Become familiar with your Site Control Panel. Use it with confidence so you can update your stock pages as and when you like.

The 'Interface' is a point of communication between a computer and a human operator. In this case that point of communication is the Site Control Panel. This is the area where you will be accessing and modifying the information on your web site. The interface is simple to operate, but it performs a very important act. It will have a direct impact on your business in many ways.

How to access your Site Control Panel

As with all our products you will need a user name and password to access the Site Control Panel. This information will be agreed with yourself and your web site provider when you purchase a web site. In order to access the 'Logging in' area of the Site Control Panel you need to:

• go to the 'Contact' page of your web site (see below).
• Click on the Control Panel icon in the bottom right corner below your address.

• You will be taken to a page which will ask you for your members details.

• Type your user details in the text areas as shown in the example below. Note that your web address needs the www. in front of it.

• Click 'Login'

You are now at the Site Control Panel

Using this powerful tool.

When you have logged in you will be confronted by the interface below. This is what we refer to as the 'Main Menu'.

The separate editable sections of your web site are clearly titled and marked with a symbol. The next stage is to work through each section entering the required details.

Now you need to decide how many buttons you are going to need and what to call them. A good tip is to keep them as succinct as possible. One or two words is sufficient. For example, if you are having a page which describes the history of the company, 'Company' will suffice. Avoid non descriptive words such as 'The'.

The panel you will see looks like this.

As we mentioned in the last section the icons at the bottom of the panel will now be familiar to you.

You have the option of seven pages, but you do not have to fill them all. Just leave the text areas blank if they are not needed.

• Type the title you have chosen into the blank text area. The button title must be no more than 16 characters long.
• Repeat this up to seven times.
• When you are satisfied click the 'Update' icon.
• Click 'To site' to check what they look like or 'Menu' to return to the main menu and make further adjustments.

On this page you have the option to place an unlimited amount of links to your favourite sites. The more 'traffic' you get through your site, the higher your search engine rating. So if you have links on other web sites this is a good place to enter their addresses. Think carefully about what links you put on this page, you do not want to send valuable traffic away from your site never to return.

A new panel will appear.

Adding a Link

The new link panel appears, begin to enter the required details.

• In the text box entitled 'Link' enter the URL/web address, for example 'www.guardianunlimited.co.uk'
  
• The next text box is called 'Name'. Here you should put the company title for example 'The Guardian Newspaper'
  
  
• In the last text area you get the chance to put a description of what that company does. In this example 'See the latest news'.

This will add the new information on your site.
An alert box will appear confirming the new information has successfully been added to the site. Click 'Ok'.

  Now either click the 'To List' icon to add another link,

  or click the 'To Site' icon to check your updated site.

Modify your links page

If you have just added a link to your site then click the 'To List' icon. If you have gone to your site to check the updates then follow the route to the links page using your members area details (see the 'Logging In' section).

This will bring up a panel similar to the original links panel. The difference being you can only change the title and the text.

• Make your changes and again click the 'Update' icon. An alert box will appear telling you the update has been successful. Click 'Ok'.

Adding an Image

You will be adding images to your site in later stages of this course. Each time you will use the same process so you will be referred back to this section.

• Return to the add links page by either clicking on the 'To List' icon or via 'Logging In' from your main site.

The Upload Image Panel appears.

• Click on 'Browse'
  
• Search for the image file that you want to accompany this particular link. Remember if it is a photograph it should be in JPEG format, or if a graphic in GIF format.
  
• Select it
  
• Click 'Open'. The title of the image will appear in the text box of the Image Upload Panel.

N.B. When uploading images to any other page excluding the links page, you will have the option to retain image size, animation and quality. If you do not want your image to be optimised, ensure this box is clicked.

• Click 'Upload'
  
• A large version of the picture appears in front of you with an alert box over the top confirming that the image has uploaded successfully. Click 'Ok'.
  
• Now either click 'To List' and upload another picture, or 'To Site' to check what it looks like. If at this point you decide it is the wrong image simply click 'remove'.
  
• You have now completed the links section. Click 'Menu' to return to the main menu. Now you will name, input text and upload images to your seven information pages.

Using the methods you were shown earlier make sure the main menu of the Site Control Panel is in front of you.

The page one control panel appears before you. Most of the features will by now be familiar to you. With the exception of the 'Page Type' and the 'Paging' drop down menus.

The 'Page Type' drop down menu gives you a choice of six different page layouts. The four styles of stock page are self explanatory. The first option which is the 'Information' page gives one image per paragraph of text. The last option which is the 'Gallery' page will give you a page of thumbnail images. When clicked these images can be enlarged.

You will now start to upload information to these pages:

• Select what sort of page you require, in this case we are going to create a stock page, as this has most information to be entered
  
• Click 'Add New'.

This opens up the control panel for that particular page. The icons to the bottom right are all familiar to you now.

The first section is straight forward. Enter the details of the item:

• The identification number (ID).
  
• Name.
  
• Cost.
  
• Description (text).

Which ever style of page layout you choose from the drop down menu the process for entering the information is similar. However there are slight variations. The 'Information Page' differs from the stock page in that the first section only allows you to enter a title and text.

The next section entitled 'Alignment Options' allows you to control the positioning of these page elements. By checking the radio buttons you can position the title, text and image either left, centre or right.

• Click the 'To List' icon. Now upload an image to your page. For instructions on how to add an image return to the 'Links Page' section and follow the process in the subsection 'Adding Images'.

The 'Gallery Page' differs in that it only allows you to upload images. By clicking 'Add New' it will give you an extra row. From there you can click the 'Image' icon and begin the process as described in the 'Adding Image' section.

• Click on a page icon in the Main Menu.This will take you to the paragraph list for that page.

You can choose either the 'Design Mode' or the 'HTML Mode' (see below).The icons are situated at the bottom left of the page. This will set the default editing mode for the whole of your current session in the Site Control Panel.

The HTML mode is simply what you have become used to in earlier sections of these tutorials. If used as they are, it will give a basic format to the page. HTML can be added in if you wish.

• Click on 'Design Mode'Confirm you want to switch to Design Mode as your default setting by clicking 'ok'.
• Click on the 'Modify' icon, to the right of the listing.This will take you through to a page similar in appearance to that shown in previous sections. There are subtle differences which need to be noted.

No HTML can be written in this section.The editor works in the same way as most text editing software, such as Microsoft's Word, therefore the working environment should be familiar to you.

If you look at the toolbar below the functions performed by clicking the icons are clear.

Here is a quick guide:

Select, by left mouse click and role over, the text you are intending to format.

by left mouse click and role over, the text you are intending to format.

	Choose from the drop down menu which font face you would like.
	Choose from the drop down menu a font size 1-6.
	Choose a font colour
	Click this icon to 'cut' selected text.
	Click this icon to 'copy' selected text.
	Click this icon to 'paste' selected text.
	Click this icon to make selected text bold.
	Click this icon to make selected italic.
	Click this icon to underline selected text.
	Click this icon to 'bullet point' selected text.
	Click this icon to move selected text to the left.
	Click this icon to move selected text to the right.
	Click this icon to make a link of selected text.