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Site View - What is it? It all has to
start somewhere and for Fusion, it starts with Site view. Site view is just what it says, "a view of your site." A "bird's-eye" view that is. When you start a new site in NetObjects Fusion, it opens up
in Site view. Schematically speaking, Site view shows the entire site as a family tree with parent, child and sibling pages (Fig 1). 
Fig. 1
In Site view, you can also do any of the following: Add pages
Name/Rename pages
Delete pages
Edit using the Properties palette
Move pages
When you create a new web site with Fusion, Site view will open with only one page in view - the Home page (Fig. 2). All
new sites must have a home page and this page cannot be deleted. 
Fig 2.
Site view can be used as the drawing board for your site. Before you start working with the text, graphics and links that you need on your pages - you first need to sit down and create
your site. You can always add and delete pages, but it is best to have an overview of what sections you will need or want on your site. Most of your time will be spent bouncing back and
forth from Site and Page view. So, in the beginning, put some thought into your site and come up with a basic structure and design. To learn more about how to plan and organize your site, click here. Site View Tools You will notice that there are only two tools in Site view's standard toolbar. They are the Select tool and the Zoom tool
(Fig. 2.).
Fig. 3
If these tools are not visible, you may not have them selected.
Go to View and select Standard Tools (Fig. 4). 
Fig. 4
The Selec
t tool allows you to point, select, drag and drop page icons. The Zoom tool allows you to zoom in or out of your site. Site Outline View
By selecting the Outline tab (Fig. 5), you can view the site
structure in an outline format. This format includes a table of the properties: child name, page type, status, publishing status, and comments. For now, let's stick with the structure view.
Fig. 5
Seeing is one thing, but doing is something else entirely. Now
that you have a basic overview, let's talk about the actions you can perform and begin to create and edit our site. 
Adding New Pages
Having a Home page usually isn't going to be enough, you'll probably want to add pages to your site. There are two easy ways to add a page or pages to your site:1.
By clicking on the New button (Fig. 6) - top right of your Fusion window 
Fig. 6
2. By
right clicking on the page you want to add pages to. This brings up a menu (Fig. 7). Simply select New Page. 
Fig. 7
Whenever you add a page to the site, it will show up below the currently selected page as one of its children. As seen in Figure 8. 
Fig. 8
You can add as many pages as you want. Each time you add a
page, it will be placed to the right of the last page added. Remember, the page will go under the page that you currently have selected. In this case, it is the Home page. 
You can also add new pages and perform a variety of other functions from the Edit menu. |
Notice the new page is named "Untitled" (Fig. 7). Naturally,
you will want to give it a more specific page title - which is what we will discuss next.
Naming Pages
Whenever you add a page in Fusion, it automatically names the new page "Untitled." So, unless you want to confuse your viewers, you will want to create a new name. There are two easy ways to name your page:
1. Move your mouse over the title name until a box outlines the name "Untitled" (Fig. 9). Then, single click inside this box. This will bring up a text cursor and highlight the current text
allowing you to edit it (Fig 10). Just type in the new name.  
Fig. 9 Fig. 10
If you have a lot of pages to rename (going from left to right),
you simply hit the Tab button on your keyboard to shift over to a sibling page. It will automatically set you in text edit mode, so you can rename the page without having to do any clicking inside name fields.
2. Another way to rename pages is to use the Properties palette (Fig. 11). 
Fig. 11
In the Name field, you can highlight the current name and simply type your new name over the old one. We will talk about Custom Names in the Properties Palette section.
Now that we have learned how to add and name pages, let's talk a bit about deleting them.
Deleting Pages
Okay, so you've added one too many pages and you would like to see it removed. Easy enough, just remember this important factor: Deleting a page cannot be undone - it will be permanently removed.
Fusion will remind you of this important fact by displaying the window in Figure 12 each time you start to delete a page.
Fig. 12
When you delete a page you also delete ALL of the pages that are under it (all of its children). So be careful when
deleting pages. |
Okay, here is how you delete a page:1. Right click on the page you want to delete to bring up the
menu (Fig. 7). 2. Select Delete Page from the menu. 3. After reading the Warning, click on Yes to delete the page. Now let's find out some ways we can fine tune our site by using
Site view's Properties palette.
For a fast way to delete pages, you can also select a page and then hit the delete key. |
Properties Palette
When you open Site view, the Properties palette (Fig. 13), should also be visible. 
Fig. 13
If the Properties palette is not visible, then go to View and select Properties Palette
(Fig. 14). 
Fig. 14
With the Properties palette, you have three tabs: View, Site and
Page. There is also a Section tab, but it is really just a part of the Page tab. To get to the Section tab properties you would need to hold down the Shift key as you select a page -
more on that later. Okay, let's review the properties available on each tab. Page Tab Name
This field allows you to give your page a name - as we discussed in Naming pages. Just highlight the text in the field and type in your new name.Custom Names
This is a very handy feature and a great part of the Site view editing functions. When you click on the Custom Names button, you will get the window in Figure 15. 
