The instructions for creating a new ‘Web Page’ differ depending on whether you are creating new static content or new dynamic content. Dynamic content is powerful because you don’t have to go through the additional steps of creating a new Menu item and assigning modules each time you have a new content item. The new Content item that you create will inherit all these from the parent Section and/or Category that you place it in.

If you are looking for more basic instructions than these, please see the article titled How to Create a Page and Menu Item.

Create a New Static Content Item

1. Go to ‘Content > Static Content Manager’
   1. Click ‘New’ on upper right corner
   2. Enter Title and Title Alias (Title Alias is only seen by you on the back end)
   3. Create the text and insert images as you wish using the WYSIWYG Editor (What You See Is What You Get). If you prefer to work directly in HTML, you can click on the ‘HTML’ button in the editor’s toolbar, or turn off the editor completely.
      1. Never paste from Word. First paste the text into Notepad (or another text editor) to strip out the Word formatting.
      2. Inserting Images: Edit your images offline, then upload and insert them using the ‘Insert/Edit Image’ icon in the toolbar
         1. Appearance Tab parameters should be as follows: Align = Default; hspace and vspace = 0
   4. Click ‘Save’ when you are finished creating the content or ‘Apply’ to save the changes and continue working.
   5. Note: As a security measure, the system will automatically log you out after 15 minutes if no navigation occurs. Click ‘Apply’ periodically to save your changes while you’re working in the editor. If you work for longer than 60 minutes the changes will be lost.
2. Create a New Menu Item to link to the content you just created
   1. Decide on which menu you’d like the new content to appear. For example: topmenu; usermenu; mainmenu
   2. Go to ‘menu > mainmenu’ (or whichever other menu)
   3. Click ‘New’ on the upper right corner
   4. Click ‘Link – Static Content’
   5. Enter the name of the menu item (this is what will show up on the navigation on the front end)
   6. Choose the Static Content Item you just created from the selection bo
   7. Assign the Parent Item. Do you want it to fall under one of the other menu items or do you want it to be a ‘Top’ level or primary navigation item?
   8. Set the Access level
   9. Click ‘Apply’ on the upper right corner
   10. To preview the page, copy the URL that has now appeared under the Static Content Box. It will start with “index.php”. Open a new browser window with your homepage (http://www.yourdomain.org/) and paste this URL string after the last ‘/’ to preview the page. It will look something like this: http://www.yourdomain.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=32&Itemid=61
3. Publish the modules needed to complete the page. These may include all the menus and boxes on the side and across the top (though some of them have probably already been set up to show automatically on All pages, so you don’t have to assign them specifically).
   1. Go to: ‘Modules > Site Modules’
   2. Open the module that you want to appear on the page
   3. Select the newly created Menu Item from the box on the right. Several others will probably already be selected. To add yours and/or select multiple, hold down ‘Control’ while you click.
   4. The ordering of modules is assigned globally within each module position, so they will show up in the same order on every page. You can change the order of any module in the ‘Module Order’ drop down, but this will change the order on every page on which this module is assigned. If you want things to remain consistent, don’t change the order.
   5. Click ‘Save’
   6. Open the next module that you want to assign, and repeat the steps.
   7. Refresh the page on the front end to see your changes, and edit as necessary.

Create a New Dynamic Content Item

Dynamic content is powerful because you don’t have to go through the additional steps of creating a new Menu item and assigning modules. The new Content that you create will inherit its menu items (and therefore, modules) from its parent Section and/or Category.

1. Go to: ‘Content > All Content Items’
   1. Click ‘New’ on upper right corner
   2. Enter Title and Title Alias (Title Alias is only seen by you on the back end)
   3. Select the Section and Category in which it should fall.
   4. Notice that there are TWO content editors: Intro Text (the one above) and Main Text (the one below). The Intro Text editor is for the first line or paragraph of text and is what will be pulled onto the pages where you show multiple content items (Blog view). The Main Text is for the remaining content. Think of a blog, where you only see the introduction of each article on the main page, and you can click through to read the entirety of any given post.
   5. Add text and insert images as you wish using the WYSIWYG Editor (What You See Is What You Get). If you prefer to work directly in HTML, you can click on the ‘HTML’ button in the editor’s toolbar, or turn off the editor completely.
      1. Never paste from Word. First paste the text into Notepad (or another text editor) to strip out the Word formatting.
      2. Inserting Images: Edit your images offline, then upload and insert them using the ‘Insert/Edit Image’ icon in the toolbar
         1. Appearance Tab parameters should be as follows: Align = Default; hspace and vspace = 0
   6. Click ‘Save’ when you are finished creating the content or ‘Apply’ to save the changes and continue working.
   7. The new article will appear under whichever Menu Items or Modules its Section or Category is associated.


2. Assigning modules: If the article you created is associated with a Section and/or Category no further steps are necessary to complete the pages’ look. If you have created a whole new Section or Category for your content, you will have to ,make a new Menu Item to link to that new Section or Category.