Once you have gone through the key features of a standard page, there are some of the other important components that you might want to add to a page.
The most commonly added components are FAQ Accordions, Mixed Pods and Content Items. These must be created in the Content Editor underneath the main page, and then added onto the page using the Experience Editor.
The Experience Editor allows you to move, add or remove components beyond the provided webpage templates.
Opening a Page
To open a page in the Experience Editor, click the icon on the Sitecore Launchpad. To navigate to your chosen page, ensure that the navigation bar box is ticked in the view tab (you will only have to do this the first time you use the experience editor).
To navigate to the page, you need to use the navigation bar to select the page you require. To go to the page, click Go.
Note – if at any time you cannot see any of the navigation bar, click on the down arrow at the top right corner.
Editing a Page
To edit any content on the page, click on the area you want to edit and then click on the pencil icon in the content tab.
This then opens the Rich Text Editor and you can edit the content in the same way you do in the Content Editor.
To publish the page click Publish.
To add the accordion item to the page, you first need to create your accordions and their content using the Content Editor.
In the Content Editor, locate the page you want to add the accordions to, right click and select Insert Accordion Items Folder. If you cannot see the Accordion Items Folder click 'Insert from Template' and select it from the Accordions Folder. You will be prompted to name the folder. You can do this, but it isn’t compulsory as this is not displayed on the website.
To add an accordion:
To add more accordions repeat steps 1 - 3.
Once you have created all of your accordion items, go to the publish tab and select the Experience Editor. To add the accordions, click on the Add Component icon found in the top left hand corner of the toolbar next to the save icon, or in the Home tab toolbar.
The experience editor will show all of the places on the page that you can add a component to. You need to add Accordion items into the main page content. To do this, click on the + Add here icon, the components box will display and locate the FAQ – FAQ Accordion item. Before clicking Select, make sure to tick ‘Open the Properties dialog box immediately’. Under Data Source, click Browse, and navigate the site tree to Accordion Items Folder you created. The accordions are then added to the page. To publish the page, click Publish.
To add pods to the page, you first need to add the pod images into the Media Library. For guides on how to do this, please refer to the Media Library section within the Support Hub. Once you have published your images within the Media Library, go to the Launchpad and select the Content Editor.
In the Content Editor, locate the page you want to add the pods to, right click and select Insert Mixed Pods Folder. You will be prompted to name the folder. You can do this, but it isn’t compulsory as this is not displayed on the website.
To add an image pod:
Once you have created all Mixed Pod items, go to the publish tab and select the Experience Editor. To add the pods, click on the Add Component icon found in the top left-hand corner of the toolbar next to the save icon, or in the Home tab toolbar.
The experience editor will show all the places on the page that you can add a component to. You need to add the Mixed Pods items into the main page content. To do this, click on the + Add here icon, the components box will display, and locate the 'Pods - mixed pods grid V2' item. Before clicking Select, make sure to tick ‘Open the Properties dialog box immediately’. Under Data Source, click Browse, and navigate the site tree to the mixed pods folder you created. The mixed pods are then added to the page. To publish the page, click Publish.
Short URLs are used to make URLs substantially shorter and still direct to the required page. These may also be referred to as ‘vanity URLs’.
To create a short URL, you first need to navigate to the URL Rewrite Folder, which sits within Local Config within the site tree.
Next, navigate to the relevant folder for your short URL, then right-click on the folder > insert to add a new ‘Simple Redirect’.
When naming the URL, you would need to make this the same as what you want the short URL to be. For example, if you wanted the short URL to be northumbria.ac.uk/undergraduate, then the title would need to be ‘undergraduate’. (You can have a look at other redirects to get an idea).
Once the short URL has been created, the ‘Path’ should have already been added in and match the title. You will then need to click ‘Insert link’ in the Target section below, and navigate the site tree to the page you are wanting the short URL to direct to.
When both the Path and Target field are filled in, the final step is to submit for publish. To do this, you go to the Review tab and select ‘Submit’, and then ‘Approve’. This will add the redirect into the publishing queue.
In the Navigation section of a page in Sitecore, tick Hide In Navigation - Hide this item in navigation lists (e.g. primary/secondary nav, pod lists. etc).
Next, in the SEO section, select all Robots (noarchive, nofollow, noindex, noodp, nosnippet, noydir). This is so that nothing gets indexed by Google and can't find the page on the website or through search.
You must then go to the Search section, tick both Exclude From Section Search and Exclude From Site Search. This will ensure that the page cannot be found via the search function on the Uniersity Website
Finally, Publish the page in order for these changes to take effect.
When you no longer want the page to be hidden, simply untick all of the above and re-publish the page.
In order for the website to remain professional and performant, it is important that images are correctly sized and that file sizes aren't too large.
The correct specification for each type of image is listed below. All dimensions are in pixels, and follow the convention width x height.
It is important to ensure that images are no higher than 72dpi. Image file sizes should not exceed 150kb.
| Horizontal pods |
380x190
|
 |
| Side pods | 255 x 190 |  |
|
Large hero banner |
1920 x 580 150kb |
 |
| All other hero banners |
1920 x 420 150kb |
 |
| News pod |
275 x flexible height 50kb |
 |
| Events pod |
255 x 150 40kb |
 |
| Image embedded within content |
350 x flexible height 60kb |
 |
| Video embedded within content | 770 x flexible height |  |
| Course listing | 190 x 190 |  |
| Course detail - career progression background |
1920 x 580 150kb |
 |
| Course detail - alumni profile pod |
380 x 190 50kb |
 |
| Course detail - student quote pod | 285 x 210 |  |
| Department list | 375 x 125 |  |
| People list |
255 x 255 50kb |
 |
| Alumni profile - video background | 1000 x 500 |  |
| Video gallery |
255 x 150 40kb |
 |
| Showcase images | 600 x flexible height |  |
| Case studies |
190 x 190 30kb |
 |
Auditing image sizes on your web pages is a good way to ensure pages aren't hosting images which are too big. This can slow down the page loading time for users.
You can follow the below steps to audit your web pages:
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