Customising your Making Music Platform

This guidance specifically covers customising your Making Music Platform. Before reading this, please ensure that you have read our help guide on Getting Started with your Making Music Platform.

All of the Making Music Platform help guides and latest Platform News can be found on the MM Platform Service hub page.

You can also download and read the full Customising your Making Music Platform helpguide in PDF format.

AN INTRODUCTION TO CUSTOMISING YOUR MAKING MUSIC PLATFORM

Customise your Making Music Platform

The template Making Music Platform which you’ll receive includes a lot of editable pages and a comprehensive set of administrative tools and modules.

Some groups will find that they don’t need all of these pages and tools. Your Platform is enormously customisable: if there are modules or pages on your site which you don’t want to use, you can disable the modules and delete or hide the pages.

You can also control access to pages e.g. restrict certain pages so that they’re only visible to admins/webmasters. This can be useful both for tools which members shouldn’t be able to view, and to allow you to work on website pages until you’re ready to show them to your members/the general public.

For further information on controlling access to pages, please see our help guide Platform Access Levels.

If you cannot find what you are looking for in our help guides or have any questions please get in touch.

Modules

Your Making Music Platform has a number of Modules (features and administrative tools) which can be enabled or disabled as desired from your Website Configuration.

TIP: see the help guide about the Website and Configuration page for more information about this area.

Some Modules on your Making Music Platform are enabled by default (e.g. Invoicing, Event Tickets and Attendance Tracking). Less commonly-used Modules (e.g. Productions and Performance Packages) might be disabled.

You can view which Modules are currently enabled on your Making Music Platform:

  1. Go to your Website Setup and Configuration.
  2. Click the Settings cog next to ‘Making Music Platform | [Your Group Name]’ to open your Making Music Platform Details.
  3. Navigate to the Configuration tab. The list of Modules is at the top of that tab.

You can enable and disable Modules from the Configuration tab in your Platform Details.

If you cannot find what you are looking for in our help guides or have any questions please get in touch.

Categories

Your Making Music Platform is built on a database which can hold all of your membership details, group resources and administrative information. You can view all the different sections of the database in the third column of your Admin Dashboard (for more information, see our help guide The Admin Dashboard).

In order to effectively keep track of all this data, the database tags and stores information based on information categories. For example, when you add a new event to your calendar you will be prompted to assign it an Event Category. Events which have the same category will display in the same colour in the Event Calendar.

These categories also allow you to customise what information is shown on automatically populated pages on your Platform – like the Song Library. By default your Song Library shows all the songs you have added to the website. By adjusting the Song Library settings, you can instead tell the Song Library to show only those songs in a certain Song Category. You might do this if, for example, you wanted to only show songs in the category ‘Christmas Songs’ until your winter concert is finished.

Customising Categories

You can customise almost all the categories in your Making Music Platform.

To view the lists of categories:

  1. Go to your Admin Dashboard
  2. Click on the ‘Lists’ link in the Database tables (third) column and Website Config/Info (second) row.
  3. Select the list of categories that you want to view/update, or click ‘ALL CATEGORIES’ to view the whole list.

To edit list items from the List Items Administration page:

  1. Follow the steps immediately above to find the list of categories you want to edit.
  2. Click the tiny Update icon on the far right of the particular category you want to edit.
  3. You can also add new categories by clicking the ‘+ Add new list item’ button to immediately above the list of categories.

Please note we advise that you don’t delete categories unless you are certain that those categories are not being used. Deleting categories which are in use can lead to errors and pages displaying incorrectly on your MM Platform.

If you cannot find what you are looking for in our help guides or have any questions please get in touch.

 

CHANGING THE OVERALL LOOK OF YOUR PLATFORM

How to change the site's colour scheme

Your Making Music Platform has a colour scheme, consisting of two colours:  The first (your site's primary colour) is represented by the solid coloured bar across the very top of your site. The second (your site's secondary colour) is the background colour of your site's "footer" - the bottom section of most public-facing pages that contains your contact details, upcoming events, latest news, etc.

You are able to change both of these colours at any time...

  1. Log into the website with "Webmaster Access"

  2. Click the little "cog" icon in the top-right corner

  3. Click the cog icon next to Making Music Platform

  4. Click on the Appearance tab

  5. Here we can see the two "theme colours".  Click the little icon to the right of the "code" to see a full palette of web colours to choose from.
  6. Use the vertical rainbow slider to select a base colour, then click in the big coloured square to select a colour.  You can also enter values for HSV or RGB colours, or a "hex" colour code (e.g.#2a04cc).
  7. Click OK when you are happy with your colour choice
  8. Click Save at the bottom of the page when you have chosen both colours.
How to Change Your Logo

Note that logo files should be at most 400 x 150 pixels (300 x 100 is typical).  Ideally, they would be a transparent PNG or GIF, but JPEG files are also okay.

If you have not yet added a logo, you will see our "Your logo here" placeholder graphic in the top-left corner of your page; otherwise, you will see your current logo.

