Sitemap Creation

A website is a structured collection of pages. It is important to have a clear strategy when planning this structure so that your website pages will be logically connected with each other and visitors will be able to navigate ypur website easily.

A well-structured site means the visitor will not get lost while looking through it, and will always know where he is: he must be able to find the information he is looking for quickly. A badly-structured site confuses and frustrates the visitor and, in the worst case, leads to him abandoning the site altogether.

The Sitemap Creation window is where you plan your website's structure. You can add all your pages and organize them in varying levels. Once you have defined the structure of the Map with page titles, you can proceed to add the contents of the pages. Click repeatedly on the Next button to open the pages in the same order they have been added to the Map. Alternatively, you can use the Map to open the program's window where you can work directly on a particular page: double-click on the item in the Map or select it and click on the Next.

Most of the space in the Sitemap Creation window is taken up by the website Map tree, which is a schematic representation of the website Map you are creating.

A basic map is shown by default. It has a Menu folder that contains the Home page and 3 other pages. You can use the available commands to add levels, pages and separators to create the website Map you want.

If you use the various sections of Step 4 - Advanced Settings to add a built-in search engine (see Edit Graphic Template), a Welcome Page, a Blog, a Members' Area (you only need one page set as a Locked page) or a Shopping cart, a folder called Special Pages will be added to your Map, and it will include the following items: Search, Welcome Page, Blog, Login and Shopping Cart.

As well as showing the Map's tree structure, other useful information is given for the pages you add, such as the Extended Page Title and the Page Description. This information is taken from the definitions given in the Page Properties window, which you will have previously filled in.

The toolbar above the Map offers the following commands:

Cut [CTRL+X] - Copy [CTRL+C] - Paste [CTRL+V]

These commands cut, copy and paste the selected pages in the current project or to different projects. These commands are also available in the popup menu that opens if you click on the right-hand button of the mouse on the Map.

Expand - Collapse

These commands expand and collapse the selected level to show/hide the pages in them.

Hidden Page in the Menu

Select this command if you want the current page or level to be hidden in the Map. If a level is hidden, then all the pages in it will also be hidden. A hidden page can be useful as a means to give further information on a particular topic, and it can be displayed by creating a link to it at the necessary point. Remember to create at least one link to a hidden page, otherwise it will not be accessible.

Locked Page

This command opens the Locked Page window, where you can lock a page by clicking on the Set this Page as Locked option. You must then specify which groups and/or individual users may access the Locked page, clicking on their names in the list that is displayed. Giving access to a group is not the same as giving access to all the users in a group:if new users are added to a group, they will only be able to access locked pages if the group has access.

Locked Page window

To create new groups/users, go to the Access Management window in Step 4 - Advanced Settings.

§You can hide the home page in the map, but you should only do so if you are going to provide a link to it in other places in the website, for example in the header.

§If you want to create your own navigation menu, you can hide all the pages and levels in the Map: instead of selecting one page at a time, you can select the menu folder and click on the Hidden Page in the Menu button.

See How to create a Members' Area and define access to it for further information on setting up a Members' Area and defining access to it by creating user groups.

The commands for laying out the website Map are:

§New Level [CTRL+L]: to add a new level to the menu. There are no limits to the number of levels you can add.

§New Page [CTRL+P]: to create a new page, which will be automatically added to the selected level.

§Separator: to include a separator, which will help distinguish the various items in the menu. A separator may be a space or a label, and is particularly useful in multi-column menus (see Drop Down Menu Style | Menu Items in Step 4 - Advanced Settings).

§Remove [DEL]: to delete the selected page, level or separator.

§Rename [F2]: to change the name of the selected home page, page, level or separator. Levels, pages and separators should be correctly named when they are added because the items in the menu are automatically included in the navigation menu, as titles for the individual pages and as names of the HTML files that correspond to each page, unless otherwise specified in the Page Properties window.

§Move up [CTRL+U] / Move down [CTRL+D]: to change to the order of pages, levels and separators, moving the selected item up or down.

You can also change the order to levels, pages and separators directly in the Map: select the item that you want to move, drag it to the required position and drop it into it. You can make multiple selections for levels, pages and separators using the CTRL and SHIFT keys.

§Properties...: to set the properties for the selected page (in the Page Properties window), or the level (in the Level Properties window).

Best practices:

-	How to create and work on the website Map
-	How to create a Members' Area and define access to it

Further information:

-	Navigating a website