CMS Made Simple Forums

I'm a newbie both to web site management and to CMSMS. I inherited a CMSMS website with a new job, and must add two page to a (new) left-side menu. To make matters worse, there is no overlap between myself and the previous IT people (I am replacing two), and the previous people were also newbies to both web site management and CMSMS. In other words, I am trying to do things the same way that they did (no documentation, just dead reckoning) but I don't think that they did things correctly either. So if my actions (below) look silly, I am just trying to copy what they did. For now.

The site is organized (Content-Pages) in hierarchical fashion, and the 2 new pages will go under section 1.9 as 1.9.1 and 1.9.2.  I modified the 1.9 template to successfully create two links on the left side menu, which are for the two new pages that I must add (Newsletters and Speeches). There are now labelled links for Newsletters and Speeches -- that part worked.

On the Layout-Templates menu, I created a new template ("midpointe-newsletters") for the first new page by copying the 1.9 template and changing the name field (I didn't see anything to change in the HTML.)

I then created a new PAGE using the "Add new content" link at the bottom of the Pages list (hierarchical list of all pages on the site.) I specified the newly-created "midpointe-newsletters" template as the template and everything looked good. The new page even appeared in the hierarchical list of pages (Content-Pages).

However, when I click on the left-side-menu link, I don't get the page I want. I don't get anything -- I am ejected back to the main home page.

In the Content-Pages hierarchical list, I've noticed something unusual about the page I just created: all of the other pages (approx 8 top-level pages and 50 sub pages) have blue up/down arrows in the "Move" column, but the new one that I created does not have those arrows. (see attached JPG, at far right)

Any suggestions?

It's a bit difficult to diagnose the problem without seeing the site, or how you are implementing your menus. For the most part you shouldn't need a bunch of different templates - most of my sites, even 50-100 page ones, only have a handful of templates, and these are usually for basic layout purposes (2 column, three column, etc.), or for functional reasons (e.g. - logged in content).

If it's a stylistic reason (a different header graphic, for instance, then you should be looking at either the {section image} tag, css styles, or a combination of both, rather than a ton of templates.

That said, the menu used for the previous section (1. should work for 1.9 and it's children. Perhaps if you post the code from that section we can help you out.

In the Content-Pages hierarchical list, I've noticed something unusual about the page I just created: all of the other pages (approx 8 top-level pages and 50 sub pages) have blue up/down arrows in the "Move" column, but the new one that I created does not have those arrows. (see attached JPG, at far right)

There won't be any arrows in the example you showed, because there is only one 'child' under the menu - the arrows won't let you jump up to the next 'parent', but simply reorganize within the group. Once you ad an additional page (Speeches, for example), you'll see the arrows you were expecting.

Don't despair! - send us some more info and we'll see what we can do.

What is the CMSMS-version you are running.

Ronny

Ah ha - you've confirmed my suspicions. I rather thought that "a template per page" couldn't be correct. At any rate, that's how they built it, so it must soldier on as-is for a while longer.

I was able to ask a friend, who had dropped 'round unexpectedly for a coffee, to be my second set of eyes. He quickly found the problem -- on the template page, in the code, I had inexplicably spelled "midpointe" without that trailing 'e'

Spelling... it's been the bane of my life since grade two. *Gad*

Thanks for your help, gents.

Laird

One thing....

Are you creating a new template for every page? That is only needed if structure is different, if only content is different, that will be pushed in the {content} tag...

Ronny

Thanks, Ronny, I suspected that was incorrect. I am grateful to you for telling me how to fix it. Summer project, when the school year is completed and I'm not being interrupted to fix a "my printer won't print" every 20 minutes.

Thanks for the advice, and for helping to point us in the right direction.