Edwin Brown

Static Pages

59 Comments

on Sun 21st Feb '10 at 9:19pm (14414 Views)

A number of people have asked for the ability to create static pages. Sometimes called static html or static html pages. At first we (I) didn't understand what they meant, because internally we had used that language to describe something complete different. As we are using it now, the term refers to a page that

Uses the same style, headers, etc. as the rest of the vBulletin installation.

Doesn't appear inside the standard CMS navigation.

May or may not be searchable.

Doesn't show in the standard navigation widgets.

Is linked either from the subnav bar, or from links entered in another page by the author.

Now we chose to add a few options to articles to achieve the "static page". Some of those capabilities were available in v401, but it still wasn't complete. I believe that in v402 you can make these static pages properly. Let me explain how.

First you are probably going to want to create a hidden section. If you do this, three things happen.

This section will not display on the section widget for anyone who doesn't have edit rights. (We display the link for editors, because otherwise there would be no way to create or edit these pages).

The user will not be able to view the section list, even if they manually enter the URL that would describe this.

This section will not display on the breadcrumbs.

Also this of course gives you the ability to set a different layout, subnav, and/or style to be used for these pages.

Next, create the article in the hidden section you just created. Before you publish it, set the three new settings.

These are:

Show on section page. If you have set "include subsection content" in the home page or a higher page, then this button prevents the new article/static page from displaying on that section page. If you have it set to "This section only", then this button will do nothing. You'll normally want this set to "no".

Make available for subnav. If you turn this on, then this article will show on the list of pages you can put on the subnav bar. You may want this on, or not.

Not searchable. If you set this on, two things happen. First, this article is indexed, so with the appropriate parameters it will be returned as part of search results. Second, if you are using search-based widgets (anything based on the General Search widgets. As of v402 that includes the "recent articles" widget supplied as part of the default install. v403 will include a non-search-based recent articles widget) the article will appear if the parameters are appropriate.

Most of the time you will probably want these set No, Yes, No, but you need to decide how you want your site to appear.

So let's walk through the process.

First we create a hidden section. Note the "hide from section widget" setting

Next we'll create an article. Let's create a privacy policy. Note it's not shown on the section page, is available for subnav, and isn't searchable.

Now we'll put this on the subnav. Note that even though it's an article you can see it in the list on the section page.

Here's what it looks like on the subnav

Note that when we go to that page, there is no breadcrumb for "Hidden Section"

So the only way a user can get to this page is by clicking on the subnav bar or knowing the url or page. You could of course make a Static HTML widget with a link to this page, or paste the link into a page somewhere on your site.

We hope you find this useful.

Updated Mon 22nd Feb '10 at 7:39pm by Edwin Brown (Expand- wasn't clear)

Tags: cms

Categories: ‎ vBulletin CMS

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Comments

dtommy79 - Mon 22nd Feb '10 6:33am

Thanks Edwin
Bo Peep - Mon 22nd Feb '10 6:51am

Thank you. That information is very helpful.
CrossoverX - Mon 22nd Feb '10 6:59am

we can't include php code!
Dunhamzzz - Mon 22nd Feb '10 7:44am

"Not Searchable" - you have got to be kidding me, Searchable Yes/No is much much clearer.
Eqvaliser - Mon 22nd Feb '10 8:40am

Originally Posted by Dunhamzzz

"Not Searchable" - you have got to be kidding me, Searchable Yes/No is much much clearer.

been wondering about that one myself, oposite of oposite..

kinda strange commnad..
would exspect this from a retard like myself, where english isent my native language,,
not from vbulletin..
jgas - Mon 22nd Feb '10 8:55am

thanks! really useful
dtommy79 - Mon 22nd Feb '10 10:07am

Originally Posted by Dunhamzzz

"Not Searchable" - you have got to be kidding me, Searchable Yes/No is much much clearer.

agreed
Lynne - Mon 22nd Feb '10 10:33am

Thanks, Edwin.
CvP - Mon 22nd Feb '10 11:22am

Originally Posted by CrossoverX

we can't include php code!

wtf..not even possible with proper permissions?!
Edwin Brown - Mon 22nd Feb '10 12:00pm

Originally Posted by CvP

wtf..not even possible with proper permissions?!

