Working With Mambo
Menus & Content
While most web developers like to create their menus and then make a page for
each menu item, the procedure is a little different with Mambo. You will be
working with your content and menu items for each area you are creating.
Due to the way Mambo works, you will be creating areas, then adding content or
a starter page, if you have something ready, and then creating the menu item for
it. It's easiest to work back and forth, creating the areas and then the menu
item for each area, so you can keep better track of the site development.
Plan Ahead
Before you get started, you'll want to plan out what the different areas of your
site will be. If you don't have any content for an area or don't expect
to have anyone add content in the near future, you don't have to add it until
you are ready. The nice thing about Mambo is that it allows your site to grow
easily and effortlessly. Mambo comes with several areas pre-installed, such as
Home (main page), links, news, contact and more. You can unpublish or remove some
of these pre-installed areas if you do not wish to use them on your site. You
can also have sub-menus in your site menu, and multiple pages and areas.
Site Organization
Mambo uses Sections and Categories to help you organize your site.
Think of each section as an area of your site, like Hobbies for example. On a
normal HTML web site, you would probably create a directory called hobbies
to keep all hobby items separate. Then you would have a link in your menu to
the Hobbies area of your site. Think of Mambo categories as places to put your
pages. For example, Coin Collecting, Stamp Collecting, and Knitting could be
categories.
Anytime you add content as an administrator, you can choose what Section of your
site to put the information in, and then what category it belongs in. If you are
a registered user who can post to the site, then you can click to submit information
to a certain section of the site (like the Submit News in the default user menu
lets you submit news articles to be shown on the front page). From there you
can pick which category it belongs in.
To create a Section:
Go to
Content -> Section Manager. This will show you
the different sections on your site, and whether they are published (viewable
and usable) or not. Click on the New icon in the upper right of the page.
Type in the name of the section which will be seen on the Section Manager page
and also in the path (history of page visits) on the page visitors see. Also
type in a name for the section which will be shown on the section's page that
visitors will see.
You can also assign an icon or picture to be displayed in the main section page.
These images go in Mambo's /images/stories/ directory. You can use
the ones that come with Mambo or you can upload your own. If you add an image,
you will have to refresh or revisit the Section edit page again so that the new
image will appear in the Image drop down box. You can also change the
position the image is shown on the page.
Don't worry about the ordering of the page, as that can be set later from the
Section Manager page by clicking on the large blue arrows.
The Access Level is where you choose whether you want the Public (meaning
all visitors to your page) to view this section, only registered users (meaning
that a visitor has to log in with a valid account) to view this section, or a
special user (meaning only users that have been set by the administrator as an
Author, Editor, Publisher, Manager,
Administrator or Super Administrator may view the section).
Determine if the Section should be published. You can always change this later
by clicking on the icon in the Published column in the Section Manager
page.
You may add a description to your section. This will only be viewable (along with
any image you set above) if someone clicks on a link that will result in going
to this section page.
Click on the Save icon in the upper right to save your section.
To create a Category:
Go to
Content -> Content by Section -> (your new section name)
-> Add/Edit (your section name) Categories.
Click on the New icon in the upper right.
Type in the Title of the category which will be seen on the Category Manager page
and also in the path (history of page visits) that visitors will see. Also
type in a name for the Title Alias which will be shown on the category's page that
visitors will see.
You can also assign an icon or picture to be displayed in the main category page.
These images go in Mambo's /images/stories/ directory. You can use
the ones that come with Mambo or you can upload your own. If you add an image,
you will have to refresh or revisit the Section edit page again so that the new
image will appear in the Image drop down box. You can also change the
position the image is shown on the page.
Choose the access level for this category. Note that you will want to keep it
the same as or a lower access level than what you set the Section to. For
example, if you set the section to Public you can set any category in
that section to Registered or Special and non-registered visitors
will not see that Category. However, you should not set the Category to
Public if you set the section to Registered or Special.
You can determine if you wish to have this Category published right away or
set it later in the Category Manager page. Note that for this category to show
up, it still must have a content item in it.
You may write a description that will show up on the category page.
When done, click on the Save icon in the upper right of the page.
Creating A Menu
Now that you have a new section and a new category, you will want to create a
menu item for it:
Go to Menu -> mainmenu. Here you'll see all the
menus in the main menu. Note that you can go to other menus you have displayed
in Mambo from the Menu menu at the top of the page.
To remove an item from the menu, it's best to unpublish it rather than
remove it. Menu items that are installed with Mambo are needed for some of Mambo's
functions, and thus shouldn't be deleted. Just click on the icon in the Published
column to unpublish (icon will have a red 'X') an item so that it will not show
up as a menu item on your site. Alternatively, you can click on any item that
has a red 'X' and it will change to a green checkmark, meaning the menu item
will be active and show up on the menu (some menu items may not show up unless
you are a registered or special user and are logged in).
To add a new menu item, click the New icon at the upper right of the page.
The next page may seem confusing. However, if you want your section page to be
displayed, you want to click on the radio button next to Table - Content Section
in the Content area in the upper left. If you are adding a category to
a section that is already in the menu, then select Table - Content Category
in the Content area. There are many other items you can link to including
individual pages, and even external links.
Click on the Next button in the upper right.
Type in a name for the new menu. This normally should either be the name of your
section or a shortened name.
Select the Section you want the menu item to link to.
The Url: area will remain blank. You'll only see a link in this area if
you have already saved a menu item and went back to edit it.
The Parent Item is the menu item which this section will be under. This
actually should be set to top. When adding Categories, you can use this
to select the menu item that links to the section the category is under. This
allows you to keep your site organized.
