Page Properties: Options - Controlling page navigation options

Each page in Site Manager has its own set of properties, which includes: Page Navigation, Options, SEO and Security. We'll focus on the first part of the Options menu here, specifically Display Left Nav and Include in Drop Menu.

To change the Options in Page Properties:

1. In Navigation Builder, go the category (section) for your page
2. Click the page title (blue link)
3. At the top of the page, click the Properties tab
4. Click the Options tab

At the top of the Options screen will be a series of drop down menus. Not all of these options may be available for you site, depending on the design setup your site utilizes.

Left Nav

Working from left to right, the first drop down menu option is "Display Left Nav". By default, the display left nav is ON. By default, all pages have the left navigation menu on display.

By changing this option to "Hide Left Nav", you can remove the left navigation menu, and the column space it took up, from that page. Suggestions of when this would be an ideal page layout includes:

• When you require more horizontal space for your content
• When the page, section of the site, or even the entire site can be easily navigated through the top drop down menus and you do not need any left navigation
• For inactive pages that are used as direct link-to pages (examples: event pages, one-time setup or registration pages, etc.)

If you turn off the left navigation on a page, be sure that your users can easily get to their next destination on your website. This is probably your main navigation or the drop down menus, but consider the use of building a link in your content on the page to help users get back or move to the next page on your site.

When you set the option to Hide Left Nav on a page property, that change applies to only the page you are editing.

Drop Down Top Navigation

The second option is Include in Drop Menu. By default this is ON, which means that by default all Level 1 pages are included in the top/main navigation drop down menus. 

Important:

• In order to have drop down menus, they must first be enabled in the Top Nav Categories settings. Most sites are built with the menus enabled, but if your drop menus are not working anywhere on your site, you may need to adjust that setting in your Top Nav Categories first.
• This Page Option only applies to Level 1 pages. Level 2 and Level 3 (nested) pages do not appear in top/main menus and their drop down menus.

If you change this to Exclude from Drop Menu, that level one page will not show up in your drop down menu. This is a per-page option, so it only applies to the page you are editing.

This is ideal for keeping drop down menus to a reasonable length, and also to avoid repeat navigation when your main navigation category routes to the first page in your drop down menu. 

If you have any questions on these options, how to use them, or best practices in building site navigation, please contact us. We're happy to help!