Quick guide: Managing your website

Managing website pages, menus, and media files

This guide provides an overview of the core modules used to build, organize, and manage your website content within the MC Professional platform.

Website components

• Articles: Generally represent a single page on your website, though a single webpage can also be composed of multiple articles stacked together.
• Categories: Act like organizational folders for your articles. For example, you might create one category for public articles and another for members-only articles.
• Menus: Your site's navigation menu. It houses the clickable buttons that direct users to your articles, forms, directories, or documents.

Permissions and access errors

To ensure your visitors can view your content, permissions must be aligned across all three core components. If permissions are misconfigured, users will encounter errors:

• "You do not have access to this article" error: Go to Website > Article Manager and click Permissions (top right) to authorize user group access.
• Missing navigation buttons: Go to Website > Menu Manager > Edit Menu Items and click Permissions (top center) to ensure the target group can see the menu button.
• Inaccessible content groups: Go to Website > Category Manager and click Permissions (top center) to authorize access to the folder.

Important: If your site uses only one category for all content, make sure its permissions are wide open so all intended user groups can access it.

Navigation menu items

To add a new menu item:

1. Go to Website > Menu Items.
2. Click the title of the menu you want to edit from the first column on the left.
3. Click New in the top toolbar.
4.  Select your Menu Item Type (see the reference list below). This dictates what happens when a user clicks the button.
5. Complete the prompt requirements (such as clicking Select an Article if you chose Single Article) and click Save.

Changing where an existing menu button points

Use these steps if a button already exists but you need to redirect it to a different destination (e.g., changing a temporary layout page to a live article):

1. Go to Website > Menu Manager and click your menu's title in the left column.
2. Click the name of the menu item you want to edit. (Use the pagination arrows at the bottom of the list if you have multiple pages of menu items).
3. Click Change Type to select a completely new destination category, or click the Select button next to Select Article if you just want to swap out the underlying article page.
4. Save your changes.

Menu item types

When creating or changing a menu button, you can link it to these system areas:

Media Manager

The Media Manager stores all images, graphics, and files used across your site. Go to Website > Media Manager to access it.

• Creating folders: Keep your files organized by creating dedicated folders (e.g., "images" or "documents"). Type a folder name in the input box directly below the "Files" header and click Create Folder.
• Uploading files: Click on your target folder title, click the Upload button near the bottom of the screen, select the file from your computer, and it will upload automatically.
• Inserting assets into articles: To insert an Image, click the Image button located beneath your article text editor box. To insert a Document as a text hyperlink, highlight your text and click the Site Links button below the article editor, then click the File tab.

Best practices

• Publish your forms first: A form must be set to Published before it will appear as an option in your Menu Item list or internal Site Links tool.
• Create pages before buttons: Always write and save your article page before you attempt to build a menu button that points to it.
• Linking directly to a document file: To make a menu button open a document directly (like a PDF copy of your bylaws), upload the file to the Media Manager first. Right-click the file name in the manager, select Copy Link Location, create a new menu item under Other > External Link, and paste that copied path into the link box.
• Sanitize your file names: Before uploading folders, images, or documents, rename them to use only lowercase letters, numbers, hyphens ("-"), or underscores ("_"). Remove all spaces and special characters to prevent broken links and browser formatting conflicts on your site.