How to Use Special Pages

Revision as of 00:00, 18 November 2011

Through the PageLines / "Special" settings panel, you can change the layout of the following Special Pages: Blog, Archive, Category, Search Results, Tag, Author and 404.

What are Special Pages?

Special Pages refer to the WordPress pages which dynamically display data from your site. For example, your Blog is a Special Page, because it takes all of your individually entered posts and displays them on one page.

Another example of a Special Page is an Author Posts page which displays all the posts by an author.

Category pages display all the posts in a category. And so on... for all the Special Pages.

Special Pages are different than Regular Pages

On Special Pages, you do not edit the content directly. Instead, content is pulled from other places and then displayed.

On Regular Pages (or static pages), you edit the content directly via your WordPress administration panel "Pages".

Examples of some Regular Pages you might create are: an About page, a Contact page, or even a Home page (if you have set your site to display a static home page.) By default, WordPress displays your Blog on your home page. For more information on how to place a static page (which you can edit) on your home page, click here.

PageLines makes it easy to change the layout of Special Pages

Historically, it has been difficult to change the way information is displayed on Special Pages without altering the underlying php code.

But help is here! The PageLines Framework provides a robust and simple drag-and-drop solution for changing the layout of these Special Pages.

Special Pages Panel

Special Pages Panel

Here is a quick overview of the PageLines "Special" Pages panel.

From your WordPress Administration Panel:

1. Under Pagelines, select the "Special" panel
2. Select the Special Page you want to change (in this example, the Blog Page)
3. Select the Settings you want to change
   • The "Page Setup" panel controls the overall layout of the special page. See tutorial below for more details.
   • On the other panels ("Callout Meta," "Carousel Meta," etc.) you can add the content for each section and control how sections appear on the special page.
4. Make changes in the meta panel
5. Save Options

For this tutorial, the Blog Page is used. Settings function the same across all Special Pages, so you can use these same steps for any Special Page you need to change.

Special Pages "Page Setup Meta"

Page Setup for Special Pages

The below example sets the meta for the Blog Page. Follow similar steps for all special pages. See the examples of all Special Pages at the end of this tutorial.

From your WordPress Administration Panel:

1. Under Pagelines, select the "Special" panel
2. Select the Special Page you want to change
3. Select "Page Setup"
4. Set Individual Page Content Layout if you wish to override the default Pagelines layout settings
5. Choose to show or hide activated sections
   • For sections to be available in this panel, they must have been activated in the Pagelines Settings Template Setup panel.
   • If sections are set to Hide This By Default in the Template Setup, you can choose to Show the section for this Special Page
6. Select a background image
   • Use this setting if you want a background image that is different from the rest of your site.
   • Otherwise, you can leave this setting blank, and any "Site Background Image" you setup in the PageLines / Settings / Color Control panel will be used.
7. Select a Secondary Navigation Menu
   • Use this setting to set a secondary navigation menu for the Special Page
   • There is no site-wide setup option for Secondary Navigation, so if left blank, the secondary navigation section will not appear on the Special Page (even if active in the template.)
8. Save Options

Special Pages "Section Meta"

For tutorials on editing section meta, see the How to Use "Sections" tutorials You can set the meta from the Special Pages panel:

Set Section Meta

1. Choose the section from the Select Settings Panel (the Boxes Section is selected in this example)
2. Set the meta
   • For detailed documentation on meta settings for each section, see the documentation for each of those sections (ex: Boxes Meta, Feature Meta, Callout Meta, etc)
   1. If you have a cloned section in your template (for example: "Boxes Section (Clone #2)", set the meta for those sections by clicking on the cloned section

The meta can be added but the section will only appear on the page if the section has been activated in PageLines / Templates.

If Sections are "Inactive"

Section Inactive

Activate Section

Section Activated

If the section shows "Inactive":

1. Click on the section under "Select Settings Panel"
2. Click on "Inactive On Template"
3. This will take you to the Pagelines Templates Panel
4. Under Select Template Area, select "Page Templates" or "Content Area" depending on where you would like to activate the section
5. Under "Which type of page?" select the Special Page. (For this example the Archive Page)
6. Drag & Drop to add/activate the section (See Template Setup for more details)
7. Return to the Special Settings page to view the change
8. The section will now be active
9. Meta settings can be set

Special Pages Examples