Invisible Gold Quick Tour

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Windsor, CT 06095
(860) 285-0172
support@invisiblegold.com

Your Website Should Be Easy to Edit

Invisible Gold Quick Tour

Invisible Gold is an easy to use website building tool that allows you to maintain your website with just a web browser. No need to worry about breaking the site or paying for simple text or image changes.

Depending on the version, your Invisible Gold license includes pre-programmed features such as a shopping cart, email newsletter management, and multi-user functions like discussion boards and member directories.

There are 5 levels of Invisible Gold to choose from: Basic, Newsletter, eCommerce, Multi-User, and Advanced Commerce.

Separate Content, Design, and Programming

Invisible Gold separates the three elements of a website: the content (text and pictures), the graphic design (layout, colors, fonts), and the code (xsl, html, etc.), allowing each element to be updated independently.

As the content expert, you can upload photos, edit text, add new pages, etc. using just a web browser. It is simple to make changes, and you don't need to worry about accidentally breaking the code or the design. This means that it's easy to keep the information on your site accurate and up to date.

The website designer can use common tools like Macromedia Dreamweaver or Microsoft FrontPage to update the design of the site. Since the design is separate from the other elements of the site, it is far easier (and less expensive) to give the site a fresh look.

The code is what makes the site work. Invisible Gold is updated several times per year with new features. As new features are added, existing websites can be upgraded automatically. This means that your site stays current with technology and you enjoy new templates and other features new to Invisible Gold, free of charge.

Login

To make changes to your site, simply click the Login link at the bottom of any page. Enter your user name and password and you'll have access to the editing tools that appear at the top and left side of the website.

This is the administration interface that lets you eit your website, manage your mailing lists, check traffic, etc. Click the logout button on the left to logout.

Administration Interface

The administration interface allows you to make content changes, manage mailing lists and users, etc.

Notice the Guest Preview, Preview, and Edit buttons at the top. These allow you to preview the site without logging out.

There are five different levels of Invisible Gold. You'll only see buttons for the features available with the level of Invisible Gold you have installed.

Icons

There are nine different icons that you may see on the left side of the site, in the Administrative Interface:

Website - links to the last page you viewed or the home of your website.

Lists - displays a list of your mailing lists. These can be gathered from visitors or imported from other programs. Available in all levels of Invisible Gold.

Traffic - displays statistics about visitors to the site. Available in all levels of Invisible Gold.

Help - displays help documentation found on the www.invisiblegold.com website. Available in all levels of Invisible Gold.

Logout - logs out your user account when you are done making edits. Available in all levels of Invisible Gold.

Orders - displays a list of orders that have been placed by visitors. Available only in Commerce and Advanced Commerce levels of Inviisble Gold.

Users - accesses the user administrator system. Available only in Multi-User and Advanced Commerce levels of Inviisble Gold.

Approvals - displays a list of pages that were contributed by users that don't have administrator access. Available only in Multi-User and Advanced Commerce levels of Inviisble Gold (and depends on an optional setting in the System menu).

Banner Ads - displays the ad management system. Available only in the Advanced Commerce level of Inviisble Gold.

Editing text

To edit text, click on the page you want to change, click the edit button on the page. Change the heading and/or text. Click the save button.

Note that most pages allow you to use HTML tags in the text if you want. Use the Rich Edit template to get more of a "What You See Is What You Get" editor (like Microsoft Word).

HTML tags include:
<b>...</b> - Bold
<i>...</i> - Italic
<center>...</center> - Center

Uploading Photos

Images can be uploaded anywhere you see the "click to upload image" button. It will take you to the file upload page where you can select an image (.gif, .jpg, or .swf) from your computer and upload it to the page.

Once on the page, you can click the properties button to change the position, size, caption, or ability to expand the image.

Note: Invisible Gold automatically compresses images when uploaded, but it is best to reduce the size of the image first. Use a photo-editing program like Adobe Photoshop or one that came with your digital camera to make the file smaller in file size (under 300KB is best) and dimensions so your pages load quickly.

Image Properties

Once an image is on a page, you can click "Properties" to move it, resize, or enable "click to expand".

