On e-Commons-org, you can write either posts or pages. When you’re writing a regular entry, you write a post. Posts automatically appear in reverse chronological order on your home page. Pages, on the other hand, are for content such as “About Me,” “Contact Me,” etc. Pages live outside of the normal home page chronology, and are often used to present information about yourself or your site that is always applicable. You can use Pages to organize and manage any amount of content.
1. Go to the “Write” tab and make sure “Page” is highlighted.
2. Type in your Title for the page. This will be what shows up in the navigation menu so keep it short (one or two words) and make sure it is clear and concise.
3. Underneath the Title is the section where you type in the text box. You will notice there are formatting buttons similar to those in word processing programs such as Microsoft Word. If you need more formatting options than those shown, click on “Kitchen Sink” at the end of the row. This will bring up more formatting options.
4. At any time while you are writing your page you can preview how it will look when posted. Save first by clicking on the “Save” button then click on “Preview this Page”
5. The preview will then open in a new tab or window.
6. If you do not want your page to be posted immediately, you can select a future date and time for the page to be published on the right hand side of the screen under Publish Status.
7. Below the text box are the Advanced Options:
a. Custom Fields allows you to add more data to the page, called meta-data.
b. Comments and Pings allows you to choose if other E-commons members can leave comments about your page while pings show other sites that have linked to your page.
c. Password Protect your Page allows you to set a password that must be used to view the page. You can make the password whatever you want, but you will need to give it to all those you want to have access to the page.
d. Page Parent allows you to make sub-pages if needed. For example on the ANHE site you will see “Workgroups” with child (sub) pages underneath of “Education WG”, “Policy/Advocacy WG”, “Practice WG” and “Research WG” There are no limits to how deeply nested you can make pages.
e. Custom Template allows you to use available custom templates for certain pages that might have additional features or custom layouts. If available, you’ll see them in the pull down menu.
f. Page number allows you to change the order the pages appear. If you do not choose a page number the pages will appear in alphabetical order.
g. You will not have to use the Page Author selection as your username will appear there automatically.
8. Now you are ready to publish your page. After saving, click on Publish and your page will now appear in your workroom.
9. You can also type your page in Microsoft Word and click on the “Paste from Word” icon in the second row. Highlight the text of the word document, copy; then in e-commons, press CTRL-V to paste the text into the box. Then click “Insert” to insert into the post.