Some easy tips for success in populating your Smallbox CMS 7 website
Do not paste formatted text into your website
The Number 1 Golden Rule
Do not paste formatted text into your website
There is only one rule in Smallbox and this is it: Do not paste forma ed text into your website. This includes things like bullets, bold, underline, links, font colours, etc. Your website has been structured to retain your ‘look–and–feel’ by providing consistency to all information posted. Using the set styles ensures design consistency over time. Pasting forma ed text into your website overrides these settings opening the door to irregularity.
How to remove formatting
There are many ways to remove formatting:
- Make a copy of your document and save it in plain text (.txt). This will prompt you to remove all formatting which is the desired outcome. You will need to close and re-open the document.
- Have your document open and have a plain text editor open as well. Copy the text that you want to paste in your website from your document into the simple text editor. This will remove the formatting. Then copy it from the editor and into the website. Simple text editors come with all computers. Sample plain text editors:
- Notepad (Windows)
- TextEdit (Mac)
- In areas of your website where the Rich Text Editor (RTE) appears there will be a built–in feature called ‘*Paste as plain text’. If using this tool please be sure to closely check the end result as it is merely an aid to removing formatting.
*Paste as plain text location in the RTE:
Links
All links should be absolute links with external links opening in new browser windows or tabs
In Smallbox CMS 7, all internal and external links must be absolute links.
- An absolute link is the full link including the "https"
- Example of an absolute link: https://www.mysite.com/section/page.php
- As initial population starts on a staging site (pre-launch), you will enter absolute internal links with the staging URL. Smallbox will change them to live domain at launch.
- Links to external sites should be absolute and should open in a new window.
- In the Rich Text Editor (RTE): To open a link in a new window use the ‘Target’ tab within the ‘Insert/Edit Link’ tool and select the target as ‘New Window’
- Article with 'link" display option: Many list modules with the "link" display option will have an "open in new tab" checkbox.
Publishing
Make your content live
Please keep in mind that, until you publish, only people who are logged in will see the current content (what you are editing). Publishing makes all changes viewable to everyone by default. Some sites may have additional security roles so content can only be displayed to a users with the role assigned. See "Page Info" for more details.
How to publish
- On-screen page editing: Exit the field you are populating and it will to publish. On-screen edits are published right away. If you wish to just save and not publish you can use back-end edit. View "Basic editing" for more information.
- Back end editing: Click the "Save & Publish" button. View "Basic editing" for more information.
- Navigation: In Navigation, you can click "view unpublished". This is list of all pending content (saved, but not published) on your website. You can publish entries one by one or publish individually.