To add or replace the logo, proceed as follows:

  1. Click the Update logo icon at the bottom-left corner of the existing logo or placeholder. This takes you to the Promotion tab of the Ensemble Details page.
  2. Under the Logo heading, you will see either your existing logo or the words There is no Logo for this ensemble in the system.
  3. Click on the Browse or Choose File button and select the logo file from your computer.
  4. Click Save at the bottom when you're done.
Customising the footer and sidebar

Almost every page that you show to the public can be designed using a page template. The template determines the fundamental ‘shape’ of the page – how many columns of text you have, or whether you have a Footer, or a Sidebar, for example. If you opt for a Footer or a Sidebar, you can choose what is displayed there. To do this:

  1. Click the Cog icon which appears (when logged-in) in the top-right corner of any page of your Making Music Platform.
  2. In the Website Setup and Configuration page, click the settings Cog next to your platform:

  1. In here, navigate to the Footer/Sidebar tab.
  2. The top half of this tab is for your Footer preferences. The bottom half is for your Sidebar preferences.
  3. The yellow options on the left-hand Side are the Modules that you want enabled in your Footer/Sidebar. To enable a module, drag it from the right-hand side to the left-hand side. To disable, drag from left to right.

  1. Below this you’ll see some Text fields – here you can add any text that you’d like to appear in your Footer or Sidebar.
  2. Remember to click Save at the bottom of the page when you are done.

 

ADDING WEBSITE PAGES AND CREATING LINKS TO ACCESS THESE PAGES

Adding website pages

What is a Platform Website Page?

An empty Platform Website Page, to start, is simply a blank page that can be filled with anything you like. Whilst it is easy to create a new blank Website Page, your Platform will come pre-loaded with around 130 default Website Pages, each with a different use, and each ready to go. For example, your Home Page is a Website Page, as is your About Page, and so is your Contact Us page. All of these default pages are already linked within your default Platform and should not be deleted.

Where can I find all the available default Website Pages?

A list of all your Platform’s Website Pages can be found from the Administration Dashboard, in the Website Content section:

Can I create my own website pages?

If none of the default pages are suitable for your needs, or you simply want to create a page from scratch, this is a possibility. To create a new page click Website Pages from the menu:

And then click Add new page in the upper right-hand corner – from the Page Details screen, fill in the basic details of the new page that you want to create. When creating a page you will also need to assign a permission level to this page. This means that only those with a certain permission level assigned to their log in will be able to view the page. Please see our guidance on Access levels for more information.

How can regular members access these pages?

This is where Navigation Links come in. Navigation Links decide where a page’s link can be found, and who can access that link. Once you’ve decided which Website Pages you want accessible to your members, please look at our Help guides on navigation links below so that you can match up who can see the page with who can see the link (navigation link) to find that page in the first place.

Understanding Navigation Links

In Making Music Platform, a "navigation link" is something that can be clicked on that takes you to a particular page in your site.  However, not all links on the website are navigation links.  Specifically, there are three places in your Making Music Platform where you will find navigation links...

 

  1. In the main Site Navigation Menu across the top of your page:

    Navigation links in this menu can either be Parent navigation links, such as the Home, Contact, About, News & Events etc links visible across the top of your page (shown above), or child navigation links - links that appear in the sub-menus of parent navigation links. For example, the Members parent navigation link for the club (shown below) has child navigation links, such as Songs, Tags, Attendance, Assessments, Committees & Teams, and Bulletin Board...

     

  2. On the main Members page.  The icons seen on this page in the Members Options box are all navigation links:

    In fact, the icons in this box on the main Members page and the links in the Members site menu are exactly the same navigation links.  In other words, one navigation link (e.g. "Song Library") can appear in two places.
     
  3. As a link in the first two columns of the "Admin Dashboard".  In the image below of the Email area of the Admin Dashboard, the links Mailing Lists, Send Email, and Email Addresses and Mailing Lists Setup are all navigation links.

About Navigation Link Access Levels

Any navigation link in Making Music Platform can be customised by an administrator. Administrators can also add new navigation links, where required, or remove navigation links that are not needed.

As with most elements of Making Music Platform, each navigation link has an "access level" - the level of access that a logged-in member has to have in order to see the navigation link and thus be able to access the page that the link points to. 

Note:

  1. A navigation link's access level is separate from the access level of the page that the navigation link links to. This means that it's possible for someone to have an access level that allows them to see a navigation link, but if the page that the navigation link points to has a different access level, the member may not be able to see the page itself - or vice versa.
  2. Just because a navigation link can be found in one of the "public" menus (such as Contact, About, News & Events, etc), doesn't mean that the navigation link (or the page it points to) is actually visible to the public. The visibility of the navigation link is governed solely by its access level, not by what menu it sits in.  For example, it's possible to have a page's navigation link found in the About menu, but that page and navigation link are only visible to members.  So someone who is not logged in will simply not see the link to the page in the About menu. The link will only be seen after they have logged in.
Adding a Navigation Link

To add a new navigation link:

  1. Log in to the Members Area as an administrator
  2. Click on the Admin link in the top-right corner to display the Administration Dashboard.
  3. Scroll down to the Site Navigation Menu heading, and click on the Site Navigation Menu link to the right of this in the Admin Pages column. This displays the Site Navigation Menu Layout page.
  4. Click on the Add new navigation link button at the top-right of the Site Navigation Menu Layout page (circled below). This displays the Navigation link Details page.

The fields on the Navigation link Details page are described below:

Text to display

The Text to display field (shown above) is the text that's actually shown in the site's navigation menu.  Examples include: "Book Us!" or "Visit a rehearsal", or even "Members" (the main menu containing all members' options).

If you are creating a navigation link with a blank/custom icon (see below), the text in this field will be superimposed on the blank icon. In such circumstances, be careful to enter words into this field that will fit within the bounds of the icon.

Page from this website

The Page from this website drop-down list (shown below) contains the names of all pages in your Making Music Platform.  The page that you select will be the page that this navigation link "points to".  In other words, when your member or site visitor clicks on the navigation link, they will be taken to this page.