Fig. 15
By default, the Page Title, Navigation Button and Banner use the page name. Page Title
This is the text that you see at the top of a web site. This title is important for search engines, so be sure to place keywords into your title if search engine placement is important. Also,
when a person bookmarks your page (or adds to favorite places), the Page Title creates the name of the bookmark. Navigation Button
When you add pages in Site view, Fusion will also add the
appropriate links on the actual pages. These can be seen in Page view
. Usually you will want to leave this name the same as your page name for easier navigation, but if the name is long it may not fit well on your actual page. If you want to add a
second line to your button text, press Enter (on your keyboard) after the first line.Banner
This text appears in your page banner. This is convenient if
you want to add a more descriptive page heading. If you want to add a second line to your banner text, press Enter (on your keyboard) after the first line. File Extension
This will specify a custom extension for your page file. For example, page files usually have an .html or .htm extension. In some cases a page requires a different extension in order to
function properly with the server software. For instance, .shtml is used on pages for secure locations. Most likely you won't need to make any changes here and if you do, you will know what they are.
Okay, take a look at Figure 16. 
Fig. 16
Let's say my page name was "One." In the above example I made the Page Title longer and included the keywords I want search engines to pick up. For the Navigation Button I
shortened my name to just "1" because I plan to have quite a few numbers on my site and I need to save the space. The Banner I made into a more appropriate heading.
Okay then - let's get back to the other items on the Page Tab. Page type
This shows whether your page is "normal" or a "stacked page." Stacked pages are created when you are using a data list.
Color
This allows you to change the color of the Site view icons as in Figure 17. 
Fig. 17
You can use colors to help make it easier to see which pages are part of a particular section. You can also create your own color code - for example, all blue pages are to be reviewed by Bill
and all green pages are to be edited by Sally. Changing the color of your icons in Site view has no effect on your published site. It's purely for your viewing pleasure. To
change the color of your page - click the Color button. The Color Picker window will appear (Fig. 18). 
Fig. 18
From here you can choose a color from the appropriately selected color palette and hit OK. If possible, choose a browser safe color.
To change the color of a Parent page and all of its Children, simply hold down the Shift key when selecting the parent page.
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Status
This is a convenient way to manage your pages, especially if you have a very large site. The setting doesn't affect your pages and is purely used as an identifying marker. The default selection is set to N
ot Done. When on the Not Done setting your page looks the same. When set to Done, the page icon will have check mark added in the top of the icon (Fig. 19).
Fig. 19
Publish and Don't publish
The page icon will display a red dot when you select
Don't publish (Fig. 20). 
Fig. 20
This selection will make it possible to publish some pages while not publishing others that might be under construction.
Marked pages are removed from the navigation bars of other pages on your site, manually created links are disabled and HTML
will not be produced when publishing. |
WARNING
Do not mark pages with the Don't Publish selection as a way to exclude pages in an attempt to publish changed pages only to an already published site. Doing so will cause broken links and
other undesirable results.Comments
This is for your own notes regarding the pages. Great for putting in reminders or information for other workers to read.
Section Tab The Section Tab allows you to make adjustments to a section of
pages. A section is any page and all its children, their children and so on. The Section Tab is really just an extension to the Page tab. To open the Section tab, hold down the shift key
while you select the parent page. The Section tab will replace the Page tab as seen in figure 21. And all the pages under the selected page will become highlighted.
Fig. 21
With the exception of the MasterBorder field, all the properties
are the same (and function the same) as that of the Page tab. Only difference is you will be applying the changes to the entire section rather than just a page. To learn more about MasterBorder, click here. Site Tab The Site tab (Fig. 22) displays some basic information about your site:
site name, date created, date last modified, number of pages and the site's author.
Fig. 22
If you enter an Author name, it will be included in a Meta tag that appears in each page's HTML file header when the site is published. View Tab With the View tab (Fig. 23), you can change the orientation of
the icons and the background color in Site view. Again, these changes have no effect on your site and are there only to aid the eye. 
Fig. 23
To change the orientation, simply select the vertical or horizontal orientation button. To change the Color, click on the Color button and select the color you would like for your background.
Now let's move on to moving pages.
Moving and Collapsing Pages
Moving pages
Before you can move a page, you need to first decide which page will be the Target page. A Target page is not the page you are moving. It is the page that you are moving the
selected page next to or under. In other words, the moved page will become the Target's sibling or child, depending on where you place it.You move a page by dragging and dropping it in the new
location. As you move the page over the Target page, a colored outline will highlight the Target page and a triangle will appear (Fig. 24). 
Fig. 24
Wherever the triangle is pointing, is where your page is going
to go. To the left or right will make it a sibling and if the triangle is at the bottom of the page, it will become a child.
Whenever you move a page in Site view, Fusion will automatically update all of the links within the site. |
Collapsing pages
As your site grows, you will begin to notice that there isn't very much room in Site view to display all of your pages. So, to
make it easier, you can collapse all of the children on any particular page. Notice on any page that has child pages there is a small black triangle beneath the icon (Fig. 25).
Fig. 25
To collapse a page and hide the child pages, you just click on the
little triangle. The pages will then be represented by a small plus symbol below the icon as in Figure 26. 
Fig. 26
That's it for Site view - Have Fun! |
