Panel Positions

Changing the Panel Positions:

Path, from the left navigation menu: ['Customization' section] > Skin Setup > Panel Positions

All of the varied 'panels' described within the Skin-Setup portion of this manual can be edited, activated/deactivated and positioned around your page template. Choosing your own selection of panels, customizing them and laying them out how you want will all result in a very different looking site to that of your competitors. It is essential that you spend time creating a professional quality site and that you make your site appeal to its intended market.

You can change the position of the various 'panels' within your template, on your web-pages, using the link labeled "Panel Positions" within the Skin Setup menu. Selecting this option will load the Panel Positions customization screen, above the Skin Setup navigation menu:

Fig. 2.5.1.14.1: The "Panel Positions" link & customization screen:

Exactly what part of the page am I customizing here?

Firstly, we need to clarify the specific area within the page template that these modifications affect. The assorted 'Panels' that you have available within the template, and that you can customize within the Skin Setup section of the Administration system, are also able to be repositioned around the page template to suit your requirements. For example, you may wish to put the Search Box Panel in the top-left corner of your page (widely acknowledged as 'prime real-estate' in web-page terms) to help your customers find and purchase easily but, equally, you may elect to place your Adsense Panel in this positions - it all depends on your personal site objectives. The Panels that you are able to reposition, using this tool, are:

Note: The individual Panels, listed above, can all be edited separately, as outlined in their respective sections, earlier in this manual.

Moving Panels around your Page Template

The Positioning tool has been designed to make the process of moving panels around the page template an intuitive one. Essentially, you have two areas into which you may move your panels;

1. The left navigation area (left of the page)

2. The right navigation area (right of the page)

For each panel (Element), you just need to select the Panel where you want to move the element (either in the left or right navigation area) and the Position of the element on that specific navigation area (1, 2, 3, etc.). For the Adsense and Custom Navigation elements, you also have the option "Hide" (in the Panel column), which means that you can choose to place or not these elements on your website.

Once you are happy with the placement of the panels, you may save the changes as per the instructions below.

Canceling, Previewing and Applying my changes

It is important to note that the four buttons at the bottom of the preview screen are the same for every other option within the 'Skin Setup' menu. Their functions are as follows:

"Preview" Button: This button allows you to load your website in the preview screen. This is a great way to visualize how different colors, fonts and layouts will work together coherently on the page (or not, if you've chosen a poor mix of styles!). This button does NOT make changes to your 'live' site - it is only for use as a visual 'proof' of your proposed changes. Please note that all changes made to your site - even those in other customization sections - will be previewed on pressing this button.

"Full Screen Preview" Button: This button allows you to load a new pop-up window illustrating, in full preview mode, exactly how the changes you have just made will look when your page is made live.

"Close" Button: This button will close the "Skin Setup" page without saving any changes you may have just made. If, for example, you change your mind, you can simply abandon your proposed changes by clicking the "Close" button. Only clicking the "Apply Changes" button (details of which are below) will you commit your changes.

"Apply Changes" Button: This button saves any changes you might have made to any of the skin setup sections. When you click on the button, you will be presented two options/buttons, "Cancel" and "Generate Site", as seen below:

Fig. 2.5.1.14.2: The "Cancel" and "Generate Site" options that appear after clicking on the "Apply Changes" button:

If you click on the "Cancel" button, the system will reload the previous version of your website in preview mode, without making any changes to the website.

Instead, if you click on the "Generate Site" button, the system will save your proposed changes and then will display the website in full screen preview mode. For clarity, this button will make live all the changes you have made since you last pressed the "Generate Site" button. Your customers will see all of the changes you have made immediately.

Tip:

It is highly recommended that you make full use of the "Preview" and "Full Screen Preview" buttons to ensure that the changes you have proposed appear exactly as you want, BEFORE committing the changes to the 'live' site (although you can of course edit the site again, and recommit additional changes, should you need to correct an error).