 

Note that there are two circumstances where it is not necessary to select a page from this list:

  1. The navigation link is an actual menu heading (e.g. About, Contact, Members)
  2. You enter a full URL in the box below the drop-down list, as shown below...
    Any regular web page address, such as https://www.google.com, can be entered into this box, but only if no page has been selected from the Page from this website drop-down list.

The next group of fields are in the Where is the navigation link displayed section of the Navigation link Details page:

Parent

A "parent" in this context is a menu heading from the site's navigation menu, such as Home, Contact, About, News & Events, or Members.  Most of the navigation links you create will live under one of these menu headings.  In such circumstances, you must select a Parent for your navigation link from the drop-down list.  For example, if you selected the “Public Access – News & Events” parent shown below, your navigation link will appear on the News & Events site menu.

Do not include in menus

Most navigation links are included a site menu (under a "parent").  If you do not wish for your navigation link to appear in any menu, tick the box called Do not include in menus (shown below)...

You would typically tick this box only in the following circumstances...

  1. You want the link to only appear as an icon in the Members Options area of the main Members page, but not in the Members menu itself.
  2. You want the link to appear on the Administration Dashboard.

Display Ranking

The navigation link's Display ranking (shown in the image above), is a number that determines in what position this navigation link will appear in its menu or in the set of icons on the main Members page.  Navigation links with lower numbers (e.g. 20) appear before links with higher numbers (e.g.50).

Notes:

  1. It can take a lot of trial and error to get a navigation link's position in the menus exactly right, by entering a Display Ranking number, then saving the navigation link, then checking the menu, then returning to update the navigation link and entering a different number, etc.  It's much easier to use the Site Navigation Menu tool, and simply drag-and-drop navigation links to their correct positions.
  2. It is not possible to reorder the navigation links on the Administration Dashboard.  Adjusting theirDisplay ranking number has no effect on the display of navigation links on that page.

Members Page icon

As you may be aware, each icon on the main Members page is also a navigation link.  Such navigation links look like this on the main Members page...

 

Which actual icon image is shown for the navigation link on that page depends on the value typed into the field called Members Page icon, as shown below...

Valid values for this field must be the full file name (including folder name) of an icon file on the server.  An example of a full icon file name is:

 

           /brostools/applications/singing/images/icons/icon-member-database.png

 

Note that the /brostools/applications/singing/images/icons/ part (the folder name) is always the same.  It's the file name (in this case icon-member-database.png) that varies from icon to icon.  If you need to enter a file/folder name from scratch, do the following...

  1. Copy-and-paste the above folder name /brostools/applications/singing/images/icons/ into the field
  2. Click the link called Members Area Icons in the yellow help box under the field.  This will open a new page (in a new browser tab) that displays all available icons.
  3. Determine which icon you want
  4. Copy-and-paste the filename of your selected icon into the field on the original browser tab, appending it to the end of the folder name.  For example, if we want the Clothing Sizes icon, copy the filename, icon-clothing-sizes.png
  5. The result will look like this...

 

Custom Icons

If none of the available Making Music Platform icons meets your needs, you can select the icon called icon-blank.png, and create a custom icon.  Such icons will have no actual picture on them, but they will still have text on them, specifically the text from the Text to Display field, as described above.

Note:

Any navigation link that has a Parent of Members (see above), with an Access Level Required of Limited Member Access or Regular Member Access (see below), will be displayed on the main Members page, regardless of whether the navigation link has an icon filename specified.  If no icon filename is specified, then the navigation link will not display as an icon, but instead will appear on the main Members page as a simple link under all the regular icons on that page.

Members Page text

The Members page text field (shown below) is used for icons on the main Members page, as well as links on the Administration Dashboard.


On the main Members page, this text is shown as a little "help tip" that appears when you hover your mouse over the icon. An example is shown below...

For links on the Administration Dashboard, this text gets displayed as the actual link on the page.

Display ranking in footer

Similar to the Display Ranking field above, the Display ranking in footer number (if specified) is the position in which this navigation link appears in the website's footer site map. The footer site map is the informational section that appears at the bottom of many of the site's public-facing pages (for example, the Home page) that displays a selection of navigation links.  Note that not all Making Music Platform websites have a footer site map.  A typical footer site map may look like this (your own site's footer colour will likely be different)...

 

You have full control over which navigation links appear in your site map.  Specifically, navigation links that contain a number in the field called Display ranking in footer will be displayed in the site map.

If you leave this field blank, the navigation link will not be displayed in the footer Site Map.

The next group of fields are in the Who can see it section of the Navigation link Details page:

Access Level Required

The Access Level required drop-down box specifies the minimum access level that someone must have to see the navigation link, and thus click on it to get to the page that the link represents.


If you select an Access Level required of Data Administration Access, as in the example above, you must also select the area of the system that this navigation link relates to, from the second drop-down list.

For more information on Access Levels, see our guide on Making Music Platform's Access Levels.

Only display up to

This is an optional field which, in practice, is very rarely used.  If you select an access level here, the navigation link will not be displayed to anyone with an access level above that level.

 

For example, if you want your link to be visible to the public but not to logged in members, you would select Public Access for the Access Level Required field (above), and Limited Member Access for this field.

When you are finished entering the Navigation link details, click Save at the bottom of the page.

