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Switching On the Page Builder

The page builder is installed switched off. This article covers turning it on, the settings that come with it, and finding your way round the editor, which opens in a full window of its own rather than inside the admin screens.

Where to find it

Architect Panel → Layout & Pages:

  • Page Builder — the list of pages, headers, footers, popups and e-mails, and the way into the editor

Turning it on

Until it is enabled, the Page Builder tile opens a blue notice, "The page builder is switched off", and the editor shows a page saying the same. Nothing changes for visitors while it is off.

  1. Open the Site Options screen (see Site Settings) and find the Page Builder group.
  2. Tick Enable the page builder and save the group.
  3. Open Page Builder again. You now see one card per kind of document: Pages, Headers, Footers, Reusable sections, Popups, E-mail templates and Global widgets.

Switching it on does not change any existing page. A page keeps showing its current content until somebody opens it in the builder and publishes a new version.

The other settings in the group

  • Maximum elements per document: the cap on elements in one document, checked on save (500 by default).
  • Maximum rows a Loop may return: the cap on records a Loop widget lists (100 by default).
  • Allow unsanitised HTML: off by default. When on, an architect (and only an architect) may place a raw HTML element for embeds that do not survive cleaning.
  • Revisions kept per document: how many manual saves are kept (50 by default). Published versions are always kept.
  • Autosave interval (seconds): how often the editor saves a draft while you work (20 by default; 0 turns autosave off).
  • Draft preview link validity (seconds), E-mail content width (pixels), Inline compiled CSS below this size and Map provider tune previews, e-mail layout, page speed and the Map widget.

Creating and opening a document

  1. On the card for the kind you want, click New and give it a name when asked "What should this be called?".
  2. Click Edit on its row. The editor opens in a full browser window.
  3. Each row shows a Published or Draft badge and when it was last edited. "open in an editor" means somebody else has it open; it is advisory and nothing is locked.

Headers, footers, reusable sections and global widgets apply across the site, so only architects can create them.

Finding your way round the editor

  • Top bar: a back arrow to the document list, the document's name, an "Unsaved" marker when you have changes, three preview widths (Desktop, Tablet, Mobile), Undo and Redo (Ctrl+Z, Ctrl+Shift+Z), Save and Publish.
  • Left rail: Add an element, Navigator (the tree of everything on the page) and Document settings.
  • Status line: where you are in the tree, and "Saved", "Autosaved" or "Published" with the time.

Save keeps a revision without changing what visitors see. Publish saves and makes that version live. See Page Builder for revisions, templates and access.

What goes wrong and how to tell

  • "Somebody else has saved this document since you opened it": your changes were not saved. Open the document in a new tab, look at their version, then decide what to keep.
  • "The page builder is not installed": the hosting administrator has not applied the page builder to this system yet.
  • A page you deleted from the list is still on the site: by design, it reverts to the content it had before the builder was used on it.

Turning it off again

Untick Enable the page builder. Every page goes back to the content it had before it was built, because the builder never overwrites that content. Built documents are kept, ready for when it is switched back on.

Worked example

A charity wants a new landing page for an appeal. The architect enables the page builder, creates a page called "Winter Appeal", builds it in the editor while checking the Mobile width, and saves twice over an afternoon. The old site is untouched throughout. When the copy is signed off they click Publish, and the page goes live; the rest of the site still shows its original content.

Recommendations

  • Enable it on a test system first, and build one page end to end.
  • Leave Allow unsanitised HTML off unless an embed genuinely needs it.
  • Check every page at Mobile width before publishing.
  • Keep autosave on; it does not add to the revision history.