DD CMS Help Topics

Configuration - Site Information

Site Name/Title

The Site Name will show up in each page title (meta tag) , the footer and in any correspondence.

Site Description

This will show up on every page as the site description (meta tag).

Site Keywords

Each page will have these keywords (meta tag) - best to choose a limited number such as 15 to 20, especially if you want to add page specific keywords as well.

Site URL

Enter the full url of your site. This is presently only used in the newsletter mod but may be used elsewhere in future upgrades.

Language

At the moment the only available language is English but it must be chosen to make the admin work.

Color Scheme

You can easily change your site color scheme here. If you have customizations, you will also have a choice that is not named as a color. These are actually CSS files and can completely alter the layout as well as change the color.

Copyright

The copyright is at the bottom of every page and will always use your site name unless you enter something into this blank. Though this site is named Delia's Little CMS, having my business name in this blank is more appropriate, Delia Wilson Design, LLC.

Tag line

The tag line is a great way to include your keywords and tell your visitor who you are. Whatever you enter into this box will show up in the upper right header (good for Search Engine Optimization to have this text at the top of the page).

Features

Statistics

You may or may keep site statistics. When turned on, an additional menu link is added in admin for you to view these. These stats are very minimal stats. A better solution is to use Google Analytics for your stats. This type of code will need to be added to your page footer file.

Newsletters

If this is turned on, the sign up for a newsletter box will appear on your pages right underneath the header menu links and an additional menu link will appear in admin for you to access the subscriber management and to send newsletters (text only). This is a very simplified opt-in system for small list uses. If you have thousands of names, you should use one of the fee based contact systems such as Constant Contact instead of using your website to send your newsletter.

Newsletter Body

Enter a message for the email sent out to welcome a visitor to the newsletter list after he/she signs up, such as Welcome to our monthly newsletter...

FAQ's

Checking the box will add the menu link in the header for the faq's. You can enter and arrangement the faqs in your admin faq page. The standard template is required.

Event List & Calendar

Enter your events in admin and your event and its link to your event description automatically appears in the event list and in the calendars. Events entered in the admin calendar only show on the calendars and never appear on the event list. So your calendar can have scheduled events that aren't in the event list or it can show holidays, football games school schedules,etc., only on the calendar. The standard template is required for events, event list and calendar pages. You may choose to have the small calendar show on every page and/or just have the one full page calendar.

Message Board

This is a simple function that will allow visitors to post messages, testimonials, comments, suggestions, etc., to your site.It will send an email to you when someone posts a comment and you can then activate it or delete it in your admin. The standard template is required.

Photo Gallery

The photo gallery is will show the thumbnail image, link, caption, artist name. The standard template is required. There is also a simple image page that only requires you to upload images to the gallery folder in your images folder. You can upload images whenever you want by just clicking the image icon on the editor menu bar. Once you have finished uploading your images, just close the image window without inserting an image. The standard template is required.

Links

The links page is a simple list of links you enter in admin. Do your research though links in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and keep your links up to date. This uses the standard template.

Layout Settings

Advanced Search

This activates the top search box on your site - you must also have the accompanying search page active for the results display. That page requires the standard template.

Top Menu

This puts a menu across the top like in the image below. It will not display if you have not unchecked the side menu box.

topmenu

Side Menu

The sidemenu on the left will only display if the top menu is turned off. This is a better choice if you are going to have more topics than the 7 that the top menu presently allows.

Breadcrumbs

The "breadcrumb" trail tells the visitor where he is such as Home >> Topic >> Subtopic. For small sites it's really not necessary but still gives a bit of professionalism to a site.

Footer Menu

This will place the same menu links in the footer as in the top/side menus. The sitemap link is not included in these links so it will display no matter what.

Contact Forms

Contact & Message Details

This site uses a server side php script to send email to you from your contact page. Your email address is never visible to visitors or spambots.

Email Subject Line: This is the subject line of the email coming to you (I frequently use Customer Contact).

Email the form sends to: Self-explanatory but you will be happier with receiving these emails in your email client rather than through any type of webmail. They display differently for different webmail sites (gmail.com etc)

Email Confirmation: Once the visitor clicks the send message, the page refreshes and displays a message. So what company name or personal name do you want to display to them? And the secondly, what message? (thanks for asking, we'll answer asap, etc.)

There are 2 forms in the default installation but you can have as many as you need. The first form is for the Contact Page and the second is for the Message Board. Additional forms are site customizations, not available within Admin.

Admin

Secondary Editable Area

There is no default place to have the secondary content show up, so checking this will make the second box show up here in admin but it will not show on your pages. The following code must be placed in the appropriate spot on the template pages to have it on the site: <?php echo stripslashes(str_replace("\"","'",$page[content2])); ?>

PHPinfo.php

This is a handy little script that you probably will never need to look at but your web designer might ask you to access for information.

Editor Topics

Page Title

This page title is used as the menu link, the meta tag site title and the page header title. In other words, don't get very wordy!

Page Keywords

In addition to your site wide keywords, you may also choose additional keywords for each page.

Parent Topic

Topics appear in the top or side menu. These are the parent topics. Subtopics come underneath the parent topics so if you want the page to appear in that topic page sub menu, choose that page as your parent topic. This can be changed at any time for any page.

Sort Order

You may order your pages as you want - lower numbers come first: higher numbers will be last. You must, however, choose a number for each page; otherwise, the page without a sort number (0) will come first no matter what.

Active

A page that is active will be added to the menu links. If it is inactive, the link will not be added but that page is still viewable if one knows the page url. To see it while in admin, just click preview page. The inactive pages do appear on the left hand admin menu and will be denoted by

Templates

Most of the pages use the Standard Template. Only three pages don't: Search, Message and the Image displayer.

Locked vs Unlocked

If the page has a lock next to it in the menu, there will be no delete button. You can only deleted pages without the lock.