Entry page

Step 1 - Settings > The Advanced section >

Entry page

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In this window you can create a Welcome page for your website, and offer a number of languages that visitors can choose from to consult the website in.

As the name suggests, the Entry page is a sort of front cover to the website: it may have a picture, animation or a video in it and it is usually displayed for a set amount of time before the Home page is shown. Sometimes the visitor has to click in order to pass on to the Home page (with a message such as "skip intro"). If the website is available in more than one language, the choice of languages is sometimes offered on this page.

If you are working with the Pro edition, you can also use the Entry page to set up automatic redirection according to the language or resolution that is detected, thus improving the visitor's navigating experience.

Click to expand/collapseReference: Commands for setting up a Entry page

Not every website has a Entry page. If you do want to include one in your website, select the Show the Entry Page option.  Then you need to specify what you want to use it for. The options are:

Show the Entry page: the Entry page is the first page visitors see in the website and it will remain on view for a fixed time or until the visitor clicks on the link to pass to the home page.
Show the Entry page and ask for the choice of language: this welcome page behaves as the previous one and also gives the visitor the choice of language in which to view the website.
Detect the language automatically: the welcome page is created but never displayed. In fact, it just contains the code for detecting the language of the visitor's browser and redirecting to the corresponding home page. It is presumed that different language versions exist. If the detected language is not one of the website's languages, the visitor is redirected to the home page of the website in the default language.
Detect the resolution automatically: this option also creates the welcome page but it isn't displayed as it just contains the code necessary for detecting the resolution of the visitor's device and redirect it to the most appropriate version of the website. It is presumed that different versions of the website exist, which are optimized for differing resolutions (for example, a desktop version and a mobile version).
Click to expand/collapseReference: Commands for adding content to the Entry page

If you select either the Show the Entry page or Show the Entry page and ask for the choice of language option, you must complete the Entry page with the contents and the background, setting up a soundtrack too, if you want one.

The options for the Page Contents are:

Type: you can specify what sort of content to add to your Entry page. Contents can be an Image, Animation, Video and HTML Code.
File: if you choose an Image, Animation or Video as the content Type, you need to import the graphic file for the image (in .JPG, .GIF or .PNG format), the animation file (in .WAX5 or .SWF format) or the video file (in .MP4, .WEBM or .OGG format) to use. If you choose to use an Image, then you can click on the button to open the Image from Online Library... window.
HTML Code: if you choose HTML Code as the content Type, you enter the code here. The toolbar contains these tools:

Cut [CTRL+X] - Copy [CTRL+C] - Paste [CTRL+V]

These options cut, copy and paste the selected text.

Undo [CTRL+Z] - Redo

These commands undo/restore the last operation to be carried out/undone.

Size: you can specify the width and height of the Image, Animation, Video or HTML Code in pixels. Leave the Keep Ratio selected to keep the ratio between width and height.

The following options are available for the Page Background:

Background Color: you can specify the color of the Entry page's background.
Image File: indicates the image file (.JPG, .GIF, .PNG.) for the picture to use as the background. You can look for the picture to use in the Online Library, which you can open by clicking on the button, or in the files on your computer, by clicking on the File selection button.
Repeat: indicates whether the page background image is to be repeated, or not. It can be repeated horizontally, vertically or in both directions so that it occupies all the available space. The background image can also be resized so that it adapts to the available space.
Alignment: you can specify how the image is to be aligned in the browser window.

These Options are also available:

Entrance Sound: you can indicate the audio file (in .MP3 format) to be used as background music when the Entry page is displayed.
Jump to Home Page after [sec]: this option is only available if you have selected Show the Entry page: you can specify the number of seconds the Entry page is to be displayed for, after which the Home page appears automatically.
Click to expand/collapseReference: Commands for the choice of language

If you select either the Show the Entry page and ask for the choice of language or Detect the language automatically option, you must also enter the settings for language management.

Compile the list of languages you intend offering in the Language List. There are five languages in the list by default: you can use the following commands to change the list:

Add... / Remove: you can add a language to the list in the Language Settings window, or delete a language from the list.
Move up / Move down: if you have selected Show the Entry page and ask for the choice of language, you can change the order of the languages in the list, moving the selected language up or down to a new position.
Current: you can set one of the languages in the Language List as the "default" language. If you have selected Show the Entry page and ask for the choice of language, you must set the "default" language that all visitors will see when they open your website, before they choose the language they want to view the site in. If, on the other hand, you selected Detect the language automatically, you must set the "default" language for the website version to which visitors are redirected when the language of their browser is not among the languages available for the website. In both cases, the website in the default language is the only one which must have a Entry page.
Edit...: this opens the Language Settings where you can change the settings for the language selected from the Language List.

For more information, see How to create a multi-language website  

Although we have talked mainly about language choices in the Entry page, there are other features that you can include here. You could, for example, offer choices of "Contents suitable for everybody / Adults only".

Click to expand/collapseReference: Commands for defining resolution-based redirection

If you select Detect the resolution automatically, only available in the Pro edition of WebSite X5, you don't need to add any content, but you do need to set the breakpoints to identify the resolution intervals to which the viewports of the various website versions correspond. If you prepare several versions of the website and each is optimized for a different resolution (for example a desktop version and a mobile version), the program automatically detects the resolution of the devices that visitors are using and redirects each one to the most suitable website version.

A breakpoint can be generically defined as a point at which, in a range of varying resolutions of the possible devices on which a website can be displayed, the website's page layout changes in some way to adapt to a different screen size.

The Breakpoints shows the list of all the breakpoints that have been defined, with the intervals that they determine and the URLs of the website versions they are linked to. When a new project is created, it has two breakpoints by default, that determine the Desktop and Smartphone viewports.

The breakpoint for the Desktop viewport is set automatically, taking the current setting of the desktop template's resolution, and it cannot be changed manually. The URL for this breakpoint is also set automatically, with the value given in the WebSite Address (URL) field in the Website Settings | General window.

Apart from the breakpoints that determine the Desktop and Smartphone viewports, therefore, all the other breakpoints can be added, changed or removed, using the commands in the Breakpoint List:

Add...: this opens the Breakpoint settings window where you can add a new breakpoint, indicate the resolution at which it becomes active and specify the URL it redirects to. You can have a maximum of 10 breakpoints.
Current: this sets the breakpoint selected in the Breakpoints as the "default" breakpoint.  The "default" breakpoint must be the one of the website of the project you are working on.
Edit...: use this command to change, in the Breakpoint settings window that opens, the resolution of the selected breakpoint. It cannot be used on the breakpoints associated with the Desktop and Smartphone viewports, because these values are set automatically.
Remove: this deletes the selected breakpoint. The breakpoints associated with the Desktop and Smartphone viewports cannot be deleted.

If you include a Entry page in your website, the special "Entry page" page is added automatically to the website Map. Select it and open the Page Properties window to define the main characteristics.  

 


Best practices:

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How to translate automatic text

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How to create a multi-language website

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How to create the desktop and mobile versions of a website