Content Pages and Content Blocks

Content is the foundation of any successful web presence, and your ability to create, manage, and organize compelling content directly impacts your business success. SoftSlate Cloud Platform (SCP) provides a comprehensive suite of flexible and powerful content management features designed to help you create professional, engaging websites that serve your business goals effectively.

Basics: Adding and Managing Content Pages Including the Home Page

SCP comes pre-configured with essential content pages to get your site started quickly. These include fundamental pages like the home page, an "about" page, and a privacy policy page. You can find and manage all your content pages under Site Content → Content Pages:

Creating additional content pages is straightforward—simply click the plus icon in the upper-right corner to add new pages as your business needs grow.

Creating Your First Content Page

The content page creation process is designed to be intuitive and user-friendly. At its simplest, you can:

1. Create a new content page

2. Click into it to open the editor

3. Add a descriptive name for the page

4. Add your content to the Description field

5. Save your changes

Key Features of the Content Editor

The content creation interface offers several important features to help you create professional-looking pages:

• Rich Text Formatting Tools: A comprehensive toolbar provides options for changing font styles, sizes, formats, indentation, and many other formatting features to make your content visually appealing.

• HTML Mode: If you're comfortable with HTML coding or need to paste HTML from another source, you can disable the visual editor by clicking the "Disable Editor" link in the lower right. This mode is particularly useful when you need precise control over your HTML markup.

• Automatic URL Generation: The Code field determines the public URL for your page. In the example above, the URL will be "/content/_privacy". If you leave the Code field blank, the system automatically generates it from the page name. If you need the page to be accessible under a different URL, you can create a redirect through Site Content → Redirects.

Viewing Your Content Page

To see how your page looks to visitors, click the page's three-dots menu and select "View in Customer Interface":

Adding Content Pages to the Global Header and Footer

You can easily add links to your content pages in the global header and/or footer of your website using the simple checkbox options available in each content page. Enable the "Is Linked In Header?" and "Is Linked In Footer?" flags to automatically display links to your content pages in these prominent locations.

Important Note: Due to caching optimization, new header and footer links may take up to 5 minutes to appear on your live site. This brief delay ensures optimal site performance, so please be patient after making these changes.

For comprehensive information about controlling and customizing the global header and footer, including advanced linking options, please see our detailed guide on How To Add Links To the Header and Footer.

Reusable Content Blocks

Content blocks are one of SCP's most powerful features for maintaining consistent, manageable content across your website. A content block is a reusable chunk of content—formatted in plain text or HTML—that can be referenced and included dynamically on content pages, category pages, product pages, or form pages throughout your site.

Why Use Content Blocks?

Content blocks solve the common problem of maintaining identical information across multiple pages. Instead of copying and pasting the same content everywhere and then having to update it in multiple places when changes are needed, you create it once and reference it wherever needed.

Example Scenario

Let's say your legal team requires a specific disclaimer to appear at the bottom of all your pages: "This website may contain information that leads to unexpected happiness! Please consult your doctor before excessive smiling." Rather than copying and pasting this text into every single page (and having to update dozens of pages if the wording changes), you can create a content block for it.

Creating a Content Block

1. Navigate to Site Content → Content Blocks

2. Click the plus icon to add a new content block

3. Enter your content text

4. Give the content block a descriptive name and unique code

Using Content Blocks

After creating your content block, you can include it anywhere on your site using a simple placeholder in this format:

${block.contentBlockCode}

In our example, the placeholder is:

${block.productDisclaimer}

Here is an example of how to add the placeholder to a content page's description:

Remember that in addition to content pages, you can also add content block placeholders to the following areas:

xxxxxxxxxx
- category descriptions
- product descriptions
- form descriptions

One of the advantages with using a content block is that, if the disclaimer ever changes, you only have to change it in one place, making maintence much easier.