Site Navigation Menu tool

Making Music Platform provides a tool that allows you to easily and visually arrange your site’s navigation menu (and all the navigation links therein). To find this tool:

  1. Log in to the Members Area as someone with admin privileges over the "Navigation Links" system
  2. Click the Admin link in the top-right corner to display the Administration Dashboard.
  3. Scroll down to the Site Navigation Menu line, and click on the Site Navigation Menu link to the right of this in the Admin Pages column. This displays the Site Navigation Menu Layout page, shown here...

The Site Navigation Menu tool lets you drag menu items (navigation links) to their new position within a menu, or into a completely different menu. Entire menus can also be dragged left and right. Navigation links can be updated and deleted (and added) directly from the same page. It's all very visual and easy and works exactly the way you would expect it to.

In addition to instructions on the tool’s operation at the top left of the page, there are a couple of notes, and they are repeated here:

  1. There is no "save" button - any changes that you make are saved instantly.
  2. You won't see your changes reflected in the site's menu at the top of the page until you refresh the page (or visit another page).

 

EDITING WEBSITE PAGES

How to change the content of pages

Some pages on your Making Music Platform are generated automatically by the Platform. This means that you can add information to your Platform’s database (e.g. upload a new song, or add an event) and have it automatically appear on the relevant page on your website (e.g. your Have a Listen page or Event Calendar). You can’t always change the content which displays on these automatically generated pages, but you can usually customise them by adding your own text, images and adjusting the page’s settings.

Other pages on your MM Platform are completely customisable: they have no automatically generated information on them and so only show the text, images, links or videos which you post on them.

Whether a page is completely customisable or has an automatically generated element, you always edit a page the same way:

  1. Log in to your Making Music Platform as an administrator.
  2. Visit the page your want to edit. 
  3. Scroll down to the very bottom-right of the page and click the small edit button to open the Page Details.
  4. In the Page Details, click on the Content tab.
  5. Scroll down to the text box which is labelled Body of Page. This box contains all the content which appears in the main section of the page you want to edit. You can type or paste text directly into this box, and add images or links.
  6. Click Save at the bottom of the page when you’re done.

Automatically generated: If the page has an automatically generated element you will see a piece of code which starts [php_include…. This code is important; if you remove or change it the page will no longer work as intended. You can still add your own text above or below that piece of code and it will appear on the page.

For further information, please see our help guides Adding images to MM Platform pages and Adding links to MM Platform pages as outlined below.

If you cannot find what you are looking for in our help guides or have any questions please get in touch.

Adding links to web pages

It's not always possible to directly edit the content of pages, because the content is generated automatically by the Making Music Platform software.  For example, the Event Calendar page examines all the events in the Platform database, and intelligently arranges them into a calendar format.  You, the site administrator, cannot interfere with this process.  However, some pages in your site have content that is 100% under your control, such as the About Us page or the History page.

With pages such as these, you are able to add content, images and links. Adding content to a page is detailed in our how to change the content of pages guidance, and adding images to a page can be found in our Adding images to web pages guidance. In this guide, we outline how to add links to a page.

  1. Log into your website as an administrator
  2. Visit the page that the link is to be added to
  3. Click the edit button in the bottom corner of the page:

  4. Click the Content tab
  5. In the big Body of Page box, select/highlight the text (or image) that you want to make a link. In the image below, we have selected the words "Gold Coast" (circled), and are going to make them into a link.

  6. Having selected the text, click on the "Link" icon in the toolbar (third icon from the right on the top-row, circled in the image above).  The Link box is displayed, as shown below, with the Link info tab displaying by default. To specify the link, we need to fill out the Protocol and URL fields on the Link Info tab,.


     

  7. Select the Protocol of the page. If the page you are wanting to link to is http://www.yourgroup.com, for example, then select the protocol  http:// from the drop-down list.

  8. Enter (or paste) the URL (web address) you are wanting to link to into the URL field. As you have already specified the protocol, above, you would paste www.yourgroup.com into the URL field.

  9. OPTIONAL  If you want the URL you entered to open in a new tab in your browser, instead of the current tab, then click the Target tab and select New Window (_blank) from the drop-down list.

  10. Click OK at the bottom of the Link box when you are done. You will now see the words "Gold Coast" display as a link, which links to the page you have just specified.

  11. Remember to click Save at the bottom of the page when you are done.

Uploading a File and Linking to it

Perhaps the link you want to insert into the page is to link to a document (such as a PDF), audio file (such as an MP3), etc.  If the document or file has already been uploaded to your site, then you simply copy-and-paste the full address of the document/file, as described above.  If the document/file has not yet been uploaded to your site, then replace steps 7 and 8 above with the following...

  1. After you have clicked the "Link" icon to open the Link box, click the Upload tab within that box
  2. Click the Browse/Choose File button on that tab
  3. Select the document/file from your computer, and click the Select or OK button to return to the Linkbox
  4. Click the Send it to the Server button.  The file is uploaded to the server at that time (which may take little while), and you are returned to the Link Info tab of the Link box
  5. [proceed with steps 9, 10, 11 above]
Adding images to web pages

Making Music Platform allows for easy editing of web pages, but it's not immediately obvious how to add images to your pages.  Nor is it clear how to prepare the image, or what the issues involved may be. The guide helps explain all that.

Preparing your image

The most important preparation step is to ensure that your image is of the correct size for your web page.  By "size" we mean the image's dimensions, in pixels.  By way of example, a typical photo straight out of a digital camera is perhaps 8 Megapixels.  This means that its dimensions will likely be something like 3200 x 2400 pixels.  Now, the content area in a typical web page is usually no more than 600 pixels wide.  As you can see, an 8 Megapixel photo is going to be several times larger than the entire page that it's sitting on.  So the photo needs to be resized first!