The Access Level you choose should be the same as the one you chose for
the lowest access level category in that section. This way the section menu item
won't appear for those who are not authorized to view the section, but will be
there for categories that have a lower access level. For example, suppose your
Section is set to Registered, but you have some categories that are for Special
users. Registered users will still see categories that are set for Registered
users to view, but will not see the areas that are for Special users.
Only the Special users will see them when logged in. Alternatively, the section
menu item will not appear at all for Public (non-registered) visitors.
The Parameters on the right side offer a variety of options. Such as a
menu icon image (place them in /images/stories/), whether or not
to show the section's title at the top of the page, Displaying of the "back"
button to go back to the previous category, or section when viewing items, etc.,
item sort (Order by), and much more. Hover the mouse over the blue circle with
an "i" in it to see a description of the feature.
When finished, click on the Save button in the upper right of the page.
Find the new menu item in the Menu Manager page (you may have to click on one of
the links at the bottom of the listing to see another page of menu items to locate
it). Click the blue arrow icons until you have the new menu item positioned in
the order you'd like it to appear. An easier way is to click on the name of the
menu item, then choose the item you want it to appear above from the
Ordering drop down box. Then click the Save button in the upper
right of the page.
Types of Content
There are two types of content, Normal and Static. Normal content will
always show the author, created date, and modified date on the items. And normal
content allows you to add modules to the content area if you choose. Static
content lets you hide the author and dates. Either types of content will let you
add HTML, php, javascript, images, links, etc. to your page. Please be careful
when doing this. If you are allowing registered users to add to your site, you
want to be sure you have set their permissions properly and that you trust them.
We will cover more on how to approve content and manage users later in this series.
Adding Static Content
Adding static content is easy. If you are intending to link to your static
content page from a menu, you must be sure to create a separate section
and category just for that static content page (you won't want to use an
existing category or section for this). Then add the static content to the
category and link to it using the Link - Static Content item in the
Content area when creating a new menu item. There have been problems with
static content pages not showing up for public visitors even though the page was
set to public access. By creating a section and category for your static content
that is linked to a menu, this will help ensure that the proper access levels
are used. Be sure to set the Section and Category access levels to that of what
you intent to set the Static Content to. In other words, everything should match.
Go to Content -> Static Content Manager and then
click on the New icon in the upper right of the page.
Fill in the Title, which will show up on the Static Content Manager and the
path (history of viewed pages) that visitors will see. Fill in the Title Alias,
which will show up on the Static Content page visitors view. The Title should be
at least should be the same as what you picked for the Section it goes in.
Now you can add your content. If you wish to add HTML code, click on the HMTL
icon (last item in second row of icons above the text entry box). This will pop
up a window for entry. Click the Update button at the bottom of that
window when done.
On the right you will see another area with tabs. In the Publishing tab,
you can change the name of the author. Instead of "Administrator" (which will
be shown by default when the page is published), you can use your name instead.
Choose the access level for the content. It's best to use the same access level
as your Section and Category.
The Images tab let's you choose an image. Images should go in the /images/stories/
directory. Click on any image in the gallery box then click the Add button.
It will show up in the Content Images box. Select the image in the Content Images
box then fill in the other parameters, such as alignment, etc. Click the Apply
button when done.
In the Parameters tab, you can control other settings. To see what each
setting does, hover your mouse over the blue circle with an "i" in it. These
settings will override what you have set in the Global Configuration.
In the Link To Menu, click on a menu which you wish to add this page to.
Then fill in a name for the menu item as it will appear on the menu. Click the
Link To Menu button when done.
Once you have finished setting up your Static Content page, click on the Save
button in the upper right of the page.
Note that if you want to add the same item to another menu as well (maybe you
want a Contact static page to appear in both the main and top menus), you
will have to create a new menu item for it in the second menu. Also remember that
you can not add active items such as modules to a Static Content page.
Adding Non-Static Content
There are two ways to add Non-Static (normal) content. One way we'll look at here
is when an administrator ads content to the page. We'll cover user-submitted
content in the next installment in this series.
To add content as Administrator:
Go to Content -> All Content Items. You will see
a list of all non-static content. Click on the New icon at the
top of the page.
Type in the title of the content which will be displayed on the All Content Items
page and in the path (history of viewed pages) that visitors will see. Type in a
Title Alias which will be displayed on the actual page visitors will see.
Select the Section and then the Category from the drop down boxes to the right.
The Content editor has two text areas, and Intro text which is shown on the
front page (if you set this to also be displayed on the front page) and then the
actual article or page text which is shown when the visitor clicks
on the more link at the end of the intro. If you want just the text on
the page and not go to another page, leave the main text area blank. Also it's
best to put a blank space after the last sentence in the intro, so
that it will be spaced evenly on the actual article (content) page.
The Parameters for the content item are much the same as for Static
Content items. Note that normally you would not link this to a menu item. It is
recommended that if you want to add a menu item, do so by using the Menu Manager
and creating a link to this content as a submenu under the section menu name.
Click on the Save button when finished.
When you are done, the item will not be published on the front page by
default. If you want this item to show up on the front page, You'll need
to find it in the All Content Items page (you may need to click on the
End link at the bottom of the listing to find the page with the
new content). Click on the red X icon in the Front Page column so that the
item will be viewable.
Adding Content Items To Menu
You can add any content to the menu as a sub menu item. Just create a new menu
item for it and choose the section for the Parent. The item will appear
in the menu when that section name is clicked.
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