Images that are resized in the "Properties" are compressed and turned into .jpg files. This makes the file load faster.

However, if you want to use an animated GIF image, be sure to choose "Don't Resize" if you want it to continue to animate.

Create a new page

Anywhere you see a green "new" button on your site, you can click to create a new page. This will open up the Template library and allow you to pick the type of page you want to create.

Some websites have new buttons across the top, others have them in drop down menus, and others have them on the left side. This depends on your website, and something a graphic designer can help you with.

Template Library

The template library lists all of the different types of pages you can create, such as a Calendar page, a Discussion List, a Download List, etc. Simply click on the page template you want.

The page templates available to you depend on the level of Invisible Gold license on your site. For example, you can only use the Discussion List template if you have a Multi-User or Advanced Commerce Invisible Gold license.

You can also have custom templates created which appear her in red. These offer unique options such as event signup forms, special layouts, and special functionality. Roughly 30% of Invisible Gold powered sites have some form of custom template created by their web designers.

You will not see the template library if you are using an Invisible Gold "Starter" license. It is also possible to set the "Child Type" for a page if you want to create several pages in a row using the same template. (Click Advanced to see this option.)

You might want to set a "Child Type" on a Newsletter page, for instance, so you don't have to choose the page template you want every time you click "new" to add a new issue.

User administration

The Multi-User and Advanced Commerce licenses add the ability to manage user accounts. You can allow different users to manage their own sections of the site, access hidden pages, contribute to message boards, etc.

Mailing Lists

The Basic license and higher include the ability to create and manage an online mailing list. On your website, you can create a mailing list signup page, and track users that request more information or place orders online.

Click the General list to add email addresses manually or import them from a .csv file (most programs like Microsoft Outlook, Excel, and database programs can export a list to a .csv file.) Add a new mailing list by clicking the "Create a New List" button.

Orders

The Commerce and Advanced Commerce licenses add the shopping cart function and the orders list icons to the admin interface. If you sell items online, your orders will appear here. The credit card information, if providd, will be viewable here. Manual or automatic processing can be set in the system tab allowing several cart options. You can create products for purchase using the Product and Product Catalog templates. Editing these allows you to set product price, shipping cost, and other options.

Taking credit card orders requires secure hosting, a merchant account and a gateway like Authorize.net which can automatically deposit funds into your checking account. Other payment acceptance methods include PayPal and purchase orders.

Traffic

Every Invisible Gold website has the option to view graphs of website visitors on the Traffic page. There are different charts that show Pages Viewed, Repeat Visitors, Traffic Source, Visitors Online Now, etc.

Approvals

The Advanced Commerce license includes an Approvals system so you can approve visitor-submitted pages before they're viewable online. Approvals can also be required on new logins created by visitors who register for a free or paid account so they can edit their own information, if enabled. This is useful for membership directories, etc.

When you click the approvals icon, you'll see all items waiting for approval. Approve them one by one, all at once, or after clicking to view the each page. An "approve" button will appear at the top of any unapproved (and therefore, hidden) page.

Email Newsletters

An Invisible Gold website has the ability to send any page of your website as an html email. This greatly saves time as you can publish news or updates to a page and send it out to your list via email (this is available in the Newsletter or higher license).

To send a page by email, click on the page, and click the Send Email button at the top of the page. You can then choose one or more User Groups and Mailing lists to send the email to.

If an email address appears on multiple lists, it will only receive one email. Every email includes an unsubscribe link at the bottom that meets with the ICANN anti-spam law.

To test the way an email will look before sending it, keep the checkbox checked for "Only send the email to me". When you want to send the email to a list, uncheck that box before clicking "Send Email".

Security

Every Invisible Gold website includes a security feature to restrict access to various pages if necessary. It is very flexible in that you can allow certain users the ability to modify their own pages, create new pages, view private pages, etc.

Create hidden pages that only you can see by creating the page to be hidden, clicking the Security button at top, clicking "New", choosing "Everyone" and changing the rights to "no". Apply changes.

Keywords:

Templates, Frameworks, Users, HTML, Login

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