That sounds like a new content type. Doesn't sound terribly difficult. That would be something for Don to prioritize.
indie - Mon 22nd Feb '10 5:50pm

I understand the hidden page part. I created a static page by using a 100% layout and a widget with the HTML in the widget. Is this what you mean Edwin? You don't mention that here but you mention creating an article so I'm confused. On my page is says there is no content to display because there is no article. That's what bothers me. How would I get rid of that? Create a hidden article? And what about the article header. I guess we need that to edit. Could you please elaborate? Maybe I'm doing it wrong. Thanks
Edwin Brown - Mon 22nd Feb '10 7:40pm

No. It sounds like you have created a visible section with nothing in it. You want to create a hidden section with content in it. The section page is simply a temporary storage bin. Set up the way I describe, it will never be displayed to a user.

Remember, the whole point of these pages is that you want them to live outside the normal navigation. They have to be somewhere so you can create, find, edit and publish them. But you have to create your own navigation to them.

Once you've created the hidden section you create articles inside that section. Those articles normally will be hidden also, but you can put a link to them on the subnav- just like you'd put a section on the subnav.

I guess I wasn't clear. I edited the blog post to include a step-by-step.
pipin - Tue 23rd Feb '10 9:47am

Do you plan to add a real static page content type later on?

Or will you stick to this article thingie workaround?
Edwin Brown - Tue 23rd Feb '10 10:23am

We plan to add a number of content types. The highest priority IMHO are a user-defined-content type and a review type. I say "IMHO" because Don Kuramura is the guy who sets the priorities. I'm not entirely certain how a real static page would be different from the article workaround thingie, but if the community can explain what they want then we will provide it.
indie - Tue 23rd Feb '10 7:40pm

Major permission issue with static pages. If you disable the section from the section widget, and give read access to logged out users, if you log out you get a no permission message! You can read an article but you cannot view the section! I have one article, and logged out I can read it, but if I try the section URL there's a no permission message. If I change the setting to Yes for the section widget suddenly it is accessible. This needs to be fixed or these pages are worthless.
Bug: http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/proje...?issueid=36566
Pericolosogr - Wed 24th Feb '10 5:16am

If the complete breadcrumb was disable it would be better!
Its a static page and you dont want it to remind of an article or cms related page!

It needs more options to be included in future versions!
Edwin Brown - Wed 24th Feb '10 10:51am

Originally Posted by Eqvaliser

been wondering about that one myself, oposite of oposite..

kinda strange commnad..
would exspect this from a retard like myself, where english isent my native language,,
not from vbulletin..

Sorry. I had a bad day. It will be fixed in the next version.
Edwin Brown - Wed 24th Feb '10 10:57am

Originally Posted by indie

Major permission issue with static pages. If you disable the section from the section widget, and give read access to logged out users, if you log out you get a no permission message! You can read an article but you cannot view the section! I have one article, and logged out I can read it, but if I try the section URL there's a no permission message. If I change the setting to Yes for the section widget suddenly it is accessible. This needs to be fixed or these pages are worthless.
Bug: http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/proje...?issueid=36566

This was a request stated pretty emphatically from some of the users that they didn't want the "static pages" to be viewable except by a link they specifically created. Could I hear from some other admins? We'll make this work however the community wants.
theda - Wed 24th Feb '10 2:10pm

If this is what I think it is, I would want to specify permissions but IMHO it would not have anything to do with articles or sections. It'd be a page that uses the content space completely differently than the articles/sections. No grids, just uses the space, kinda like a basic iframe for the whole page with permissions? I'd want to be able to use buttons on the main navigation and subnav/breadcrumbs. I can see wanting to use PHP executions in some of these pages too.
ThorstenA - Wed 24th Feb '10 3:24pm

The CMS looks very nice. The foundation stands and now it maybe time to make the small changes (like changing the phrase not searchable to searchable - its useful but really minor!).

I'd love to see a user-defined-content type and a review type. The review type can be used for almost all admins as each forum is around a topic where you can vote for different things ("reviews about coca cola and pepsi", "reviews about clothes", "reviews about computer software" ...).