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Getting Started

Here we will give you a quick start guide to using the Axis Website Manager.
Login to demo.axisgroupware.com and follow the instructions below.

Overview

You create pages on your website by attaching blocks and styles to pages. You may attach one image or file to a block. Blocks contain your content and can be formatted using HTML or with the help of a WYSIWYG editor. Use the News module to post News or "Blog" entries and generate discussion. A contact form is available to allow visitors to email you while hiding your email address from spammers. Post frequently asked questions with the FAQ module. Create surveys to collect visitor feedback. Each module has its own assigned page for adding supplementary content.

Pages

The Website Manager is extremely flexible. It will allow you to create completely custom pages as well as a more structured pages using columns. For instance, if you want to create a "splash" page or a page with embedded Flash content, you can simply turn off the header, navigation and footer.

You will notice the image to the right illustrates the 3 column layout available for more conventional websites. Every page can be configured to display 1, 2 or no sidebars simply by attaching and detaching blocks.

For those seeking simple URLs, set a Page Keyword. For instance, rather than directly accessing a page by ID you can use a keyword instead. Make sure your keyword is unique to prevent conflicts.

Blocks

Blocks operate independently to a page. It is only after a block is attached to a page that it will be displayed. This is powerful because a single block can then be placed on more than one page. This means that if you create subnavigation on the left sidebar and you need to make a change to it, you only have to update it once. You can attach one image or file to a block and set its alignment according to its position with the text. A smart WYSIWYG editor is available to make editing content easier.

Styles

Styles are used by web designers to change the look and feel of the website. If you are not a designer, you can skip this section. Styles work in much the same way as blocks do, except styles of course contain CSS allowing you to attach style sheets to pages. New pages are automatically given the Default stylesheet. You may even order the stylesheets so that the bottom style overrides settings in the styles above it. It is recommended that when you create new styles, they only contain settings that are different than the Default and then using the order, rather than copying the entire style sheet and having duplicates. This method will make it easier to maintain. The diagram below illustrates the .class and #id names used in the CSS to style the website.














Images & Files

When uploading images and files, they will be placed in /images/ and /files/ respectively. This means that when linking to an image, simply set img src="/images/example.gif". On the Edit Image screen, you may replace an existing image and if it is attached to a block, the new image will instantly be replaced on every block it is attached to.

News

The News module is broken up into 3 parts: Topics, News and Links. Topics are essentially categories you give News items. Set your topics before you begin posting news entries. When posting news, you will be required to choose a topic, enter a title, and description. The description is displayed on the public News page. Extended Text is displayed on the Read More page with comments below it. Extended Text is optional.

Contact

The contact form module allows you to customize the fields on the contact form in order to request further information from customers who wish to email you. Another benefit of the contact form is that your email address is hidden, preventing spammers from getting it.

Survey

The Survey module allows you to create custom surveys with questions of your choosing. Questions may use Select Boxes, Text Input Fields, Text Areas, or Radio Boxes to accept answers. The active survey acts as the default when you visit /survey/. Non-active surveys are still accessible directly. Previewing a survey will not save your answers. You may set whether or not you want results (with piecharts) to be displayed upon submission or a Thank You page in the Admin Website Configuration menu. After creating a survey you may edit the select box and radio box choices. It is not recommended you do this after users have begun submitting answers. Only change answers before activating a survey.

FAQ

FAQ is the simplest of modules. It allows you to add, edit and delete Frequently Asked Questions you would like on the FAQ page. If you would like to manage supplementary content above the questions or on the sidebar edit the FAQ page itself.

Admin

If you have administrator rights, you can change global website configuration settings. Click on the Admin button on the Axis Groupware navigation and select Website Configuration from the menu. In this menu you have control over things like the default homepage, website title, meta tags, header and footer blocks. You will notice the Auto Styling feature. This allows you to control the behavior of the stylesheets based on whether or not the current page has 1,2 or no sidebars. Other notable configuration options include the resetting of page counters, default recipient(s) for the contact form and survey piechart colors.