Working With Mambo
Links Database
Do you have a ton of useful links that you would love to share with your visitors?
If your links page on your previous site was a hodge-podge of hundreds of links,
now you can keep them organized and categorized inside Mambo. In addition, your
links can now have short descriptions with each one and keep track of the number
of hits or visitors that click on that link.
Setting Up Your Links Page
You can find the Links menu item in your main menu, which is found at
Menu -> mainmenu. Be sure that the Published
column shows an icon with a green checkmark. If not, then click on the red 'x'
in that column to publish the menu item, making it available on the site's main
menu. The Links menu item might also be found at
Menu -> topmenu as well.
Click on the Links title and you can change the description which will
appear on your Links page. You can do this by filling in a Description Text
in the parameters on the right, and be sure the Description is set to
Show. If you do not wish to use a descrition, set this to Hide.
Please note that if you have it set to Show but no description typed into
the text box, then a default description will be used. Be sure to click the
Save icon at the top of the page when done.
Adding Links Categories
You will want to first add categories to your site to organize your web links.
Go to
Components -> Web Links -> Weblink Categories.
Click the New button at the top of the page.
Fill in the Category Title and Name. Often it's nice to use the same name to keep
them straight since one displays in your Weblink Categories page, and the other
will display on your site.
Select an image you wish to use for your page, if any. You can upload any images
you wish to use to your Mambo /images/stories/ directory. Be sure you do this
before you click on the New icon from the Weblink Categories page.
Select whether to display the image on the right or left of your Category
description.
Determine the access level for (who may have access to) this category, and
whether or not to publish it (viewable on your site) right away or not.
In the large text box, type in a description for this category which will display
on your site.
Click the Save button at the top of the page when done.
Adding Links
To add a link as an administrator, go to
Components -> Web Links -> Weblink Items.
Click on the New icon at the top of the page. Here you can fill in the
title (Name) of the link, URL, choose the category to place it in, and provide
a short description of the site. Of course you want to leave Approved and
Published set to 'yes'. On the right is a drop down box to determine
how the link will be activated in the visitor's browser. It's usually best to
set this to New Window With Browser Navigation for reference or store sites.
Editing Links and Categories
To edit a category, go to
Components -> Web Links -> Weblink Categories
and click on the name of the category. To edit a link, go to
Components -> Web Links -> Weblink Items and
click on a link name. From these pages you can edit and save your changes.
Removing Links and Categories
If you decide to remove any categories, you must first remove the weblinks within
those categories (or edit those links to be placed in another category) from the
Components -> Web Links -> Weblink Items page.
Just click on a name of a link to edit it and choose another category, then save.
If you want to remove links, click on the box next to the link name(s) and then
click the Delete icon at the top of the page.
To remove a Weblink Category, go to
Components -> Web Links -> Weblink Categories
and click in the box next to one or more categories you wish to delete, then
click on the Delete icon at the top of the page.
Note that you can also use the Unpublish icon at the top of either page
to simply not display a category or link on the site. The information will still
be in the database for later use. Note that if you unpublish a category, all the
links in that category, published or not, will also become inaccessible on your
site until you publish the category again.
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