Sidenav Configuration
We get more questions about sidenav than any other feature of the content management system. Just remember, you have options.
Some rules to remember:
- You can choose to display the sidenav, or you can hide it.
- You can choose to include a page in a sidenav, or not.
- Pages appear in alphabetical order, unless you assign certain pages a higher priority.
- Make sure that you keep images, PDFs or other files in their designated folders and
NOT in the section folder itself -- otherwise they will mistakenly show up in the sidenav.
- Make sure that you do NOT USE SPACES IN FILENAMES, because if you do, the page title
for that page will not appear correctly in the sidenav.
- Important: Whenever you make a change that affects the sidenav, republish all the pages in that section.
Overview
Content sections include a side navigation (sidenav) that will automatically update as you add pages to that section. With auto sidenav, you control how and whether a page appears in the sidenav by using the individual page's Page Properties.
NOTE: To edit Page Properties, you must have the page checked out.
Sidenav items are ordered alphabetically according to their page titles, unless you choose to custom order the items by assigning a priority number to certain pages.
IMPORTANT: When the sidenav is updated -- either by adding or removing a page, or by updating page properties like Page Title or page order -- all of the pages in the section that use the sidenav must be republished, otherwise the sidenav will not be updated on all of the pages in the section.
ALSO VERY IMPORTANT: Auto sidenav will display any files in a section folder. As a result, you CANNOT save files like images, PDFs or other documents directly in a section folder -- otherwise, those files will appear in the sidenav.
You must either save those files in the main _images or _pdfs folder, or create subfolders within the section for _images or _pdfs. MAKE SURE the folder names begin with an underscore, as the underscore "hides" the folders from appearing in the sidenav. Learn more about creating folders.
Also, you cannot place links to external sites, or button-like images, in a sidenav as could be done in the older templates. The side navigation is meant to be a subnavigation to files within a content folder, not a place to highlight external links or files. If you have links to external sites that are important, it is best practice to include those links on a main content page, like a folder's index page.
Configuration Options
Show/Hide Sidenav | Sidenav Level | Show/Hide Page in Sidenav | Custom Order
Show/hide sidenav
When you create a new page and you are in page properties, you may choose whether or not you want to see the sidenav on the page.
- Auto Sidenav — Recommended. This shows the sidenav on the page.
- Hide Sidenav — Use this if you do not want the sidenav to display. Content will take up the full width of the page when there is no side navigation taking up space.
- Developer — Developer option. Only used in certain unique scenarios where you need a separate sidenav file. Contact us if you need to use this option.
Display Options: Show/Hide Page
By default, a new page will show in the sidenav. You can hide a page by selecting the appropriate option below in that page's Page Properties.
Some use cases where you would not want to add a page to the sidenav include:
- Any index page in a content section does not require a sidenav link, because the sidenav header is linked as the index page.
- A page that you are getting ready to publish but don't want it to be shared on the site yet.
- A page with unique content that is not needed in a sidenav.
Display Options: Sidenav priority
By default, pages show alphabetically based on the Page Title defined in the page properties.
If a custom order is desired, this can also be set in Page Properties using Sidenav Priority.
For the pages that you want to order in a Sidenav, set the Sidenav Priority on each page in the order that you want them to appear.
If one page in a sidenav grouping has a numbered Sidenav Priority but another does not, a numbered page will take precedence above Default.
“Other” is only used if you need to squeeze a page between two pages that you’ve already defined values for, and you don’t want to re-do the numbering for an entire page group. In this case, you can choose “Other” and enter a value of, for example, 1.5
Sidenav Level
With the Sidenav Level option, you can define how many levels show in the sidenav.
- Parent Page — Only shows the pages in the content section the page lives in.
- Sub Page — Shows the pages in the content section the page lives in as well as the section's parent folder.
- Sub-Sub Page — Shows the pages in the content section the page lives in as well as the section's parent folder and the 'grandparent' folder.
How to choose a Sidenav Level
How do you know which sidenav level to choose? This is actually a lot easier than it seems.
First, consider your folder structure and surrounding files. For example, let's look at the Hero Region page, located in the Design Guidelines subfolder of the Best Practices section of this support site you are on right now:
In this case, we want to show in the sidenav not only the pages within Design Guidelines, but also any other sections and pages within the parent folder, Best Practices.
Looking at the folder structure, we see that we have a nice collection of pages in the main Best Practices section:
If we choose Parent Page as the Sidenav level, we end up with this:
But if you look back at the folder structure, that only includes the two pages within design-guidelines.
We want to include everything one more level up.
To do this, simply choose Sub Page for the Sidenav Level. This will give you:
Once you configure all pages for the sidenav, remember to republish all pages in the section folders.
General Notes
The name of each link in the sidenav is derived as follows:
|
Filetype |
Details |
|---|---|
|
pcf |
Uses the Title defined in page properties. |
|
jpg png (folders) (binary files) |
Uses the file name, and applies these replacements:
|