The "Section Status" section allows you to control where links to a section and to its articles appear on your site.
Active/Inactive
Main sections are always active. However, subsections may be turned on or off. When a subsection is turned off, its articles are not published to the site, and the subsection is not included in site navigation. To your site's visitors, the subsection is invisible and it is as if the subsection does not exist.
Making a subsection inactive is useful when you are developing a new section of the site. While you create, edit and add your articles to the Big Medium system, the new content is hidden from your site's visitors until you're ready to share it with them. When all of the content is loaded and ready, turn the subsection on to make it visible to your visitors. After you make the change in the active/inactive setting, you should rebuild all pages in the main section to which the subsection belongs.
Display preferences
You can prevent Big Medium from displaying links to the section or subsection in certain locations on the site.
-
Don't show section's articles on homepage. Links to articles in this section will not be displayed on the site's homepage. There are two exceptions to this rule:
- o If you select the section as the top news section in the site's widget settings, the articles will be displayed on the homepage if you use the
++HOMEPAGENEWS++widget in the homepage template. - o If you include the
++QUICKTEASE:slug++widget for this subsection on the main section page template, a link to the section and its articles will be displayed.
- o If you select the section as the top news section in the site's widget settings, the articles will be displayed on the homepage if you use the
- Don't include section in navigation bar. The section will not appear in navigation bars, pulldown menus or the
++BROWSEMORE++widget. - Don't offer a standalone news feed for this section. The section will not be offered to visitors as a focused news feed. Leaving this option unchecked allows site visitors to subscribe to articles from this section via RSS or JavaScript. For more information about Big Medium's news feeds, see the news feed help page).
Main sections also offer this option:
- Don't generate a spotlight article for this section. No spotlight article will appear on the section's main index page. The article that would normally appear as the spotlight will instead appear in the links generated by the
++LONGLINKS++widget.
Subsections also offer this option:
- Don't show section's articles on main section page. Links to articles in the subsection will not be displayed on the main index page of the subsection's "parent" section. There are two exceptions to this rule:
- o If you select the subsection as the top news section in the site's widget settings, the articles will be displayed on the main section page if you use the
++TOPNEWS++widget in the main section page template. - o If you include the
++QUICKTEASE:slug++widget for this subsection on the main section page template, a link to the section and its articles will be displayed.
- o If you select the subsection as the top news section in the site's widget settings, the articles will be displayed on the main section page if you use the
Why would I want to prevent links to my sections?
The most common reason to prevent a section's links from appearing on the homepage or main section pages is to suppress news articles from appearing with "normal" articles. If your templates use the ++TOPNEWS++ or ++HOMEPAGENEWS++ widgets to display news-section content separately, you should be sure to suppress the news section's links on the homepage (for the ++HOMEPAGENEWS++ widget) or the main section page (for the ++TOPNEWS++ widget). This will block the news articles from appearing in the ++SPOTLIGHT++, ++LONGLINKS++ or ++SHORTLINKS++ sections while still appearing in the news widgets.
In addition, you may find that certain sections of your site are not appropriate for promotion on the homepage or in the main navigation bar. For example, many sites do not offer homepage links to individual pages in the "About Us" section. Likewise, many sites don't include that section in the main navigation menu for the site. (In that case, you should strongly consider adding a link to the section elsewhere in your templates—in the "About Us" text of the ++ABOUTUS++ widget, for example).
You can choose, for similar reasons, not to include links to the most recent articles from a subsection on its parent section's main section page. This is particularly true of sections that contain a large amount of reference content. For example, you might have a Frequently Asked Questions subsection within a Customer Service main section but choose not to display the most recent FAQ articles on the main section page.
Preventing Links on an Article-by-Article Basis
Use the "Don't build link to article" options in the "Display Preferences" section of the article edit page.
Need more help?
For further assistance and documentation, visit the website of Global Moxie, the developer behind Big Medium.