Adding Dynamic Content (Missionaries, Projects, Blogs, and More) to Your Site

After you’ve created a new page in Site Planner, the next step will be adding content to your page.  

Dynamic content is the content that can be updated, often regularly, without the need to perform every step manually.  For example, a list of missionaries or sponsored children can have items added to it and taken away from it without the need to manually create and delete a new page each time.

This is different from static content, which is content on a web page (like basic text or images) that is expected to stay the same.

Dynamic content includes many content types in Site Planner, like missionaries, articles, projects, and more.  (Please note that the items in your list may look different than the image below, depending on your organization’s needs.) 

alt text- a list of dynamic content folders in site planner on the content explorer side

If, for example, your organization needs pages for hundreds of missionaries, articles, and children to sponsor, the amount of time creating these pages (and the space on your server) is greatly reduced by depending on dynamic content to show this content.  In most cases, you only need to create two pages as a base, the summary view page and the detail view page, and the linked dynamic content will populate.

alt text- many dynamic content items in expanded folders

Walkthrough:

Creating Your Content (if needed)-

1. Find the type of item you want on the Content Explorer side (the left-hand side) and right-click its corresponding folder.  For example, if you want to write some articles, right-click the Articles folder.  Choose “Add Item”.
2.  In the window that appears, fill out the title, summary, and body of your article.  Note that this is also where you add images to your article, both images that are in-line with the text as well as the cover image.
   
   
   
3. After saving and closing, you will notice the items you create populating the articles folder. 
4. Create two separate web pages on the Site Plan (the right-hand) side.  It’s common practice to name one page plural “articles” and the other singular “article”.  This is because the “articles” page will be your summary view, where all the articles are listed, and the “article” page will be a detail view created to read each article individually.

   

   Naming an “articles” and “article” page in Site Planner.
   
5. Starting on the Content Explorer (left) side, drag the articles folder on top of the new plural articles page, wait for the green plus, then let go.  Choose “body” for the position and “summary” for the view.
   
   You should see a folder with a small paper clip on it inside your articles page now.  Previewing the articles page will now show you the summary of all the articles in the articles folder.
   
   alt text- the link to the articles folder on Content Explorer inside the articles page
   
6. For the singular article web page, do the opposite.  Start on the Site Plan (right) side, and drop the page on top of the original articles folder on the Content Explorer side.  Choose “body” and “detail” for the view.  There should now be a large paper clip icon inside your singular article folder.

   

   
   

   alt text- the article and articles web pages linked to the content explorer folder

As soon as you provide a link for the plural articles page somewhere on your site now, the user should be able to view the list of articles and click one to read it.  The same steps we provided for displaying the articles dynamic content can be applied to missionaries, child sponsorships, and more.

Now that you know how to add dynamic content, check out our overview of site planner to add even more functionality to your web pages.