Core Concepts
Pages
Pages are the foundation of Autoload. These consist of a mix of Content Blocks and Reusable Blocksthat can be customized and re-arranged in any order.
Concept
Every site has Pages, these are the main way to display content to the end-user.
Routing
Autoload comes with its own route file. In it, the very last route grouping is known as a "catch-all" route, meaning any request coming into an Autoload-powered site that does not hit a previously declared route, in both Autoload and your Laravel application itself, will fallback to this catch-all route. This is the route is used for Page routing.
If a request hits this Page route, we'll use the request's Slug to find a matching Page in the database and display that to the user who requested it.
Caching
Every Page route is lined with multiple instances of caching. For more information about Autoload's caching system, please click here to read more.
Authors & Editors
Every Page has both an Author and a last-known Editor. These assignments are handled automatically.
The Author is the user that initially created the Page. These will never change.
The Editor is the user who has last made and saved changes to a particular Page. These can, and will, change.
Unpublished Pages
Each Page can have an "active"/published status, or an "inactive"/unpublished status. "Active"/published status means that any user, anonymous or authenticated, can view and interact with that Page.
However, an "inactive"/unpublished Page is only viewable by authenticated users. This is a way to have a draft of a Page that is currently being worked on, or a Page that is no longer needed at the moment.
Usage
Editing a Page
Each section of the Page Editor can be collapsed to save space. Click the far right arrow icon of the section to collapsed/open that block. A collapsed section may still display important information/data, such as a quick link to the Page's URL.
Within the Page Editor, there are also "Hint Actions" you can take to save time, these are small blue text above and to the right of an input. Clicking these links will perform a specific action, such as copying the current input value to another input.
Slugs
Page slugs are used to uniquely identify Pages of your site and how users will access them. They are used to generate the Page's URL and to generate the Page's canonical URL for search engines.
The recommended way to create a Page Slug is to take the title property of your Page and convert all letters to lowercase and replace all spaces with dashes ("-"). It is important to note that Page Slugs must be unique, do not contain any spaces, and do not contain any special characters other than dashes ("-").
Metadata
Metadata is a way to store information about a Page. This information can be used to customize the Page's appearance and information displayed when listed as a search result or via social media.
Metadata will not be displayed on the Page for viewing, but is machine parsable, so search engines and social media platforms can use it to customize the appearance of that Page to site visitors.
It's important to note that writing clear and concise metadata can help improve search engine results. You can find specific documentation on how to structure Metadata here.
Content Blocks
Content Blocks are the "building blocks" of your Pages. These consist of Blocks that can be customized and re-arranged in any order on a Page.
There are many types of Content Blocks and each has its own unique properties and requirements. You can find specific documentation on how to use Content Blocks here.
Publishing and Indexing
Pages that are published can be shown to site visitors who search or click on them. Pages that are indexed are available to be displayed on search engines and social media.
Unchecking the "published" option on your page will hide it from site visitors and display a "404" not found status code.
Unchecking the "indexable" option on your Page will not allow search engines to crawl or display the Page information.
Cloning a Page
You may "clone" an existing Page's content and information to create a new Page. When you do this, you will be able to edit the new Page and make changes to its content and information. The cloned Page will be a copy of the original Page except for the Page Name and Slug, those must be unique.
To clone a Page, click the Clone icon at the end of the Page row you want to clone.