Managing pages

Pages are created and stored in the website workspace. The Website menu in AdminCentral displays the contents of this workspace as a site hierarchy. Here you can add pages and move them around in the hierarchy.

When you open a page for editing, the in-place editing view is displayed. This is a way of working where the edited page looks and behaves just like the live page. When the page is ready to be published, activate it from the author instance to the public instance.

Site hierarchy

Pages on a site are displayed in a tree. Each site tree has a root page (typically the home page) and child pages. The work area where the tree is displayed has five columns by default:

  • Page is the page name. JCR node naming restrictions apply, meaning some characters are not allowed in page names. Invalid characters are automatically substituted with a hyphen. The page name is used to create the page URL. The convention is to use lower-case words separated by hyphens, for example standard-article and news-and-events.
  • Title is the page title displayed to visitors. It may be different from the name and can contain any character. The title string is used in the HTML title element, in the h1 heading on the page and in the navigation title. You can edit the title here in AdminCentral or in the page editing view.
  • Status indicator shows whether the page has been activated (green), modified since activation (yellow) or never activated or deactivated (red).
  • Template is the template on which the page is based.
  • Mod.date is a timestamp showing when the page was last modified.

The site hierarchy determines the navigation structure of the site. Each root page and its child pages constitute one site.

  1. The root page and second-level pages are displayed in the horizontal navigation menu.
  2. Third and fourth-level pages are displayed in the vertical menu.
This default behavior can be customized in the site prototype.

Best Practices

Although strictly speaking there is no limit on the number of pages in a website, depending on the back-end you use, there could be limitations regarding website structure and total size.

JackRabbit page/node limit - The extensive use of nodes dramatically increases the number of SQL statements necessary to retrieve referenced nodes. This has a serious impact on overall repository performance. With JackRabbit the absolute maximum number of pages permitted at any single level in the site hierarchy is 1000. However, the recommended total is no more more than 100 pages at a single level.

Content size - The total size of content in the repository should not exceed 2 TB. Note that several Magnolia clients have successfully run repositories sized 50-200 GB in production over an extended period of time.

SEO - For search engine optimization (.pdf) keep the hierarchy as flat as possible. If editors find a deeper site hierarchy easier to manage, elevate pages to higher levels using virtual URI mapping (.pdf)

Page moves - A page's position in the site hierarchy determines its URL. When the page moves, the URL changes. This can have a negative SEO impact. Use a Can't resolve link to: /technical-guide/virtual-uri-mapping to tell search engines that the page was moved.

Creating pages

To create a page:

  1. Select a parent page. If you want to create a site root page, click Refresh to ensure nothing is selected.
  2. Click New page.
  3. Rename the page. Double-click the default name untitled and type a new name.
  4. Give the page a title.

Assigning a template to a page

All pages are based on templates. The template assigned to a page is displayed in the Template column. The template determines what content is displayed and how. The Standard Templating Kit includes templates for common use cases.

To assign a template to a page:

  1. Double-click the current template in the Template column.
  2. Select a template from the dropdown.

When you create a new page the template is assigned automatically. By default the Home template is assigned to root level pages. The Section template is assigned to page at level 2. The same template as on the parent page is assigned at level 3 and below.

You can assign templates to pages as permitted by template availability. Availability is a combination of configurable and hard-coded rules which determine whether a given template is allowed to be used on the page.

Info

You can change the page template at any point by selecting a new one. If the content that already exists on the page is not rendered by the new template the content will not be displayed. The content is stored in the repository, however. If you revert to the initial template selection, the content is displayed again.

Opening pages

To open a page:

  1. Select the page.
  2. Click Open page or double-click the page icon.
The page is opened in the in-place editing view where you can add content to the page.

Deleting pages

Pages are not deleted immediately. The page is first marked for deletion. The actual deletion occurs when the change is activated. This provides an opportunity to restore pages that were deleted in error.

Like activation and de-activation, page deletion is subject to a workflow process only if the Workflow module is installed and a workflow is configured for deletion. The Workflow module is installed by default. Deletion requests are sent to the group-publishers inbox for approval.

Watch a video about this feature.

Deletion vs. de-activation

Deletion and de-activation have different consequences. When a page is de-activated it remains available on the author instance for future use. When a page is deleted it is permanently removed from both instances.

To delete a page:

  1. Select the page and click Delete page.
  2. Click OK in the warning dialog.
    The page icon is replaced with the "marked for deletion" icon, the status indicator changes to yellow and the original template selection is replaced with the Deleted Page template.
  3. Select the page and click Activate changes.
  4. This step depends on whether a workflow is configured:
    • If workflow is not configured, the page is deleted immediately on both instances.
    • If a workflow is configured, the system prompts you for a workitem comment. The page remains marked for deletion until the activation workitem is approved, after which the asset is deleted on both instances.

Note the following about deleting pages:

  • When the deletion workitem is processed, the page is deleted from the author and public instance.
  • Child pages are also deleted.
  • When other pages are affected by the deletion, the system displays a them in a list. This feature is called content dependencies. Dependent pages include child pages and pages that are linked through internal teaser components.

Restoring deleted pages

Pages marked for deletion can be restored prior to activation of the deletion, but not afterwards. When a page is marked for deletion, a new page version is created automatically to facilitate restoration.

You can restore a single page from the page list in AdminCentral or the editing view. A hierarchy of pages (parent page with child pages) can be restored in a single action in the editing view but not in AdminCentral.

To restore a page marked for deletion in AdminCentral:

  1. Right-click the page and select Versions.
  2. Select the latest version in the versions dialog.
  3. Click Restore.
  4. Click OK.
  5. Refresh the site. Page is displayed now in its restored state prior to being marked for deletion.

To restore a page or site structure in the editing view:

  1. Select the page marked for deletion.
  2. Click Open page.
    The page opens in the editing view. The Deleted Page template is displayed.
  3. In Options, click:
    • Restore previous version to restore just the selected page to its previous version.
    • Restore previous version incl. sub pages to restore the selected page and its children.
      The page reloads to display the restored version.
  4. In AdminCentral, the page is displayed now in its restored state prior to being marked for deletion.