When a new page is created in the IAAP Web Community, there are default values that determine what that page will look like in terms of layout. For example, when your chapter’s home page is initially setup, it is formatted as a double column layout. For other pages inside, the default is a single column layout. This tutorial will demonstrate how to change the layout of a page without relying on tables or other messy HTML modifications.

• Make sure you have logged in to the Web Community.

• Click Edit Navigation from your website.

• Highlight the corresponding folder for the page you would like to edit. In this example, we will be editing the Home page folder into a 3-column layout instead of the default 2. Once the folder is highlighted, click “Edit” underneath the “Navigation” side of the page (not the “Content” side).

• This will bring up the “Navigation Edit” menu. There are multiple options here but for this tutorial you will want to find the dropdown menu for “Page Layout” and select “Three Columns.” (Note: There are a lot of different layout options to play around with here, also, so you may find another setup works best for your site.)

• When a page layout is broken up into multiple columns, the pages listed under the “Content” area will display a number adjacent to them. These numbers correspond with which column that content belongs in. In the example below, you can see that the “Member Spotlight” section is in Column 2, which is the middle of the page.  The “Welcome” section, as well as the “IAAP Discussions” and “Recent Documents” are all in Column 1, or the left side of the page, and the “IAAP news” is in Column 3, on the right side.

• Within that “Content” list, each item will appear on the actual live site in the order they are listed. So, because “Welcome” is the first item listed in Column 1, it will appear at the top of Column 1 on the live site. Same with “Member Spotlight;” it appears at the top of the middle column (Column 2) because it is listed above “IAAP Web Tips” and “Member Blogs.”

• To determine which column a content item will appear in, you will need to adjust that within each page’s settings. To do that, highlight the content item you’d like to move and click “Edit” underneath the “Content” area. As you can see below, the “Member Spotlight” section is set to display in section 2. If I wanted to move it to Section 3, I would simply use the “up” arrow to change it, press save and the content item would be moved.

Tips:

• When building a page, think of each content item as a block of text, not an entire page. As you can see in the above examples, the home page alone could have nine or more content items, which each have their own header and html stylings. Use the numbers to easily move content around on the page.

• Setting up pages in columns is an easy alternative to tables. Sometimes a table is the best option, but for many pages simply changing the layout makes things a lot easier to work with.