You can use just about any image-editing or photo-editing programme or app to resize an image.  They're all different, but they all provide resizing functionality.  I'll leave that part for you to figure out.  Just ensure that the photo is no wider than 600 pixels (usually - unless you have special circumstances).

Uploading the image

Once the image is of the correct size, you need to upload it to the page.  Here are the steps involved...

  1. Log into your website as an administrator
  2. Visit the page that the image is to be added to
  3. Click the edit button in the bottom corner of the page:

  4. Click the Content tab
  5. In the big Body of Page box, click on the text where you want the new image to be inserted:

    Insert point
     

  6. Click the Image button on the toolbar:

  7. The Image Properties box appears. Click the Upload tab
  8. Click the Browse or Choose File button (whichever your browser offers), and then locate the image on your own computer. Double-click the image on your own computer to load it into the Image Properties box:

  9. Click the Send it to the Server button
  10. There may be nothing more to do.  At this point, you can click the OK button, and the image will be inserted into the page.  However, there may be some customisations required, so read on...
  11. You should not need to adjust the width/height fields.  As described above, you should have made the image the correct size before you uploaded it to the web page.
  12. Optionally add an image description to the Alternative Text field
  13. Optionally specify the thickness of the images Border, in pixels.  A thickness of 1 should be sufficient (or none at all)
  14. Hspace and Vspace govern how many pixels of padding - vertically and horizontally respectively - should be inserted around the image, between the image and its surrounding text.  Optionally insert some numbers here, such as 15 and 10.
  15. Optionally choose an Alignment.  If you don't, the image will be treated just like a word of text, appearing in a paragraph as if it was a word.  This is the default behaviour, and if you want the image to be on a line by itself, then you don't need to choose an Alignment.  However, if you would like the image to appear on the left of the text, with the text wrapping around the image to the right, then choose Left.  If you would like the image to appear to the right of the text, with the text wrapping around the image to the left, then choose Right.
  16. If you would like the image to be "clickable", and when the user clicks the image, they are taken to a different page or a different website, then click the Link tab and enter the address of the page they should be taken to when they click the image.
  17. Click the OK button to return to the page editor
  18. When you are done making changes to the page, click the Save button at the bottom.  Your image is now on your page:

How to change the main photo on the Home page

If you don't like the large photo at the top of your Home page, it's easy to change.

Note that this photo is actually the first slide in a slideshow.  This means that it's possible to add more slides to this slideshow.  It also means that instead of removing the slide, you can instead mark it as "inactive" (assuming there are other "active" slides), so that it's still there if you change your mind about removing it.

To edit this one photo...

  1. Log into the Members Area as an administrator
  2. Return to the Home page
  3. Click on the little Update icon in the lower-right corner of the photo
  4. In the Photo section, replace the photo that's there with one uploaded from your own computer.  Note the photo you select must be resized correctly before it is uploaded to the website.  The correct size, in pixels, is shown on the page, just above where you select a new photo (for example, 1150 x 448 pixels)
  5. Click Save when you're done.
How to add new photos to the Home page slideshow

In case you're not aware, the large photo at the top of your home page is actually one slide of a slideshow.  If you add more slides, you'll end up with a slideshow that shows all slides for a few seconds each, before looping back to the first slide again and continuing indefinitely.

To add more slides to this slideshow...

  1. Log into the Members Area as an administrator

  2. Click on the Admin link in the top-right corner to display the Administration Dashboard

  3. Scroll down to the Website Content section and click the link called Banners (home page) in the far-right Database tables column

  4. Click the Add new banner button in the top-right corner
  5. If your Home page is using the "Stockholm" (full page) slideshow format, the first thing you should do is click the link in the help box at the top of the page, to view a different page for uploading the photo.
  6. Enter a name for the slide (not shown to anyone but admins)
  7. Upload a photo from your computer.  Note the photo you select must be resized correctly before it is uploaded to the website.  The correct size, in pixels, is shown on the page (for example, 1150 x 448 pixels)
  8. If you enter a web address into the URL box, then the entire slide will be "clickable", and clicking on the slide/photo will take your visitors to the address of the page you specify
  9. Enter a Display ranking number, to determine what sequence this slide appears in the slideshow
  10. If you would like a "quote box" (a black rectangle with white text superimposed on top of the photo) for your slide, then complete the Quote Box section, including the text for the quote box, and the box's size and position (in pixels)
  11. Click Save at the bottom when you're done
  12. Return to the Home page to view the slideshow
What is a URL? What is a Custom URL?

What is a URL?

URL stands for "Uniform Resource Locator", which is a fancy way of saying "the address of something on the Internet, typically a web page".  In the context of web pages, "address" means something like http://www.website.com/page.htm?age=20&type=ball. Every page on the World Wide Web has a unique URL (address), including every page in your Making Music Platform.

What is a Custom URL?

Pages can actually have more than one URL (address). If the default URL of a page is overly long, complex or difficult to remember, you can often invent a second URL and assign it to the page, which can be anything you want.  You can create something shorter, simpler and easier to remember, such as http://www.website.com/useful-page.

In Making Music Platform, web pages have URLs that look like this http://www.mygroup.com/dbpage.php?pg=contact (which is not particularly short or descriptive of what's actually on the page), or http://www.mygroup.com/dbpage.php?pg=view&dbase=events&id=14524 (which is even worse).  In case you're wondering, the first URL is for a "Contact" page, while the second is for an event.

