How to create a supporting plain page

Introduction

You will more often need to to create a plain page than a place page. Whenever the content in a topic on a place page becomes extensive or there is the need to include a distinct set of information such as a transcription you will need to create a plain page. That page will need to be associated with the relevant place.

There are many plain pages associated with the county and with the parishes you will be maintaining. Many tend to need throw up less need for correction than place pages: transcripts for example tend to be fixed. But errors are found and need to be dealt with. Plain pages with links in them are more often in need of amendment in the same way as the links within the topics in place pages.

In both cases you will need to be logged in as a maintainer. You can log in here.

To create a new plain/topic page

On your main maintainer menu:

• Click "Add Content"
• Select "Plain/Topic Page"

You will be presented with an edit screen for a plain page. You will need to fill in as a minimum:

• Title - the title as you want it to appear at the head of the page
• County This is not strictly essential but it helps!
• Parent Place - this will normally be the name of the place  within which you provide the link to this plain page
• URL Alias - in the standard form /big/[Country abbreviation]/[Chapman Code]/[Place Name]/[shortened version of the title]

Save the entry and check that it looks broadly correct.

It is also useful at this stage to create the link on the place page with which this plain page is associated. This link will be in one of the topics on the place page and you will use the same topic in entering the substantive information in the new plain page.   

You can then start entering specific information by editing the page.

Editing a plain page

Editing the plain page is similar whether you are adding the first information to a newly created plain page or looking to change something on an existing page.

Navigate to the page and click edit on the page menu bar.

There are three text entry fields:

• Introduction:
• Topic (an empty one on a new page with no type selected; one or more with content on an existing page)
• Footer

The introduction and the footer are not very often used but they are available if you find it helpful with a series of pages to use common material or links between similar pages. There should usually be only one topic type on a plain page . This enables the "Up Arrow" technique to work properly. 

However you can have several topics ot the same type if that makes the drafting more convenient.

All the usual elements (images, tables etc) can be used in a plain page.