DotAdmin User Guide

Creating a New Zone

To create a new zone, click the Create Zone icon which is highlighted in the image shown below.

The “Create Zone” icon.

You will then be taken to the Create Zone form, shown below.

The “Create Zone” form.

Each of the fields in this form except for Zone ID and Zone Title are already set to a default value, so to create a new zone all you need to do is provide an ID, a Title and click the “Create” button at the end of the form. Below is a brief description of what each field is for:

Zone ID

The zone ID is used as the zone's address when links are created to it. For example: A zone with an ID of “information” would be available from http://www.yoursite.com/information/.

Zone Title

The zone title will appear as a link to this zone from within the CMS.

Zone Type

If you are creating a page within the “Home” zone, this will always be set to ‘Page’. If your new zone is inside the “Store” zone, it will be set to ‘Product’. You cannot edit this setting.

Zone Access

There are three levels of zone access: Public, Members and Privileged. They differ in the following ways:

Public:

All visitors to your site can access Public zones.

Members:

Only visitors who have set up a user account and provided contact details can access Member zones.

Privileged:

Only visitors who have been approved by an admin can access Privileged zones.

It is important to note that child zones inherit these restrictions from the zones above them. For example: This means that if a given zone is set as a “Members” zone, any zones within it must be either “Members” or “Privileged” zones.

Default Template

Specifies the default “Look and Feel” of pages within this zone, although this setting can be overridden for individual pages within the zone if necessary. Clicking the “Details” link next to this setting will show your designer's notes about each template to help you choose. The default template for the whole site is always called “Main”, so leave this setting selected if you are unsure of which template to pick.

Create in Which Zone?

Here, you will see a “Folder Tree” representing all the folders in your website where you are allowed to create new zones, with a button next to each one. To create a new zone in your Current Zone, you do not need to edit this setting - because it always defaults to your current zone.

Finally, click the “Create” button. You will see a brief confirmation message that your new zone has been created. If you created a zone in your Current Zone, you will also see that it has appeared in the list of Child Zones links at the top-right of the page.

When a new Zone is created, a page is also created within that zone. This page is called the “Zone Index” page, which is a special page which represents the zone itself. This page cannot be deleted without deleting the Zone it belongs to. For more information about Index pages, see the section regarding The Page Editor in this Guide.