I would like to add articles to my...

User 458800 Photo


Registered User
78 posts

Greetings!

I use Site Designer 5 and would like to add articles to my site so that each article would open in the same, a separate window, or separate tab (at my discretion) within the user's browser, making use of a one-time defined web page format for all articles.

Here's what I "think" I want to do:

1. Have a little "table of contents" or "FAQ" list of questions with text links below it...

2. Clicking on a TOC subject or article name would open the article dynamically in the same browser window but in a dynamically created page using a template that I've set up for all of these articles.

3. Like the old-fashioned photo galleries, I would like to allow the user to click on any article name and go directly to that article. When an article is open, I would like to give those old fashioned "previous", "next", and "back to Table of Contents" options. The main upper left tile would allow the user to go back to the home/index page for the site.

4. Finally, I'd love to be able to quickly add articles by copy-pasting them from a Word Document, email, or text editor, and just let the site figure out how to display the page for any given article.

Now I'm confident that I could set this all up manually, but I've got to believe that the "FAQ style" is still popular and maybe Site Designer has a nice convenient way to set this up and maintain an easily-updated list of article subjects and bodies along with that "article body page" template.

Is there a tutorial that I should start with?

One day, I'd like to implement a slider for this feature, but for now I'll be happy to have a nice efficient way to implement a basic FAQ page into my site. I expect to have to make content updates and additions about once every 2 months or so.

Thanks in advance for any guidance you can offer me!

Windows 11
Intel i9 (workstation) and i9 (laptop). Gobs of RAM and acres of SSD space on both machines.
User 2088758 Photo


Senior Advisor
3,086 posts

Hi BIF,

SD5 has no way of handling what your suggesting automatically. You would have to create each article page manually and link it to your menu system. I think your looking for more of a WordPress type of website/blog style.

As for the slider there are a few options depending on what framework you are going to use.
Taking over the world one website at a time!

Steve Kolish
www.misterwebguy.com

YouTube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCL8qVv … ttneYaMSJA
User 458800 Photo


Registered User
78 posts

Hey Steve, thanks for the input.

I can create the pages manually for sure. And at least with CSS, I can still ensure a consistent design, and a somewhat reduced development timeline. But man oh man, it sure would have been nice if I could have set it up to dynamically pull subject+body out of a repository and display them in a predesigned structure.

It would be like magic, because then I could add new articles by just adding content to my content file/spreadsheet/database table, and dispense with the old "create a new page each time" method.

Oh well, I guess I just want to automate the world before its time. But I will do it one day, and it will include cake and ice cream!

Thank you for the additional resources; I'll take a look at them this evening.

And who knows, maybe I can invent a solution to partly address my issue.

Thanks again!
Windows 11
Intel i9 (workstation) and i9 (laptop). Gobs of RAM and acres of SSD space on both machines.
User 187934 Photo


Senior Advisor
20,181 posts

Hi Bif,
This can be done with some for thought. I use a php script to alter an html email dynamically before sending it out.
I guess I would put the links to the new pages in an area that you know will hold the changing data.
I can't hear what I'm looking at.
It's easy to overlook something you're not looking for.

This is a site I built for my work.(RSD)
http://esmansgreenhouse.com
This is a site I built for use in my job.(HTML Editor)
https://pestlogbook.com
This is my personal site used for testing and as an easy way to share photos.(RLM imported to RSD)
https://ericrohloff.com
User 2885740 Photo


Registered User
60 posts

Hi Bif,

Steve is right. SD5 is there to create static pages. The easiest way to go forward is WordPress.
However, if you want to continue with SD5 I have here two possible starting points. Mind you, you will have to code JavaScript.
The first thing you need is reading from a file to load text dynamically. You can see this in action on my website sd-goodies (last item in the list). You find the link here below, in my profile.
The second is to generate a (part of a) HTML page dynamically. Perhaps you would like to take a look at this: https://www.wbkessen.de/archiv.html
In the accordion on that page you will find buttons with the text “Bildergalerie”. By clicking such a button a page is loaded on which dynamically images and text are added.
I hope the combination of both options brings you further.
User 458800 Photo


Registered User
78 posts

Wow, thank you all for the tips.

My site is a mostly static HOA website, so articles don't usually get deleted. If anything, they get recycled, reworded, re-emphasized, and maybe even used in the bylaws one day. Or in a lawsuit... :o

Articles might get updated, but if we've had to ask people to clean up after their dogs once, we've had to ask them a million times. I can safely say that our HOA will not suddenly decide it's okay to start allowing doggie poo to be freely distributed at random places around the neighborhood, so that article will probably live longer than I will...

...and I think it's a safe bet that if somebody in this neighborhood decides to start keeping chickens and cows or build a space ship in their backyard, or to park a tank on their neighbor's front lawn, we're really not likely to one day change our minds and start allowing those things. :rolleyes:

So for my current use-case, I'm going to go with static pages. Once I design the first, last, and middle article pages, I'll just replicate the middle one for subsequent pages and name each one with some sort of incrementing "article number".

After that, creating a page is easy. Duplicate the detail page in Site Designer, write the article in the text box, and link to it from the "top-level" page.

Each detail page will have a button to go back to the top level (the "table of contents", if you will). At a later date I'll just add "PREV" and "NEXT" buttons to each detail page. Or maybe I'll add those when I do the first detail page so that my replication will include them every time, and all I'll need to do is adjust the "prev" and "next" links for any neighboring pages to be added.

I think I used a similar method when I did all this under the old software. It's not that difficult, because you only have 3 kinds of detail pages: The "first" one, the "last one", and a "middle one" that just gets replicated-and-new-numbered whenever a new article is to be added.

If I ever need something more advanced, I'll come back and re-read this thread. Or re-ask the question, since technology changes and Site Designer will probably be all different yet again in just a few short years.

I'm still struggling with the different buttons and things that got renamed from "Visual Site Designer" to Site Designer. :mad:
Windows 11
Intel i9 (workstation) and i9 (laptop). Gobs of RAM and acres of SSD space on both machines.
User 458800 Photo


Registered User
78 posts

Hmmm, "Show/Hide" might work for me. I found this in another thread and I think I like it even better because I can put a lot of things on one page and let the user just press the button that has the article "subject" in the button name.

http://www.coffeecup.com/forums/respons … post251647

And I think I might like how it works for mobile users. I'm going to play with this and see where it takes me.
Windows 11
Intel i9 (workstation) and i9 (laptop). Gobs of RAM and acres of SSD space on both machines.

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