Create a Page Node

Creating a Page node

Once you're logged in, click here:

Navigation menu » Create content » Page

The "Create page" form ("Submit page" in Drupal 5) that appears will have fields including those described below. What fields appear will depend on your site setup; many of the below many not appear for you, or may appear in slightly different order. 

Fill in the fields as you like. (Fields with a red asterisk are required; others are optional.) Here's an overview of the fields:

Title

The title of the node. You have to supply a title!

Vocabularies ("Categories" in Drupal 5)

This section lists the tags or keywords – "Terms" in Drupal parlance – that will be attached to your node. They should appear in the groups ("Vocabularies" in Drupal-speak) that you've set up. The exact Vocabularies that appear, and the exact Terms within each, will of course be specific to your site.

Depending on your site setup, you may be able to choose no Terms for a category, or you may be able to choose multiple Terms. (Choose multiple items by pressing your computer's "mutiple select" key: Command for Macs, Ctrl for Windows machines.) You may even have the option of "free tagging" for a given Vocabulary: Instead of a list of Terms, you'll only see a single blank field, into which you can freely enter Terms. 

See Terms, Vocabularies, and Categories: "Tagging" Your Content.

Menu settings

This is where you place a link to the node somewhere in the site's menu structure, making it available to site visitors.

If you want to try something simple, create a menu title for the node here, and then choose Primary Menu under the "Parent item" pop-up menu. After you save the form, a link to the new node will appear in your site's main menu.

Note that you don't have to do anything here! First, you might not want the node to appear in a menu; you could instead let readers find it via links you'll place in other nodes' text. Or you could intend for the node to appear in lists created by Views. And even if you do want it to appear in a menu, you can always ignore the task for now, and later edit the menu itself to add a link to the node. It's up to you.

See:

• Linking to Content
• Creating Menu Items on the Fly
• Working with Menus: Administration Form

Body

The main content of the node. Depending on your site setup, you will probably see word processor-style formatting controls, courtesy of a text formatting add-on function. This offers many formatting options, though probably it won't be as rich or easy to use as your favorite word processor; for long text, consider keeping a copy of the text saved elsewhere just in case of trouble during input.

Input format

Options for how the text body will be rendered in HTML. Available formats will vary with site setup.

Attached images

If you see this item, you can upload an image, or select a previously-uploaded image, to appear within your node. The placement of the image within the node will be controlled by the site's Theme. 

Product

If you see this, it refers to specific e-commerce products sold via the site's shopping cart, not general information about your company's products you may be discussing on your site. If you're only writing text about a product, not setting up an actual e-commerce product for sale via the site, ignore this.

Log message

A place to leave notes for other editors who may edit the same node later, or leave internal notes for yourself about the node. Ignore this if you have no need for it.

Side Content

If you see this field, any text that you input here will appear alongside the displayed node in a special block.

Book outline

A Book in Drupal is a set of nodes organized in a hierarchical structure, with easy navigation links added automatically by Drupal. If you've already created a Book within Drupal, here you have the option of adding your new node to that Book. (If none of that makes sense to you at this point, ignore it!)

Meta tags

If this appears, you can add a short description that search engines will use in describing your site to searchers. (Without this, the search engine will instead grab the first couple lines of your page text, or otherwise make up something.) Writing something here is a good way to make sure searchers see the pithy description you want them to see. 

Underneath "Description" is "Keywords". Here you can add a few keywords that describe the node, to aid the search engines in matching your page to the right searches. Only input keywords here that are specific to the node and aren't being applied already to the whole site!

Weight (Drupal 5)

Weight is one of the trickier aspects of getting content to display just where you want it when it appears inside a list. You set the node's "weight" here, from -10 to 10. In a list of nodes, a lower "weight" will rise to the top of the list, while heavier weights will sink to the bottom.

Ignore weight if you have no current use for it.

URL path settings

This creates an easy, alternate path – an "alias" – to reach the node. For example, if you input staff_info as the alias, the node can be reached at the URL <your site domain>/staff_info.

Stick to regular letters, numbers, hyphens (-) and underscores (_) in your alias; avoid spaces and other characters.

See Linking to Content.

Comment settings

Set whether site visitors can read and/or leave comments on the node.

File attachments

You can attach files to your node, which readers can then download.

Authoring information

Set the author of the node. This will probably be you.

Publishing options

The important options are:

• Published: If unchecked, the node will not appear! (Reach it again via Navigation » Administer » Content management » Content.) This is a good way to save "draft" content.
• Promoted to front page: If you check this, the node will appear on the front page. Otherwise, it will appear only as directed by menus, or if accessed by its URL.
• Sticky at top of lists: In any list of node (such as on the front page of a typical site), the node will stick to the top of the list, regardless of its publication date or other sorting criteria.

Submitting the node

All done filling out the fields? You'll see two buttons at the bottom of the form:

• Preview: Selecting this will show the completed node as it looks so far, constructed as a web page. But further down the page, you'll see the "Create page" form as well, for further editing.
• Save ("Submit" in Drupal 5): Selecting this will complete the submission process, and show you the final page – which, if published (see above), is now live on the site!

Re-editing the Page node

You can of course edit any Page node which you have permission to edit.

When you are logged in, any Page node on the site (including a new one you have created), for which you have permission to edit, will appear with several tabs, including "View" and "Edit".

"Edit" allows access to the same tools used for creating the page, as described above. You can make changes and resubmit. There is also a "delete" button at the bottom of a page in edit mode, for removing the node altogether.