Because of this, we have made it possible to create your own Custom URLs for pages on your Making Music Platform. Each URL you create becomes a second URL for the page so that the page can then be reached via either of two URLs.  Using the examples above, you could create new, custom URLs as follows: http://www.mygroup.com/contact for the "Contact" page, and http://www.mygroup.com/Christmas-Concert for the event. Each is shorter, simpler, and more descriptive of the contents of the page, and much easier to quote in correspondence or on a Facebook page.

Note that it only really makes sense to create custom URLs for pages that can be accessed via the public (people who are not logged in). You can create custom URLs for pages visible to members only, but there's no real need to.

Making Music Platform provides an easy way to create custom URLs for the following...

  • Website Pages - specifically the set of pages listed on the Pages Administration page, the pages that you can add and remove yourself via the admin interface.  "Website pages", in this context, does not mean any page at all in your Making Music Platform. It's a subtle distinction.  For example, "Website pages" does not include...
    • The page that shows all of a song's details
    • A member's profile page
    • The page where you add the details of a new mailing list
    • etc
  • Events. Each event can have its own custom URL if required.
  • Productions (if the "Productions" module is enabled on your Making Music Platform). Productions are really just collections of events, and as such can have custom URLs in the same way that events can  

Having said that, it's technically possible to create custom URLs for any page in your Making Music Platform, even ones explicitly excluded in the list above. It's just not as easy.

Creating a Custom URL

A custom URL can be created for any of the "Website pages" in Making Music Platform. This can be done either from within the page itself or from the Custom URLs page.

Creating a Custom URL from within a page

This is done by "editing" the page.  To check if a page can be edited, log in as a webmaster and scroll to the bottom of the page; if there is an edit button in the bottom-right corner of the page, then this page can be edited, and you can create a custom URL for the page, as follows...

  1. Click on the edit button in the bottom-right corner of the page.
  2. On the Page Details page, on the General tab, scroll down to the Page Meta-data section. There you will see the Custom URL field shown below...

  3. Enter the Custom URL for the page. In the example shown above, we are creating a Custom URL for the Latest News page. We could enter something like news in the Custom URL field, or even the latest news. Note: Spaces are not allowed in any URL, so if you enter the latest news in the Custom URL field, the spaces will be replaced by hyphens, so your custom URL will become https://www.yourgroup.com/latest-news.
  4. Click Save at the bottom of the page.

Creating a Custom URL from the Custom URLs page

The Custom URLs page allows us to create custom URLs for any of your "Website pages". To access this page, proceed as follows:

  1. Log in as a webmaster
  2. Click on the Admin link in the top-right corner of the page to access the Admin Dashboard.
  3. Scroll down to the Website Content section, and click on the Custom URLs link to the right of this in the Admin Pages column. This displays the Custom URLs page, the top section of which is shown here...

The Custom URL page is divided into 4 main sections: 

  1. Website Pages, shown above, which allows us to create custom URLs for the pages in the "Website pages" database.
  2. Custom URLs from other tables, which allows us to create custom URLs for Events and Productions pages.
  3. Ensure .htaccess is up to date (detailed below).
  4. Add a new Custom URL to .htaccess, which allows us to create a custom URL for any other page, for example, a song's page or a poll's page.

Each section of the Custom URL page is described in more detail here:

Website Pages

The Website Pages section of the page, shown below, lists all the pages from the pages database...

For each page, the Page name is shown, along with its Regular URL and its Custom URL, if one currently exists. There is the opportunity to create or update a Custom URL by clicking on the "Update page" icon in the far-right column, circled above.

Pages visible to the public are shown in bold. It is generally only meaningful to create custom URLs for public-facing pages.

To create a custom URL for a public-facing page, proceed as follows:

  1. Click on the "Update page" icon to the far right of the page you wish to create a custom URL for.  From this point on, it's identical to the instructions above, when editing the page directly.
  2. On the Page Details page, on the General tab, scroll down to the Page Meta-data section. There you will see the Custom URL field shown below...

  3. Enter the Custom URL for the page.
  4. Click Save at the bottom of the page.

Custom URLs from other tables

The Custom URLs from other tables section of the page is shown below. This allows for the creation of custom URLs for either Events or Productions.

Note that only events/productions that already have custom URLs are listed, not the entire database of events/productions.

Simply locate the Event or Production for which you would like to create a custom URL, and click on the "Update Event" or Update Production" icon to the right of this (circled above).

To create a custom URL for any event...

  1. Click the [administer] link to the right of either Events or Productions, to take you to the corresponding administration page
  2. Locate the event/production that you wish to create a custom URL for, and click the "update" icon to the right of it
  3. Click the Public tab
  4. Scroll down to the Custom URL heading. Enter the name of your custom URL in the box next to this:
  5. Click Save at the bottom of the page.

Ensure .htaccess is up to date

Most websites (and all Making Music Platform) have a file on the server called .htaccess - a configuration file which contains, amongst other things, the complete list of custom URLs configured into your site.  This file is modified directly and automatically whenever you assign a custom URL to a page, event or production.  The file looks something like this...

When you create a custom URL, a new entry beginning with RewriteRule is added to the .htaccess file. Or at least, it's supposed to. Occasionally the file may not get updated correctly (rare). If for any reason, this hasn't happened correctly, you'll notice this because one or more of your custom URLs won't be working.

It's possible to "fix" the .htaccess file so that it correctly lists all the custom URLs, and so that all the custom URLs actually work.  To do so, simply click on the Update file with all custom URLs button at the foot of this section.

