General/Layout

Add and Use Headings

Using headings properly can help in creating a semantic, organized structure to your content, and in allowing site visitors to more easily navigate and read through your website content. If your page content has a lot of sections, each with its own subtitle, you should consider using headings instead of simply applying bold or using CAPITAL LETTERS for your section titles.

Accessibility

Proper use of headings is an accessibility best practice. See the Digital Accessibility Program's (DAP) page about using...

Menus

Site Builders can move, edit, and delete menu items on Open Berkeley sites. Menus on Open Berkeley sites include the following:

collapse all expand all Main menu (primary navigation)

The main menu (also commonly referred to as "primary navigation") is under the Berkeley wordmark and site name, and above the main content of all pages. The general recommendation (from a usability perspective, and for optimal display) is to keep...

Use and Change Layouts

There are a variety of pre-configured available layouts with a variety of regions (hero, header, sidebar, etc.) on your Open Berkeley pages to help feature and organize your content.

Other Theme Settings

The additional options available in Theme Settings are as follows. These options are available from the Site Builder Dashboard (the "Dashboard" link in the upper left corner of the screen), under Other Administration ("Theme Settings for Open Berkeley Brand"):

collapse all...

URL Aliases (Friendly Path Names)

URL aliases (e.g., “about-us” instead of “node/9”) are automatically assigned by default, and are what appear in the URL of your individual pages (e.g., http://YOURSITE.berkeley.edu/about-us). If desired, they can be manually assigned when creating or editing a node, and site builders also have the option of administering aliases via the site builder dashboard.

When creating or editing a page, under "URL path settings" at the bottom of the page, "Generate automatic URL alias" will be automatically checked. This...

Edit photos and files from the dashboard

From your admin menu and dashboard, you can download a list of the files on your site, edit the default alt and title text of image files, change the names of files, replace a file with a new version, and crop an image.

To perform any of these actions, navigate to your "Files" tab by hovering over your admin menu, or clicking on your dashboard in the upper left corner of your site.

Accessing the Files dashboard

Admin menu (click on the "Files" drop-down):

...

Site Search

On every Open Berkeley page, there is a search box that allows visitors to search your site's content.

About Site Search

The search uses an index, which parses page content into keywords and weights them according to things like whether they are in the page title or a subheading.

Search results pages include facets that allow filtering of results by content type and by sitewide topic....

Berkeley Brand (Public Affairs)

The Open Berkeley theme (design) aligns with the Public Affairs brand materials and guidelines.

Berkeley Brand Theme Settings

There are a few settings available that specifically pertain to the Public Affairs branding guidelines.

collapse all expand all Berkeley Wordmark (and site names that start with the word "Berkeley")

The "...

Manage Main Menu

You can add and move content to the main menu (primary navigation). All menu items in the main menu need a "parent" (top-level) item. For the parent items in the main menu, the main menu itself is the "parent," and any additional items are considered "child pages" (sub-pages) of the parent items. Child pages will show up in a local (sidebar) menu from the parent item.

Main Menu Display

By default, the main menu will display as a simple drop-down. See Figure 1, below.

Figure 1:...

Mega Menu

The "mega menu" option aligns with the Public Affairs branding guidelines. Photos added/uploaded to the Mega Menu may be cropped and scaled in order to fit the appropriate aspect ratio. For more information on this, please see Image Shapes and Sizes About the Mega Menu

By default, the menus in the Open Berkeley theme have a simple drop-down functionality (similar to the previous theme). The theme...