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.

show..png

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

static_page..png

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

static_1..jpg

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.

static_2..jpg

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.

static_3..png

Here's what it looks like on the subnav

static_4..png

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

static_5..png

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.