Create Global Navigation for Your Project Site

Help Center > SimpleSite Help Center > Project Site Tutorial > Create Global Navigation for Your Project Site

One of the hallmarks of a well designed Web site is consistency from page to page. Having the same navigation bar on every page makes it easy for the viewer to navigate through your site. The SimpleSite enhanced template sets allow you to create global content and navigation elements that can be easily used on any Web page. Using global content and navigation also saves you time and effort when creating and updating your Web site; if you need to modify the navigation or content later, you can edit it once, and all Web pages that use the navigation bar or global content section will be updated.

Create global navigation.

Global Links Click thumbnail to view full image.
  1. On the top menu bar of the SimpleSite workspace, click New Page. You will move to the "Create a new page" page.
  2. Select Global Navigation from the "New page or page element" drop-down menu (You might need to scroll down to the bottom of the menu to see the global page element options).
  3. If Global Navigation is not an option in the "New page or page element" drop-down menu, your site is probably using a different template set Global navigation is available in the "enhanced" template sets.
  4. Select the location on your Web site where you want to save the global navigation file. To select a location, click a folder in the file tree in the left pane, and the folder name will automatically appear in the "Location" field. If you do not see the folder you want, click the expand icons in the file tree to navigate through your folders.
  5. Enter a file name for the global navigation file in the "Unique file name" field. This should be easily recognizable, such as "navigation.shtml". If you change the file name, make sure the file extension remains ".shtml".
  6. Click Next. The global navigation template will open for editing.
  7. A global navigation file is just a group of links. By default, the group contains five link toolbars. To add another link, click Add link ; a new link toolbar will appear at the bottom of the group. You can also delete links you don't use by clicking Delete link Delete link icon . To move a link within the group, click the up or down arrows until the links appear in the desired order.
  8. To create a link, enter the link text in the space provided in the Link toolbar.
  9. Click Edit link Edit link . The "Insert/Modify Link" dialog box will appear.

  10. Links Click thumbnail to view full image.
  11. The link text shows in the text box. To create a link to a page on your Web site, click Select next to the "URL:" field, and then click once to select the Web page or file to which you want to link in the file tree in the left pane. To create a link to an external Web page, just enter the URL (including http://) in the URL: field.
  12. Enter text you want to appear when someone hovers over your link in the "Title" area.
  13. Click OK.
  14. Repeat steps 7-11 to create links to all the pages in your project site. When you are finished, click Save and Close.
watch movie Click thumbnail to watch a video tutorial.

If you'd like to create a banner to include on all the pages in your project site, you should create the banner before you insert the global navigation bar. Then, you can insert both navigation and banner on the Web pages at the same time.

Read about creating a banner in SimpleSite.

To insert the global navigation into a page, follow these steps:

  1. Select the Web page with which you wish to work from the file tree in the left pane. The "Manage a page" menu will appear in the right pane.
  2. Select Edit page content, and then click Next. The page will be opened for editing.
  3. From the "Insert" menu in the header layout area, select Global Navigation . The global navigation toolbar will be added to the header.
  4. From the global toolbar drop-down menu, select the name of your navigation file (navigation.shtml).
  5. Click Preview to view your page to make sure everything has been added properly.
  6. Click Save and Close.
  7. Repeat steps 1-8 for all the pages in your project site.
last modified on 04/20/2007 13:34