How to Use Your Version 9 Navigation Bar
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eMerchantClub's Version 9 eCommerce website release offers some terrific new enhancements and tools which were designed to give you more flexibility and control over your website. One such feature is the enhanced Version 9 Navigation Bar, which is available only for Version 9 layouts. While the Version 9 Navigation Bar offers expanded capabilities, it is also very different from the classic navigation bar and may at first seem a bit daunting to a new user. This section of the newsletter is designed to help you become more familiar with the Version 9 Navigation Bar feature. To see the Version 9 Navigation Bar, first be sure that you have applied a Version 9 layout. If you do not have a Version 9 Layout applied to your site, then click on Appearance, then click Style and Color, and click on New Layouts. From this screen, choose any layout between 76 and 85 and click Apply. Once a Version 9 layout is selected, the Version 9 Navigation Bar will be visible after clicking on Navigation Bar in the Appearance section. The Version 9 Navigation Bar feature is designed to allow you to place your navigation links into relevant categories on your site. This should allow your shoppers to more easily find the links they are looking for and should increase the overall ease of use of your site. For example, the Shopping section contains links only pertaining to shopping such as Products, View Cart and Checkout . In addition to the Shopping section, there are three other categories on your site, which include Affiliate Program, Customer Service, and Site Info. Each Version 9 layout contains a place for these sections, and each section is placed strategically according to the importance of the section. The Shopping section, for example, is placed prominently on the page while the Affiliate Program, Customer Service, and Site Info are placed near the bottom of the page since this is the typical place that a shopper will look for these sections. The first thing you might have noticed when coming to this section is that there is no long list of all of the links contained in your navigation bar. In order to see the details of each link, you must first select one of the four categories from the dropdown labeled Select Category . For example, select Shopping from this dropdown. Notice that the box below the dropdown now contains a list of links as seen in the image below.
This is a list of the links which will appear in the Shopping section of your site. Select any one of the links and notice that the buttons to the right of the list have now become active. These buttons are only active when a link is selected. With these buttons, you can change the order of the links by clicking on the Move Up or Move Down buttons or delete a link by selecting a link and clicking the Delete button. You can also view the details of the selected link by clicking on the Details button. Clicking the Details button of the link will show you all of the editable fields of the link as seen below.
Here you can specify a link name, the destination of the link in the URL textbox and also format the link with font styling, color, and background color. Only the Link name and URL are required for the navigation bar to function properly. The other three sections are optional and are only necessary if you'd like to specify a different color, font or background than is already shown on your Version 9 layout. The next thing you may have noticed on this page is the box to the left of the list of links. This is where links which are not yet assigned to a category will go. After you create a new link, the name of the link will first appear in this box. Since links in this box are not yet assigned to a category, they do not yet appear on your site. Let's create a brand new link in order to illustrate how the process works. On the top of the page, you'll see a section labeled Add a new link on the navigation bar. Enter the name of the link in the Link name textbox in this section.
Once the link is in the box on the right, it is visible in that section of your website. Remember, you can use the Move Up and Move Down arrows to change the order in which the links appear on your site. If you would like to change the category in which a link appears, then you can temporarily move the link to the box on the left using the << button. Then choose the desired category from the Select Category dropdown. Once the correct category is chosen, select the link and move it to the box on the right using the >> button. As you move links around and create new links, notice that there is a diagram near the bottom of the page which shows you which category each link is assigned to as seen below.
The links shown in this diagram are the links which are visible on your website. As you move links to different categories, add links to a category or delete links, this diagram is updated so that you can always refer to it to see what is currently shown on your site. You may also have noticed that the page has two buttons labeled Assign Links to Default Categories and Reset Navigation Bar to Default . The Assign Links to Default Categories button will move all of your links to their default categories without deleting any of the links that you created. The Reset Navigation Bar to Default button will restore all of the links to default settings. Pushing this button will delete all of the links that you created so be careful in pushing this button. The Edit Categories link will take you to a new page which will allow you to change the name of any or all of the four categories. This section is shown in the image below.
Here you can simply type a new name in the appropriate textbox and click on the Update button. To return to the previous screen, click on the Back to Navigation Bar link.
Hopefully, this article has helped you to become familiar with the use of the Version 9 Navigation Bar. Used properly, this feature can help to make your site easier to navigate and more friendly to your shoppers. You can also view this section of the eMC Manual by clicking here or to view a video tutorial of this topic, click here. If your site has not yet been upgraded to Version 9, please call us at (888) 806-2081 to see how we can update your site with the latest features. As always, if you have any questions please contact Technical Support via e-mail at techsupport@emerchantclub.com by going to Live Chat Technical Support at http://www.emerchantclub.com/support.html or by calling (877) 384-4691. Thank you, Your eMerchantClub Team |
