Pages

The third main folder inside the Panel Portal toolbox is the “Pages” folder. This is where you set up the portal pages.

Creating a New Page

To create a new page in the Portal:

1. In the Panel Portal toolbox, right-click on the Pages folder text to open a drop-down menu.
2. Select Insert Page (Inside).

Or: Right-click on an existing page and choose Duplicate.

Editing a Page

Double-click on a page in the Panel Portal > Pages folder to open the page for editing. The Panel Portal Designer page opens for the selected page. This is where you select the Visual Components that are to be used on the page, and position them on the page.

A new page has been created in the Pages folder, called in this case Example Page. This page will now be used to provide worked examples of the various procedures used when editing a page.

On this page it has been decided to show some text (the text element), an external link, a link to the page called “Home”, and an image will be inserted across the bottom of the page.

1. The first step is to set the Page Master (go to Page Masters for more information):

Right-click on the page and select Properties from the drop-down menu. The Properties pane opens. The first property in the list is Page Master.

Right-click on the down-arrow beside the Page Master field to open a drop-down list of the page masters available, and select the desired page master from the list.

If several languages have been defined for the Portal, then on this Properties page you can also type in translations of the title and description for the non-default languages.

Save the changes.

The “Page Area” element determines where the page (portal page) is located on the overall page (Page Master) (go to Creating a Page Master for more information).

In other words, overall browser views are set up as Page Masters. The individual portal pages are set up under “Pages”, and you assign a Page Master for each page (if you do not, the default Page Master will be used). The portal pages will always appear on the screen where the Visual Component “Page Area” is located.

2. Set the Page as Default / Login

In the same way as one Theme is set to be default, one page is also set as the default page. This will then be the first page that the respondent sees when he/she goes to the Panel Portal. In most cases this will be the starting page (home page).

Right-click the page and choosing Set as Default. Forsta Plus will show the default page each time a new visitor enters the portals.

The page you wish to use as the login page must also be specified. To do this, right-click the page and selecting Set as Login. Forsta Plus will display the text “LOGIN” next to the login page in the Panel Portal toolbox - .

Figure 1 - Setting the Login page

Page Properties

To open the Properties pane for a portal page, right-click on the page in the Panel Portal toolbox and choose Properties from the menu, or when the page is open for editing click the Show/hide Properties button in the Editing pane toolbar. The properties pane opens alongside the page - .

Figure 2 - Example of a Page Properties page

The page properties are as follows:

• Page Master – defines the layout for that page (go to Page Masters for more information).
• Name – the name of the page. You can edit this at any time.
• Protected – check this box if you want this page to be accessible only to people who are logged in. If a page is not protected all visitors can see the page.
• Navigator Item – defines when the page is to be visible in the menu bar.
• Visible – leave this box checked if you wish the page to be visible in the menu bar all the time. If the box is unchecked, then the page will not show.
• Visible when not logged in – leave this box checked if you want the page to be visible to all visitors to the site. Uncheck the box to hide the page from those who are not logged in.
• Title – the portal can be made available in any number of languages. These languages are selected when the portal is first created, or can be added later (go to Panel Portal Languages for more information). The respondents can select the language (from the list available) in which the Portal is presented. The Title property provides one field for each language selected. Type into the fields the page titles in the various languages.
• Description – here you specify for each language the text you wish to appear when a respondent points to the page on their screens (mouse-over).

Folders and Structure

Folders are used inside the “Pages” section to create a menu structure for the portal pages. Each folder will be presented as a clickable sub-menu for the panelists.

To insert a new folder:

1. Right-click on an existing folder and select either Insert Folder (Inside) or Insert Folder (After) as appropriate.
2. Once you have created the folder, create pages inside the folder or place them there using drag-and-drop. Note that you can have folders within folders.

In the figure below, note how the pages Example Page, Home, Join Community, FAQs, Contact Us, and About are displayed as separate pages on the menu bar. The folder “Members Only” creates a drop-down menu which leads to the pages inside the folder - . The Lost Password page does not appear here because the Visible property in the page's Properties page has been unchecked. The login page is only displayed when someone attempts to enter a restricted page.

Figure 3 - Using a folder to create a menu layout