Including References To Site Settings In Content Blocks

Another nice feature of content block is that you can include references to site settings inside the content block itself. For example, let's say you wanted to add a note to tell people to call you with questions. The simplest way to do this is to create a content block where the phone number is part of the content block's content. A better approach is to refer to the Store Phone site setting. The Store Phone setting can be set under Settings -> Store Info Settings. The code for the store phone setting is "storePhone", and so the placeholder in the content block is:

${settings.map.storePhone}

Here's this example at work:

Including References To Site Settings In Page Descriptions Directly

Please note, the above placeholder for a site setting also works if you put it directly into the content page's description, as well as the other areas that support content blocks:

• category descriptions

• product descriptions

• form descriptions

In other words, you can also put directly in the content page's description.

Parent Content Pages and Subpages

A content page can have a "parent" content page, which allows for a couple of navigational features. First, links to the subpages under a parent content page are shown by default, after the parent's description on the parent's page:

Second, if both a parent page and one of its subpages have their "Is Linked In Header?" flags set, the main navigation bar will group them together with a dropdown menu. A drop down icon appears after the parent's name. Clicking the icon opens up a menu with links to both the parent page and of all the subpages that have their "Is Linked In Header" flag set. This allows for more flexible navigation options in the header:

How To Add FAQs To a Content Page

Adding FAQs is a very common practice for websites, and the system makes this a little easier via content page settings. To add FAQs to a content page, follow these steps:

1. Create a content page if you haven't already. In our example, we'll simply name the content page "FAQs". You do not have to create a dedicated page, however. You can add FAQs to any existing content page.

2. For each question and answer in the FAQ, create a content page setting. Under the content page's three-dots menu, select Content Page Settings, and then click the plus icon to create the first one.

   

3. For the Name field, enter the text of the question.

4. For the Code field, enter a code like "faq0001". The code field must be unique under the content page, and this field is what the system will use to sort the questions and answers. For example, "faq0001" will come first, followed by "faq0002", "faq0003", etc.

5. For Setting Type, select FAQ.

6. For Value Type, we suggest selecting Text Value or Rich Text Value.

7. The answer to the question will go into the Setting Value field, but before pasting or typing it there, we suggest clicking Add New Record first, and then Edit New Record.

8. When you are editing the content page setting, if you've selected Rich Text Value, a toolbar of formatting options will appear, which can be helpful for formatting the answer:

9. Continue by adding new content page settings under the FAQs content page, one for each question and answer.

In the customer interface, the resulting content page will look something like this:

How To Add Testimonials To a Content Page

Another common task for websites is to provide a list of testimonials from customers. This is also supported in a similar way to FAQs, via content page setttings.

1. Create a content page if you haven't already. In our example, we'll name the content page "Reviews". You do not have to create a dedicated page, however. You can add testimonials to any existing content page.

2. For each testimonial, create a content page setting. Under the content page's three-dots menu, select Content Page Settings, and then click the plus icon to create the first one.

   

3. For the Name field, enter the name of the person providing the testimonial.

4. For the Code field, enter a code like "testimonial0001". The code field must be unique under the content page, and this field is what the system will use to sort the questions and answers. For example, "testimonial0001" will come first, followed by "testimonial0002", "testimonial0003", etc.

5. For Setting Type, select TESTIMONIAL.

6. For Value Type, we suggest selecting Text Value or Rich Text Value.

7. Put the text of the testimonial itself into the Setting Value field.

8. Two additional fields are supported:

   1. In Extra 1, you can put the city or location of the person giving the testimonial.

   2. In Extra 2, you can put the date of the testimonial.

Content Pages vs Category Pages

You may notice that content pages and category pages are similar. They can be used almost interchangeably. The differences are:

• You can associate products with category pages but not content pages. This is the main difference. Category pages do almost everything content pages do, but they can also list products under them. For more information, see the doc on Categories and the Category Tree

• Category pages appear under the main category tree link in the global header by default (under the Browse link). The full selection of categories appears in the category tree, including subcategories, and subcategories of other subcategories. Again for more information, see the doc on Categories and the Category Tree.

• Categories can appear as "facets" on the search results or category pages, to help users find products more easily. This does not pertain to content pages. For more information see the doc on Search Features.

• The URL for a category page is under the "/category" subdirectory, whereas content pages are under the "/content" subdirectory. Although, using a redirect, any URL can be used to point to any specific content page or category page.