The Content Elements inside the Design Pro Layout Editor can be divided into three principal categories

Content Areas - allowing you to define the places where users can add content on the pages of their site using your design
Navigation Panels - defining the location of the different navigation menus for your design
Other Elements - different things like Logo, Search, Footer Icons
 

Content Areas

To be able to add various content types (text, graphics, galleries, blogs and so on) you need to add content areas to your design layout. There are multiple content areas available in the Layout Editor content elements palette (top right). There are two basic types of content areas - regular and shared.

Regular Content Areas
Regular areas accept any kind of content you wish to add inside them and the content will appear in that content area only for the page you have added it in. Here is a list of the different content areas:
Main Content Area - best used as the content area for the main (central) page content. This is the only area that has a special feature - using the Page Layout properties window users can split this area into multiple columns (up to 3), controlling the width of the columns and spaces between them.
Side Content Area - usually used for content appearing on the side of the main content (left or right)
Aux Content 1-6 - additional content areas that can be used as needed

Shared Content Areas
Shared areas also accept all types of content, but as the name implies any content you add inside them will appear on all pages that use a layout featuring that shared content area. Shared areas include:
Header Content (shared) - normally used at the header of the page (slogan, etc)
Footer Content (shared) - usually appears at the footer of the page (copyright, address, etc)
Shared Content 1-4 - additional shared content areas

 

Navigation Panels

Design Pro allows you to add up to 4 navigation panels to your designs.

Main Navigation
The Main Navigation as its name implies is the main panel for the web site. With it you can create two-level navigation using sub-navigation menus. The main panel also allows the upload of custom images for each navigation item separately. There are three navigation item states
normal - the default appearance for all navigation items
selected - displayed when the item is rolled-over by the user
current - when the navigation item points to the page on which the user is on

  • Inside the Layout Editor, when the Main Navigation panel is selected, inside the Properties panel at left you will be presented with several options for the default behavior of the navigation and its sub-nav panels.
  • Orientation - Horizontal or Vertical - defining the placement of the navigation panel items. Side-by-side in the Horizontal Orientation and below one-another for the Vertical Orientation
  • Alignment - the alignment of nav items within the navigation panel
  • Type - Text, Flash or Image - Text is a text-rendered, style-driven navigation. Flash, as the name implies is a Flash navigation. Image is a navigation where the text-captions are rendered using a custom image-generating engine.
  • Sub-nav Layout - the appearance of the sub-nav panel
  • Sub-nav Animation - the way the sub-nav will animate while showing


Secondary Navigation
The Secondary Navigation allows for a per-page set up - you can create multiple secondary navigation panels and reuse them on multiple pages - enabling you to create complex web sites with content organized in site sections. The Secondary Navigation also has three navigation item states - normal, selected, current and you can upload custom images for each item.

The Secondary Navigation has the following options inside the Layout Editor

  • Orientation - Horizontal or Vertical - defining the placement of the navigation panel items. Side-by-side in the Horizontal Orientation and below one-another for the Vertical Orientation
  • Alignment - the alignment of nav items within the navigation panel
  • Type - Text, Flash or Image - Text is a text-rendered, style-driven navigation. Flash, as the name implies is a Flash navigation. Image is a navigation where the text-captions are rendered using a custom image-generating engine.


Header Navigation
Header Navigation is used usually in the header of the web site. The navigation items are rendered using text and feature two item states - normal and selected.

Footer Navigation
The Footer Navigation is used usually in the footer of the web site. Its items are rendered using text and feature two visual states - normal and selected.

 

Other Elements

Logo
This element defines the location of the site logo (or site title, if no logo is uploaded by the user).

Page Title
Defines the page title location on the page.

Search
This defines the location of the search box when it is enabled by the user in Site Properties.

Footer Icons
The three small icons that can be seen on the majority of our web sites - Edit / Email / Print. The appearance of the icons is additionally customizable by the user, allowing them to select to show icons + text, only icons or only text.

Powered By
This is where a "powered by..." message will appear, showing your private label after the text, e.g. "Powered by ACME Industries".