Category: Apps

Guide to Page Types

2/14/2020

The main sections of this website have been created using static Pages, time-sensitive Blogs, interactive Forms and dynamic Apps. When you are in the Weebly builder "Pages" menu, clicking the "+" to "Add a Page," brings up a menu that offers several different kinds of pages. What they are, and when and why to use each type, is described briefly here.

Standard Page
An unchanging or "static" page designed for timeless content, or content that rarely if ever changes or needs to be updated. In traditional print media, this content is sometimes called "boilerplate," referring to text that can be written once, then republished without major changes over and over, such as company histories, missions or philosophies, policies, staff info. boxes and contact info. As the metaphor suggests, static pages are somewhat rigid and fixed in place, so they contribute importantly to a site's architectural structure and stability. The style or tone of these pages tends to be more informative than conversational, and they seem to be authored by a general or omniscent voice rather than a specific personality. In Weebly, standard pages cannot be saved as drafts, so whatever you do to them is written to the live site almost instantaneously (and there is no "undo").

Types of content for which Pages are best:

Content for which date of publication is not important
Content that can be left alone for some time without becoming dated or "stale"
General information or overviews
About Us, history, services, contact, home pages
Landing pages that provide overviews of a site section/subject; may link to or house sub-pages (Membership, Programs & Events, Community Work, Special Events, etc.)
Policies and other legal info.

This site uses Pages here:

All top-level hierarchical sections: Home, About, Programs & Events, Community, Resources, Membership
Sub-pages that serve as landing pages/overviews for secondary subjects: Quilt Show, Opportunity Quilt, Special Events, Comfort Quilts, After School, Chamber of Commerce, etc.
Policies, Archive landing pages (listing links to old site pages)
Pages that need to be updated once a year or less: Officers & Committees, current Quilt Show, current Opportunity Quilt, CVQ in the News
Invisible, non-clickable "page" to appear in main navigation but lacking a landing/overview page: Galleries

Blog Page
A type of web page for content that is frequently, or at least regularly, updated. Blog pages are designed for content for which time is an important element, such as news, upcoming events and recurring yet unique events, such as meeting activities. "Blog" is short for "web log" and its diary entries are called posts, a term that refers to "posting a bill," or pinning information to a bulletin board or public display such as a kiosk. Blog pages stamp content with a publication date, then display it in reverse chronological order (most recent post first, at top of blog page).

Blog pages also let you stamp content with Categories, subject "tags" you attach to content and which can be used to sort and filter information for display. Using Categories and Archives lists of links (often displayed in a sidebar; here, in the page headers), visitors can browse the whole blog quickly and choose what they want. Blog pages also include an RSS Feed, which lets users or other applications (such as Facebook) subscribe to or "follow" the blog and receive instant updates as soon as new content is published to it. Posts also encourage interaction; visitors comment or "leave a reply" that can be reviewed by the blog editor or published instantaneously. Blog style and tone is more conversational than a static page, with a stronger sense of a specific author's voice speaking. Blog posts are meant to be shared, so blog pages are more social than static ones.

Choose a blog post for anything that's newsworthy, time-sensitive or calls for updating more than once or twice a year. Typical content best suited for a blog post:

When the date is important, such as event annoucements or reporting on events
Info. that will become dated or "go stale" relatively quickly
When you want to alert your audience about something important
Content you want your audience to share, interact with (comment on), make social connections (stuff you'd post or share in social media)

Blog pages in this site:

Programs & Workshops, Mentor’s Table (located under Programs & Events): for upcoming programs, reporting on programs, mentor tips, etc.
News and Happenings: a general catch-all blog for other info. that falls outside of Programs & Workshops and Mentor's Table, such as Opportunity Quilt news, Quilt Show updates or announcements, non-guild events and news, member announcements, tips and discoveries (videos, articles, photos, blogs, etc. someone has discovered and wants to share)
Photo Galleries: each subject area has its own blog; like the other blogs, gallery posts can be time-stamped and tagged with categories so that visitors can easily filter the content to find what they're looking for

Creating Blog Posts
Instead of creating a new page or adding more to an existing page each time you want to publish new content, instead create a Post, a type of page contained within the blog page. You lay out and style the Post just as you would a standard page, by dragging and dropping Weebly element blocks into the post body. Each post is stamped with a date, which defaults to the date you are creating the post but may be changed manually by clicking on it. You can also tag each post with Categories, schedule a specific publication date in the future, and manage comments for each post. Unlike standard pages, Blog Posts can be saved as unpublished drafts, then Posted/published later. See Weebly's tutorial on adding a blog post here: https://www.weebly.com/app/help/us/en/topics/create-a-blog-post

Form
Interactive HTML page that lets users input information, which is then forwarded to a designated contact via email. Different forms may have different fields, and different contacts.

Apps
The website structure also includes content managed dynamically (automatically updated) through an app (short for “application) that has been connected with, or feeds from, a site blog page or external platform. This site uses two:

Events Calendar: this element has been placed on the Calendar page, and in “widgets” on other sections. It is not edited in the site but automatically updates when someone edits information in the designated Google Calendar(s) (there are 4). If one or more is not auto-updating, you may sync the data manually (and contact support) by clicking the element to open the dialog box.

Social Stream: element placed on Home page that feeds automatically from the group’s public Facebook page.
Note: you may want to look into "auto publishing" the site's blog content to the guild's social media accounts. This would let your authors post information only once, on the website blog. The content would automatically appear on the group's social media account, e.g. Facebook Page, Pinterest board, Instagram, etc. Think of the website as the "mother ship," and various online platforms (Google Calendar, Facebook, Pinterest) as "satellites" that home into it.

Weebly builder also offers a Store Page, Product Page, and Category Page, e-commerce elements that are not applicable for the current site.

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