Page Manager Is Finally Available

editing
#1

I would like to share an early version of Sitecake with page manager functionality. It’s still not polished in terms of UI and UX, but it’s fully functional.

Originally, page manager should’ve managed pages only: pages linked in the main menu on the top, pages not linked below. The logic was simple and straightforward but lacked the ability to:

  • have more than one menu
  • include anchor links in the menu
  • include external links in the menu

So we changed original plan and developed server side for these three features. Not we need to to change UI/UX to support them on the front. That’s the reason front has suboptimal UX.

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What you can do with this beta version:

  • you can manage only one menu per website (it’s possible to have more than one instance of it on the page, differently styled, for header and footer, but it’s the same menu with the same links)
  • can add, reorder and delete menu items
  • can clone existing pages, delete pages, set index (home) page
  • can do basic on page SEO, change page URL, title and meta description, and review all of that in wysiwyg Google search results snippet

NOTE: Page manager is accessed when you press P key on the keyboard while editing the website. Exit with ESC. In final release we will add toolbar button for it.

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Indirectly, page manager update enables Sitecake as a static cms to become a light blogging engine. A blogging engine for a static, flat-file, html blog. And static websites bring some new things on the plate:

  • speed (no database, no PHP, only web server that serves HTML page)
  • with the speed, better ranking with Google and other search engines
  • enhanced security (it’s a static website, nothing to hack)

I will create a separate blog post to elaborate on static websites and a cms for static websites topic.

So, right now you can create a home page and a blog article page and then use page manager to clone the article page for each new post. Link new articles from main menu or any on page list and you have your blog.

Another note, make your menu HTML be an unordered list with sc-nav class and links wrapped in li elements. It’s default menu HTML page manager needs. Like this:

<ul class="sc-nav"> <li><a class="active" href="">Home</a></li> <li><a class="" href="/about.html">About</a></li> <li><a class="" href="/portfolio.html">Portfolio</a></li> <li><a class="" href="/contact.html">Contact</a></li> </ul>

There is an option to customize that HTML to whatever you want to use, just that I will leave that for another post.

Here is the download link

Enjoy, do not be too harsh on us, it’s still not finished but we would like to hear what you think.

Page Manager Docs?
#3

Looks great! :slight_smile: If I understand correctly, all that is needed to add #achors or urls in the menu, is an extra ‘link’ button on top which allows you to edit the link then menu item is referring to, which then could be spliced into 1. achors (with a dropdown menu of anchors in the page selected (or maybe even all anchors on all pages, like page1.html#anchor1, page1.html#anchor2, page2.html#anchor1) and a url field in which you can type freely.

But even for now (with these limited options) this is a huge improvement! Keep up the great work!

#4

@hitcom you are correct. We need to add some extra UI that will allow people to add anchor links for one pager website with scrolling and external links for all sorts of add on services …

Thanks!

#5

Hello web friends,

Great job if you ask me.
First of all I am willing to translate this is the future to Dutch, when it’s ready of course.

Now the important question, will there be a option to disable this for my clients ?
I still need to be needed in the future.
My clients are very happy as it is, and that because of its simplicity.

Also my complements for the last update.
It really made a difference.

With kind regards.
Marcel

#6

@Artafact we might add an option in settings so users can turn off the page manager, in the similar manner as they can turn of certain content types. Your use case make sense. :slight_smile:

#7

That would be fantastic! +1 for this feature.

#8

We are updating beta release. Once ready, it will be sent to all beta testers on the list.

#9

Super! Is it also possible to add new hashed “pages”/sections to a one-page website (with only an index.php)?

For example:
/#home
/#about
/#someblog
etc

#10

We will definately add support for anchor links (#home, #something, …)

#11

I installed the v.2. version and I get this error: Exception: Error loading XML markup in file [SITE]/sitecake/2.3.7dev/vendor/electrolinux/phpquery/phpQuery/phpQuery/DOMDocumentWrapper.php on line (#297)

#12

@alerma can you confirm that your HTML is correct? Could be that you have some un-closed tags. Just make sure that markup is OK.

#13

@predragleka sure, I re-check it. Please, check it at: http://grupoalerma.com . I run it on a online review system to check it:

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#14

OK, I think I know what problem could be. I guess you have some files/dirs in your site root dir that shouldn’t be handled by sitecake. Maybe a wordpress installation or some framework directory, script for sending emails… First, try to create file with name .scignore and add those files/dirs that shouldn’t be handled by sitecake to that file, each file/dir name in new line. Upload .scignore file to your site root dir. Delete sitecake temp and backup directories and try to login again.
For more details on .scignore file go to https://sitecake.com/docs/website-integration.html and search page for .scignore.

Let me know if this works.

#15

Works! Thanks for help!

#18

Hello, you can download it again and take a look? At the time the linked page appears > Sorry, this product is not available for sale. Thanks, Luca

#19

We are working on beta update, once ready we will release it again.

#20

Hi Nick,

Is it possible to test the beta of the pagemanager?

Thanks and best regards.

#22
#23
#24

Hi Nick - please include me in the beta list for pagemanger - thank you!