Site Management

This is a guide to using a custom website in GeoSync GO Plus.

The first step to working with your site is to log in to GeoSync GO Plus with an administrator account. Then go to the account portal and click on the Pages link in the left menu. This section lists all the pages that are currently saved on your site.

Create Page

Let's add a new page to the site. Click the New link at the top to open the creation form. Set the Name to My First Page. The Path will be the unique URL for the page, it is usually best to use the page name with hyphens substituted for spaces. Let's use my-first-page for the Path. It is important that the path is different for each page. The Layout determines the format of the page. We will use the default option named layout for this page, but we will discuss the other layouts later in this guide. Order is a value that is used for sorting the pages. For now, we only need to worry about this setting when we want to add the page to the navigation bar. The lower the order value the sooner the page will appear on the navigation bar. For this page leave the value at 1.

Understanding the Editor

The Contents is where you will enter the main text for your page. The editor will perform basic text formatting to help your control how your page will look when published. The text in the editor is processed with Markdown to create an HTML page. It is basically a simple way of writing pages on the web. To find out more click on the Markdown Guide button on the toolbar. If you prefer the flexibility of HTML, it can be written directly into the editor.

The editor toolbar simplifies some common editing tasks. Below is a short description of each button from left to right.

  • Bold Text - This will insert asterisks into the editor. Any text between these asterisks will be bold. If you have text selected it will make the selection bold by surrounding the text with asterisks.
  • Italic Text - This will insert asterisks into the editor. Any text between these asterisks will be italicized. If you have text selected it will make the selection italic by surrounding the text with asterisks.
  • Header Text - This will insert a hashtag into the editor. Writing text after a hashtag will make a header. Clicking the button multiple times will insert more hashtags. Each subsequent hashtag will make the header text smaller. If you have text selected it will make the selection a header.
  • Quote Text - This will insert an angle bracket into the editor. Writing text after the angle bracket will make a quotation. If you have text selected it will make the selection a quotation.
  • Unordered List - This will insert an asterisk into the editor. Any writing after the asterisk will be the first item in a list. Entering a return at the end of the item will move the editor to creating a second list item. At the end of the list you can return twice to end the list formatting. If you have text selected it will make the selection a list.
  • Ordered List - This will work the same as the unordered list, but will use numbers instead of bullets.
  • Insert Link - This will insert a link element. Between the square brackets enter the link text and between the parentheses enter the URL for the link. If text is selected, it will make the selection the link text and allow you to add the URL.
  • Insert Image - This will insert an image element. Between the square brackets enter the image title and between the parentheses enter the URL for the image. If text is selected, it will make the selection the image title and allow you to add the URL.
  • Toggle Preview - This toggles between the editor view and the HTML preview.
  • Side By Side - This toggles between the editor view and a split view with the editor on the left and the HTML preview on the right.
  • Fullscreen - This toggles between the default editor size and a fullscreen editor.
  • Markdown Guide - This links to a web page that gives a short introduction to Markdown.

Saving and Publishing

To finish our page will check the Show on navigation bar option. There is also an option to make the page a draft version. This will allow you to save the page, but prevent it from being published to the site. Leave this option unchecked. Click the Save link at the top to create the page. It is important to note that the page is saved, but it will not appear on your site until your site is published. Hit the Back link at the top to return to the Pages section. At the top of the grid is the Publish action. This will publish all pages. Click this link and wait for the publish to finish. Now select the page you just created. At the top will be another action named View. This will link to the selected page as it appears on your site. Remember that the page must be published for it to be viewed.

Editing and Deleting

From here we can always go back and change the page. With the page selected, use the Edit action at the top of the grid. This will bring you back to the same form to edit the page information. After making changes click save. Remember that the changes will not be reflected on your site until you publish again. Alternatively, if you just want to remove a page from the site, select the page in the grid and use the Delete action at the top. Publish again and the page will be gone.

Layouts

Layouts control the presentation of your page. Using them can completely change a page's functionality. Below is a list of available layouts.

  • layout - This is the default layout. It has some basic styling and a navigation bar.
  • collection - This is a page that contains a list of other pages. When you use a collection layout, you are able to set a name for the collection. This name will be used to group other pages. For example, you could make a collection called news that lists pages in a blog format. The collection layout also allows you to set a sort value. For instance, with our news collection we would want to sort by created date in reverse order to put the most recent news at the top of the collection. If you choose to sort the collection by order, then this will use the page's order value to organize the pages starting with the lowest order value first.
  • item - This will be a page in a collection. When selecting the item layout, you will given a dropdown to choose which collection the item will belong to. For item layouts, the url path of page is automatically generated for you. The item layout can be customized with a link. In most cases, this will be a link that allows you to learn more about the information contained in the page, but it could link to anything. If you don't want a link to be displayed, set the link field to be blank.
  • iframe - This will embed another website into your site by using an iframe. This layout is useful for adding a GeoSync GO Plus public map or calendar directly into a page. The embedded website is added by setting the frame URL field. This option disables scrollbars because the map and calendar handle scrolling differently than a normal webpage. If you need scrollbars on your iframe, skip to the next layout option.
  • iframe-scrollable - This layout works identically to the iframe layout, but scrollbars will be enabled for the iframe content.
  • empty - This layout is basically a blank page. It removes all the other page elements and will only display the content saved in the editor.

The GeoSync GO Plus map can accept links with parameters that will determine its starting settings. Using our map interface, you are able share a location. To share a location, a feature has to be selected. If you want a custom point, use right-click to set a new point. Once selected, go to the action menu and click share location. This will produce a URL for sharing. However, this URL will open the map in its own window. If we have a map setup in an iframe on our site, we may want to open up the map embedded on our web page. To do this, take the parameters in the URL, which will be the question mark and everything following and add it to the URL of our page containing the map. This new URL will link directly to the map embedded in the site and still display the shared location on start up.

Notifications

There are many ways to use notifications in GeoSync GO Plus, this section will just cover using notifications in regards to site management. Notifications can be used to send users important pages and updates from your site. It is particularly useful in connecting with users of a GeoSync GO custom app. To send a new notification, go to the account portal and select the notifications section. At the top choose the New action to open the notification form. The Name field will be the title in the notification. The Priority is how urgently it needs to be delivered to users. If you want it to be sent later, you can uncheck the send now option and then enter a date and time to deliver the notification. The Sound option determines whether a sound is played when the notification arrives on the user's device. The Message contains a description of your notification. The link will determine what page the app opens to when clicking on the notification. You might might want to grab this ahead of time, but you can always open a new tab and get the link to a page on your website. Lastly, to send to your custom app users, select the App Users option at the bottom and then click on the Save button at the top and your notification will be sent.