using rv site builder to create your next website

Using RV Site Builder to create a simple websiteBrought to you by the team at Rack Servers

RV Site Builder is a tool to create websites that comes bundled with (or can be installed in) CPanel. It is designed to make creation of websites easy, even for non-programmers. Here’s how you can use it to create a basic website.

Find RV Site Builder under your Software/Services menu. [If it’s not there, contact your web host for installation instructions]

Australian Web Hostingwww.rackservers.com.au

http://www.rackservers.com.au/



Click Create Web Site

Step 1: Enter your business details

These details will be used to fill in areas of your site later.




Step 2: Choose a template

Check out which template you think would suit your site. With 900 templates to choose from, you could be here a while looking – try the categories on the left to help narrow down your choices.

The top bit shows you the layout option, with the page split into sections – a header area, a main content area, a footer area, and other content areas you might be able to put widgets or plugins into (more on these below).

The bottom colour boxes show you the colour palette used for the template.




Step 3: Select your web site style

Here is where you can edit the basic layout and look of each page of your site. Here we can edit:

ColourYou can change the navigation menu and base image colour by clicking one of these palette colours.

PictureThe picture on the right of the header [in this case, fireworks or stars – these options will change depending on the template you have chosen].

Position and ResolutionPosition: If your page is not set to fit across the whole monitor, whether you want your page centred, of left/right justified.Resolution: Whether you want your page to fit across the width and height of the monitor, or a specific height and width no matter what size monitor your page is viewed on.

FontThe font for the content of your site.

Site wideAreas around the main content area that you can put extra bits into.




NavigatorThe style of the menu buttons at the top of the page. You can choose from the specific template’s style, or a list of other styles consistent across RV templates.

MoveYou can move the logo, company name or slogan by checking the box, then dragging that item around the header. You can reset the positions by clicking the Auto Positions box.

When you’ve made the changes you want, click the Save button. You can always come back to this page later by clicking the Step 3 button at the top of the screen.

Step 4: Page Structure

Here you choose the pages that make up the structure of your site. Some frequently-used pages are in the menu on the left, such as Contact, Portfolio etc. Simply select the page you want to add, then click Move.The layout template preview shows you the template of content areas that page is set up for. For any pages that you want to add that aren’t listed, select one that has the layout you want to use, then you can also edit the name of the page with the Rename button.You can edit the order of your pages by selecting the page in the Your Selection list, then clicking the Move buttons on the right. Did you notice in the previous step that we had a navigation button with a drop-down menu? You can create these pages by selecting them in the Your Selection list, then clicking the Move to Sub-Menu button (and undo that with the Move to Top Menu button).

When you’re done, click Save.




Here’s one I’ve created:

Step 5: Site Content




Here is the core of the site – the content. You can edit each page with the WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) graphical editor, or with a HTML code editor. We didn’t add any components earlier, but if you did, you can manage those here too.

You can check out how your site really looks by clicking the Preview button in the top-right.

Let’s edit the home page with the WYSIWYG editor (click the WYSISYG logo on the Home row):

It gives you some default content to show you how it could look. The menu buttons right at the top work like a word-processor (with font styling, tables etc), with some web-specific functions (like hyperlinks, for example) to insert. Hover over the buttons to see a description of what they are.

As this is a basic tutorial on creating a site, I’m not adding heaps of pictures, media or information. Play around with adding media, lists, links etc.




When you’re done, click the Save icon (a disk image) in the top-left corner of the screen.

Then you can close the window in your browser, and move on to editing each page in turn. When you’re all done, click the Step 6 icon at the top of this screen:




Step 6: Extras

Here you can edit the following:Web Page Title: a custom title appearing at the top of the browser windowMeta Tags: Descriptions used for search enginesPage Effect: Page transition effects (that only work in Internet Explorer...)Page Name: the URL of each page

This tutorial assumes you know what each of these means – for more information contact your web host or pop the terms into your favourite search engine.

When you’re done, click the Step 7 icon at the top of the screen.




Step 7: Publish

Here you can select from either:• Publishing the site as the main site on your domain, ie www.yourdomain.com • Publishing the site as a subsidiary, ie www.yourdomain.com/website

Then click Publish to finally get you site online. You get a screen like this as it works its way through the publishing process:




http://www.yourdomain.com/website

http://www.yourdomain.com/

If you aren’t happy with the site after you’ve published it, you can go back to the editor, make your changes, and publish the site again.

And there you have it- that’s how to create a basic website with RV Site Builder.




using rv site builder to create your next website

Documents

web page title

home page

site contentaustralian

web site stylehere

page split

page structurehere

site wideareas

web sitestep