Once logged in, things will look different: you'll see a block with your user name as its title, full of links. This is the Navigation menu, with links to content creation and administration forms that let you control nearly every aspect of your site.

The Navigation menu

There are many separate forms for administrative settings. The quickest way to get there is via the Navigation menu.

The Navigation menu shows up as a block on your site when you are logged in as an administrator. The block isn't titled "Navigation menu"; it's titled with your user name (such as "chiefadmin", or whatever it may be).

Two key items: Create content and Administer

You'll see many items under that Navigation menu, including two that you'll be using a lot: Create content and Administer.

Create content and Administer both conceal many options underneath. Click on them to see what appears.

When you click on Create content in the Navigation menu, you'll see links open under it, listing types of content you can create. You'll also see a "Create content" page, displaying those same links.

When you click on Administer in the Navigation menu, you'll see links open under it, listing further sub-categories of administration tasks; click on these to see links to the specific tasks. You'll also see a very extensive "Administer" page, displaying sub-categories of administration tasks and the links to specific tasks.

Almost everything you need to do to create and manage content, and manage your site as a whole, can be found in the links under Create content and Administer.

Referring to Create content and Administer pages

To send you to a specific page for administrators, I'll write like this:

Navigation menu » Create content » Blog entry

That tells you to click Create content in the Navigation menu, and then click Blog entry under that. Or click Blog entry on the page that appears when you click Create content.

Another example:

Navigation menu » Administer » Site building » Blocks

That tells you to click Administer in the Navigation menu, then Site building under that, then Blocks under that. Or click Blocks under Site building on the page that appears when you click Administer.

It should be perfectly clear when you give it a try!

What you and others see

On many sites, general visitors who are not logged in don't see the Navigation menu. However, it is possible to give general visitors some administrative ability, and access to the appropriate administrator blocks, if you wish.

In any case, any user who sees the Navigation menu will only be shown links for those functions he has permission to access. 

Seeing what visitors see

If you're logged in as an administrator and would like to see your site as visitors do, without the Navigation menu, just log out and look. Or even better, use two separate browsers, one logged in and one not logged in. After making changes in one browser, switch to the other (non-logged in) browser, refresh the appropriate page, and see how things look.