General Content

General Content pages are used for basic pages and include text, images and, optionally, sidebars. It is the most commonly used page content type in GW Drupal, and it's likely that most of your site will be comprised of General Content pages.

Do not create General Content pages when you have content that needs to in a dated feed, such as an event feed or news feed.

Landing Pages vs Subpages

One concept to keep in mind when organizing and creating your web content is the difference between a landing page and a subpage on your website.

A landing page typically serves as the overview for a section and is the page behind the main link in your navigation bar. Your landing page should provide a synopsis of the information or actionable items a user can expect to find as they explore that section of your website, and it's a good idea to link to some of those deeper pages as well. Your landing page should not try to present tons of details, that's what your subpages are for.

Your subpages can be found in the dropdown links under your navigation bar or the sidebar links in the sidebar menu. This is where you should go into detail about your services, programs, subject matter expertise, actions a user can take, etc. Each page should have one main goal or focal subject, and perhaps two or three more minor goals or subjects. Featuring supportive content in your sidebars or other areas is a great way to extend the functionality of your subpages and to guide users to other sections of your website or external resources.

 

Create a General Content page in the Editorial Theme

  1. Hover over My Workbench > Create Content
  2. Click on General Content

A blank content entry page will load. Fill it in as necessary to create your General Content page.

Content Fields

  • Subtype: required, but can be left as is
  • Title: required
    • Be careful not to use the same title for multiple content items. By default, Drupal uses the content title to create a unique URL for all content items (including Supporting Content items).
    • If multiple items share the same title, Drupal appends the default URL with "-x" where x is a sequential number (i.e. -0, -1, -2, etc...) to account for the duplication. This can be overridden but is often missed.
  • Subtitle: optional, recommended for Article pages, but otherwise best left blank
  • Summary: optional, hidden field above the Body text field; recommended for Article and Event pages
  • Body: required; use to enter the text content of your page
  • Main Image: optional, use to set a featured image for your page; required in order to use the Video Link options
    • Main Image Alternate Text: required; describe the visuals in your image and provide any text on the image verbatim
      • This will be read aloud to visitors using a screen reader and displayed on devices that cannot load the image. Check out the Accessibility page for more tips on making your website content accessible.
    • Main Image Title: optional; text entered here displays in a tooltip popup if a desktop user hovers their mouse over the image
    • Main Image Caption: optional; displays a caption beneath the image on the published page
  • Video Link Title: optional, backend field that website users do not see; use to identify what video is linked to in the Video URL field
  • Video Link URL: optional; paste in the Vimeo or YouTube video embed link to display is video play button over your Main Image
  • Right Sidebar Content: optional; use to display Supporting Content in the right sidebar by typing in the name of pre-existing content into the field(s)
  • Left Sidebar Content: optional; use to display Supporting Content in the left sidebar by typing in the name of pre-existing content into the field(s)
  • Site Placement: required as a formality; select Home or any tag available
  • Tagging: optional; leave collapsed and as is, unless a taxonomy tagging plan for the website was developed

Publishing Panel Settings

  • Panelizer: Site Admin accessible-only; use to indicate if this is a page with or without sidebars
  • Menu Settings: always check the "Provide a menu link" checkbox
    • Delete the link text to maintain the breadcrumbs, but prevent a link from appearing in the navigation bar, dropdown or sidebar. Recommended for Article and Event pages; and, typically, for Person pages.
  • URL Path Settings: leave as is, unless you want or need to customize the page link
  • Scheduling Options: not recommended for use
  • Meta Tags: use to provide page-specific metadata for search engine optimization
  • Authoring Information: leave as is
  • Publishing Options:
    • Promoted to front page is currently non-functional
    • Sticky at top of lists forces the page to be at the top of any taxonomy-based list(s) it has been tagged to
    • Moderation notes can be used to describe any edits that were made to the page
    • Moderation state:
      • Draft (default) is an unpublished page only accessible to logged in Drupal users
      • Needs Review is a page with completed edits that needs to be reviewed by a Content Supervisor or Site Administrator
      • Published pushes the page live to website visitors and is only accessible to a Content Supervisor or Site Administrator

Once all fields are completed as necessary, click the Save button to commit your changes.

 

Create a General Content page in the Classic Theme

  1. Hover over My Workbench > Create Content
  2. Click on General Content

A blank content entry page will load. Fill it in as necessary to create your General Content page.

Content Fields

  • Subtype: required, but can be left as is
  • Title: required
    • Be careful not to use the same title for multiple content items. By default, Drupal uses the content title to create a unique URL for all content items (including Supporting Content items).
    • If multiple items share the same title, Drupal appends the default URL with "-x" where x is a sequential number (i.e. -0, -1, -2, etc...) to account for the duplication. This can be overridden but is often missed.
  • Subtitle: optional, recommended for Article pages, but otherwise best left blank
  • Summary: optional, hidden field above the Body text field; recommended for Article and Event pages
  • Body: required; use to enter the text content of your page
  • Main Image: optional, use to set a featured image for your page; required in order to use the Video Link options
    • Two column page: image should be 700px wide
    • Three column page: image should be 460px wide
    • Single column page: image should be 940px wide
  • Main Image Alternate Text: required; describe the visuals in your image and provide any text on the image verbatim
    • This will be read aloud to visitors using a screen reader and displayed on devices that cannot load the image. Check out the Accessibility page for more tips on making your website content accessible.
  • Main Image Title: optional; text entered here displays in a tooltip popup if a desktop user hovers their mouse over the image
  • Main Image Caption: optional; displays a caption beneath the image on the published page
  • Video Link Title: optional, backend field that website users do not see; use to identify what video is linked to in the Video URL field
  • Video Link URL: optional; paste in the Vimeo or YouTube video embed link to display is video play button over your Main Image
  • Right Sidebar Content: optional; use to display Supporting Content in the right sidebar by typing in the name of pre-existing content into the field(s)
  • Left Sidebar Content: optional; use to display Supporting Content in the left sidebar by typing in the name of pre-existing content into the field(s)
  • Site Placement: required; use to identify which content section the page belongs to so that it inherits the appropriate Global Content elements
    • Do not select Home unless this page should be featured on the homepage in some fashion
  • Tagging: optional; leave collapsed and as is, unless a taxonomy tagging plan for the website was developed

Publishing Panel Settings

  • Panelizer: Site Admin accessible-only; leave as is
  • Menu Settings: always check the "Provide a menu link" checkbox
    • Delete the link text to maintain the breadcrumbs, but prevent a link from appearing in the navigation bar, dropdown or sidebar. Recommended for Article and Event pages; and, typically, for Person pages.
  • URL Path Settings: leave as is, unless you want or need to customize the page link
  • Scheduling Options: not recommended for use
  • Meta Tags: use to provide page-specific metadata for search engine optimization
  • Authoring Information: leave as is
  • Publishing Options:
    • Promoted to front page is currently non-functional
    • Sticky at top of lists forces the page to be at the top of any taxonomy-based list(s) it has been tagged to
    • Moderation notes can be used to describe any edits that were made to the page
    • Moderation state:
      • Draft (default) is an un-published page only accessible to logged in Drupal users
      • Needs Review is a page with completed edits that needs to be reviewed by a Content Supervisor or Site Administrator
      • Published pushes the page live to website visitors and is only accessible to a Content Supervisor or Site Administrator

Once all fields are completed as necessary, click the Save button to commit your changes.