Add a new Custom URL to .htaccess

As mentioned above, it is possible to assign a custom URL to any page in your system, not just "Website pages", events and productions.  For example, you could create a custom URL for a song's page or a poll's page.

For example, if you have a song that has a URL of http://www.mygroup.com/dbpage.php?pg=view&dbase=rep&id=83, and you wanted it to have a URL of http://www.mygroup.com/auld-lang-syne, you would do the following...

  1. In the Existing regular URL field, enter just the portion of the existing URL after the last "/" (i.e.dbpage.php?pg=view&dbase=rep&id=83)
  2. In the New custom URL field, enter your own new custom URL for the page, in this case, auld-lang-syne.
  3. Click on the Add button. This will create the new custom URL, by adding a new RewriteRule entry to the site's .htaccess file.
What are the data and template tabs used for when editing pages?

When you edit a page’s contents, it’s not all about looks – it’s also about identifying the correct information for that webpage to pull from other pages. This is where the Data and Template tabs come in.

Data Tab

Some pages in your Platform do not pull data from the database, such as the simple ‘Text & Images’ pages, (the About page, or the History page for example). Such pages have no use for the Data Tab of the page.

Of the pages that do pull data from the database, many of them do it by directly requesting that data from the database. Such requests are written into the code itself, and actually ignore the Data Tab of the page.

Only a handful of pages are designed in such a way that the data which the pages pull from the database can by specified by the admin user, using the settings on the Data Tab of the page. These are pages like the Bulletin Board or the Documents page. With those pages, you can control exactly what data is pulled from the database - what table the data comes from, what subset of the entire table, what database records are called, how is it sorted, etc.

Fields

  • Table to open: Which database table to get records from.
  • Record names: What should each record (or records) be called (e.g. document/documents, resource/resources, library/libraries, etc).
  • Load records from table: Should the code pull records from the database or not? If not, then ​the code may still pull some records, or it may not, depending on the page.
  • Filter options: Which subset of records should be pulled in? Specifying the subset is complex, and so has a useful help guide of its own: Just click the link below the box called "Notes on using filter options", within the yellow help text just below the box. If no filter options are specified, then all records in the database table are pulled.
  • Show filters to the user: If you tick any of the boxes here, the visitor to the page may be presented with a set of drop-down lists at the top of the page, depending on (a) whether page code in the page is designed to have such filters/drop-down lists, and (b) the page must have this code in it: [php_include src="filters.inc.php"] (placed where the drop-down lists should go). A single photo gallery page is a good example of this.
  • Records per page: If the page supports any notion of pagination (not displaying all records at a time, because the page would be too long, but instead displaying 20 at a time for example), then this is where that pagination is specified. Most pages don't use this field, even if it looks like they should.
  • Group by, and Sort by: These are simple sorting options. ‘Group by’ really just means ‘First sort by’, and ‘Sort by’ means ‘Then sort by’. So, the first set of sorting is on the ‘Group by’ field, and the second level of sorting (within each group) is done on the ‘Sort by’ field. Either or both can be omitted. If no sorting options are provided, then the database table's default sorting is used (which is usually sensible).

 

Template Tab

When records in the database are retrieved (for the purpose of listing), they must be displayed on the page. HTML template files have been created for the purpose of describing how a single record should be displayed on a page. If multiple records are displayed in a list, then the contents of the template file are repeated down the page.

The template files for this database table are specified below. There are up to five templates, possibly one for each level of user authorisation. This means that the General Public can see records displayed one way, while general members can see records displayed another way, and administrators can possibly see the records displayed a third way, etc.

It works like this: The system looks at the authorisation level of the logged-in user (which will be set to Public if there is no user logged in) and looks to see if there is a template for that level. If there is not, it looks in the next level down, and then the next, and so on until it either finds a template or exhausts all the levels. The highest template found that is less than or equal to the user's authorisation level is the one used. If none is found, an error message is displayed (the user is not entitled to see those records, obviously).

 

CUSTOMISATION FAQS

How to fix a photo when it is distorted when viewing on a mobile phone but looks fine on a computer

Sometimes, mobile phones try to adapt Website Images to their smaller screens – however, they don’t always do this successfully. This can be fixed and if you are comfortable with HTML then please use the following instructions. If you are not comfortable with HTML then please ask Making Music to fix this for you instead by emailing platform@makingmusic.org.uk.

To fix this issue:

  1. Log into your website as an administrator
  2. Go to the relevant page
  3. Click the edit button in the bottom corner of the page:

  1. Click on the Content tab
  2. In the big Body of Page box, click Source:

 

 

  1. This will display a load of HTML code. We need to find the HTML code that is relevant to the picture we are trying to fix. We are looking specifically for the words ‘width’ and ‘height’ following on from the name of your image (TIP: Press ctrl+f to search the page, and type in either ‘width’ or ‘height’)

 

  1. Delete either the width or height definition, but not both.
  2. Remember to click Save at the bottom of the page when you are done.

 

How do you hide members' phone numbers on public pages?

You may not want a member’s phone number to be visible on a page. If you are comfortable with HTML then please use the following instructions. If you are not comfortable with HTML please ask Making Music to hide these for you by emailing us on platform@makingmusic.org.uk.

To hide the phone number:

  1. Log into your website as an administrator
  2. Go to the relevant page
  3. Click the edit button in the bottom corner of the page:

  1. Click on the Content tab
  2. In the big Body of Page box, you should see some code that says [officer id="1234"]. After the “1234”, add the following piece of code: phone="none". The code should now read [officer id="1234" phone="none"].
  3. Remember to click Save at the bottom of the page when you are done.

