Webonizer Topics

Webonizer organizes information in a hierarchal fashion starting with Site Pages (core areas or departments). Under site pages are topics. A topic is a convenient way to group articles on a site that share the same topic.

Every article on a Webonizer Site has one primary topic… and each topic belongs to one and only one site page.

This page addresses Topics from the perspectives of a site’s visitors, a site’s members, and finally, a site’s webmaster.

Visitors

If there is only one article in that topic, Webonizer will forward the visitor straight to the article.

Visitors of a Webonizer site can use topics to conveniently find information on the site. The default navigation menu of Webonizer includes an array of links that equate to Site Pages. If those site pages have topics associated to them, and those topics have articles attached to them, then the menu for those site pages will include drop-down or fly-out submenus that list those topics. Those submenus are links to a listing of articles that belong to that topic.

The default topics pages list articles belonging to that topic in order of their post date from most recent to older articles.

Topics can also be searched with keyword searches. In a site’s search page, there is a menu to restrict keyword searches to articles that belong to the selected topic.

Members

Aside from the fact that members of a Webonizer-enabled site are also visitors and will find the browsing/searching features convenient… members of a Webonizer site may use topics more directly.

When posting an article, a member must choose a “Primary Topic”. The primary topic is selected from a list of topics (that is provided in the article form). Members should always choose the most appropriate topic. If an appropriate topic does not appear… the member must contact the webmaster to add the relevant topic.

If your webmaster has given you permission, you may be able to attach articles to multiple topics. If so, you will see a link called “Add Topics” in your article when you are logged in. You can assign the article to secondary and more topics, up to the limit your webmaster has set for you.

Webmasters

Webmasters (administrators) of a Webonizer site can create/edit topics. Below is a detailed overview of topics from an administrative point of view.

Creating Topics

Topics can only be created by administrators. Topics are children of Site Pages. To make a topic, you must first make a site page that will contain the topic. Before making topics, it is important to understand this relationship between Site Page and Topic—and how they help organize information on your site.

It is best to visualize a Site Page as a very broad area on your site. The topics are divisional categories that are related to the Site Page. For example, if your site page is “Music” your topics could be things like “Rock and Roll”, “Classical Music”, “Folk Music”, “Rap”, “Country Music”, etc. The intent is that a Site Page is the broad area that then subdivides into relevant topics… and the topics then go to all the articles belonging to each topic.

You can get to the Topics Administration page from the “Site Pages Administration” or from the “Administration” page under “Topics Administration”. Click Here to learn more about Site Pages.

To create a topic, you must have a site page that has the “Topics/Articles” option turned on. Every Site Page that has an article turned on is listed in the “Area/Site Page” menu of a topic on the topics administration page.

Topic Name: Each topic must have a unique name. The name should not contain quotation marks. The name can be up to 32 characters long.
Area/Site Page: This is the area of your site that this topic will be listed under. The list of available areas is determined by those Site Pages whose Topics/Articles flag is turned on. Click Here to learn more about Site Pages.
Restriction: This setting will set the viewing permission of articles whose primary topic is the specified topic. Setting this to “None” means that an article attached to this topic can be viewed by anyone. Setting the flag to “Members” means that only members of the site who are logged in may read the articles belonging to this topic. Setting to “Admin” restricts viewing articles of this topic to Administrators only. (Note that this restriction applies only to the primary topic of an article. Since an article can have secondary topics, an article may be listed on a restricted page but still be viewed by less privileged visitors if that article’s main topic is unrestricted.)

Navigation

Your topics can generate drop-down and fly-out menus in your navigation. This is true if:

Navigation Generator is set to “on” under “Menu & Layout Options” in your Site Settings;
Your menu generating script “customMenu.php” still includes the variable $sitelinks inside the output;
The parent Site Page has a Link Type of “Top Navigation” or “Nav Drop Down”;
There is currently one or more articles with the topics.

If all the above conditions are met, the navigation system will include links to the topics. If the parent Site Page has a Link Type of “Nav Drop Down”, the topics will appear as fly-out menus next to the site pages they belong to. If a topic’s parent Site Page is set to “Top Navigation”, the topics will appear as drop down menus from the corresponding Site Pages.

Examples of Navigation

The examples below are from Shawn Olson's Webonizer-enabled website at www.shawnolson.net

Navigation Menu & Site Pages

Nav Drop Down

Top Navigation

More in the Site Pages, Areas and Topics Series

Site Pages
Webonizer Topics

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Example of a webonizer Navigation Menu. The main areas are created by Site Pages.

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Example of a webonizer Navigation Menu. The main areas are created by Site Pages.

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Example of a webonizer Navigation Menu. The main areas are created by Site Pages. The drop down menu is created by topics belonging to that page and having articles published in those topics.