U3A Site Builder: Site Structure
A "site" in this context consists of four main sections or "pages",
with some optional extra pages.
- A "Welcome" page:
- This is the page which visitors to your site will read first, so it
should contain a general introduction to your U3A. You will be able to
choose the page heading, and then enter one or more paragraphs of
information.
- A "Groups" page:
- This page shows some general information about your
current study groups, followed by a complete list of groups, which may
be individually added, and later removed or changed as
circumstances require.
- An "Events" page:
- This page shows information about other planned activities, e.g.
monthly meetings, outings, social events — in fact anything
which is set for a particular time in the future. Once again the page
is intended to display some general text, followed by a complete list
of forthcoming events.
- A "Contact" Page:
- This page allows you to tell potential members how they can get in
touch with you, for instance by attending an enrolment session or
telephoning the Membership Secretary. Choose what to put here based on
your own U3A's policy about revealing contact information.
- There is also a special option to supply an e-mail address. This
will not appear on the public web site — instead there
is a form for users to enter a message, which will be sent to the
specified e-mail address by an automatic process.
- A "Links" Page
- Links from your site may go either to external resources
already on the internet, or (once your site has been
officially published) to documents which you have uploaded. Any page
may contain some relevant links, but the "Links" page will display
them all together under their page headings. A Links page will not
appear on your site until you have entered one or more links.
- "Group Detail" Pages
- Once you have entered a list of groups, you can choose to make
individual pages giving further information about them. Users will be
able to see those pages by following links from the main Group page.
Group detail pages may contain lists of associated events,
links and a small number of pictures.
- "Sub-pages"
- These are extra pages which are not specific to particular groups —
they may contain anything from recent news to classified lists of links.
They will always be linked from one of the five main pages or from a group
detail page.
- Picture Pages
- Pictures may be added to officially published sites, and displayed
in reduced form on any existing page. They can also be shown full-size
on their own page, with a title and some optional narrative. The "front
page" of a published site will normally contain a full-sized picture.
The U3A Site Builder menu provides a set of options to add, edit
and change information on all the above pages. More detailed
instructions are available for each. There is also an option to view
the "full" site at any point, to see what stage it has reached and how
it would appear to visitors.