 

How do we set the documents page to default to filter the results by type of post?

You may want the Documents Page to automatically sort by ‘Type of Post’, rather than ‘No Grouping’. To do this:

  1. Log into your website as an administrator
  2. On the Documents Page, click the Link button in the bottom corner of the page:

  1. In the third box down, type ‘repgroup=Category’, like so:

 

  1. Remember to click Save at the bottom of the page when you are done.
How to remove certain types of post from appearing on the bulletin board

The Bulletin Board is designed to show all types of posts by default. To exclude certain types of posts:

  1. Click on Admin in the top-right
  2. In Website Config/Info section click on Lists:

  1. Click Post Category
  2. On this page, click the Update List Item icon to the right of any category that you will be excluding:

  1. On this page, make a note of the value of the Internal Identifier field. Note that it is case-sensitive
  2. Repeat steps 3 to 5 for each category that you want to exclude
  3. Next, go to the Bulletin Board
  4. Click the edit button in the bottom corner of the page

  1. Click the Data tab
  2. In the ‘Which Records to Load’ section, enter the following line into the Filter Options box: where=Category not in (identifier1, identifier2)
  3. Replace identifier1 and identifier2 with the Internal Identifiers you made a note of in step 5. If you have more than two, enter them within the brackets and separate them with a comma.
  4. Remember to click Save at the bottom of the page when you are done.
How to fix “Enter a valid position ID” messages

There are many pages in the public-facing part of your Making Music Platform that show the message Enter a valid position ID.  Each of these instances is a placeholder for the contact details of one of your members that holds an official position within your group, something like John Smith, 444-555-6666, treasurer@mygroup.com  The idea is that you edit the page, enter a position ID, and the system displays the contact details.

Why bother?  Why not just enter their contact details directly into the page?

It is certainly more complex to have to worry about position IDs, instead of simply entering the contact details of the member directly into the page.  The idea behind doing it this way is that the people that hold positions within your group change regularly.  For example, this year your president might be Mary Thompson, while next year it might be Tom Brown.  The position itself doesn't change (it still has the same name and email address), but the person holding that position changes regularly.  When those changes happen, what are the chances that you'll remember to visit every page in your website that references that position and change the contact details to match the new member?

This "position ID" mechanism is designed to save you work in the future when position-holders change.  Ideally, you can set it up once, at the outset, and never need to worry about it again.

How to Change these Messages

  1. Ensure that all members have been entered into the member database
  2. Ensure that all positions have been set up on the Officers page (which could be called the Management Team page). This may include position records for any or all of the following:
    • President, Chairperson, Team Leader, etc
    • Treasurer
    • Secretary
    • Music Director
    • Section leaders
    • A general contact point for enquiries (the position may have the email address info@mygroup.com or enquiries@mygroup.com)
    • Taking bookings for your group
    • Helping people visit your rehearsals
    • Helping people become a member of your group
    • Helping people sponsor your group
    • Your webmaster
  3. If any of the responsibilities listed above are not relevant to your group, then don’t bother creating a position for them.  You can also delete the corresponding rows from the Contact Points page
  4. Ensure that a member is assigned to each of the positions above
  5. For each of the positions above, make a note of the position ID.  This ID can be found on the Officers (or Management Team) page next to the name of the position.  The position ID looks like this...

    The position ID in the example above is 10564

  6. Visit the page that contains the Enter a valid position ID message
  7. To make changes to this page, click the edit button in the bottom-right corner, then click the Content tab
  8. Where you saw the Enter a valid position ID message, you will now see [officer id="9999"] or perhaps [officer_field id="9999"]. Replace the 9999 with the ID you made a note of earlier
  9. Click the Save button at the bottom when you're done.

The same technique applies to the Contact section at the bottom of the home page.  In this instance, click the Edit this text button, then proceed as above.  Ensure that you click the little “save” icon (the first icon on the pop-up toolbar) when you’re done, or your changes will not be saved.

If you like, you can then experiment by changing the member that holds the position.

How to connect your website to your Facebook Page

Making Music Platform integrates easily with your group's Facebook page. You enable this integration by entering the URL (web address) of your Facebook page into the Making Music Platform system. When you do so...

  • A Facebook icon will be added to the right-hand side of the coloured bar across the top of the page (visible only if you're not logged in)
  • A Facebook icon will be added to the "footer" of your site, in the Social section
  • Your Facebook group's "wall" (list of posts/articles/stories) will be reproduced in miniature on the right-hand side of many of your public-facing pages.

Note that you can only connect to Facebook “pages”, not Facebook “groups”.

To integrate your Making Music Platform with your Facebook page...

  1. Log into your Making Music Platform as an administrator

  2. Click the little "cog" icon in the top-right corner

  3. Click the cog icon next to the entry on that page marked as your Primary Ensemble (if you only have one ensemble, click the bottom-most of the three cogs).

  4. Click the Promotion tab

  5. Towards the bottom of the tab is a section called Social Media, with a field called Facebook page. Copy-and-Paste the URL (web address) of your Facebook page into this field.  Important:  Be sure to remove the https:// from the beginning of the address. Also, remove any"?" character in the URL and everything after it.
  6. Click Save at the bottom when done.

We hope you find this Making Music resource useful. If you have any comments or suggestions about the guidance please contact us. Whilst every effort is made to ensure that the content of this guidance is accurate and up to date, Making Music do not warrant, nor accept any liability or responsibility for the completeness or accuracy of the content, or for any loss which may arise from reliance on the information contained in it.

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