6. For Value Type, we suggest selecting Text Value or Rich Text Value.

7. Put the text of the testimonial itself into the Setting Value field.

8. Two additional fields are supported:

   1. In Extra 1, you can put the city or location of the person giving the testimonial.

   2. In Extra 2, you can put the date of the testimonial.

Content Pages vs Category Pages

You may notice that content pages and category pages are similar. They can be used almost interchangeably. The differences are:

• You can associate products with category pages but not content pages. This is the main difference. Category pages do almost everything content pages do, but they can also list products under them.

• Category pages appear under the main category tree link in the global header by default (under the Browse link). The full selection of categories appears in the category tree, including subcategories, and subcategories of other subcategories.

• Categories can appear as "facets" on the search results or category pages, to help users find products more easily. This does not pertain to content pages.

• The URL for a category page is under the "/category" subdirectory, whereas content pages are under the "/content" subdirectory. Although, using a redirect, any URL can be used to point to any specific content page or category page.