Editing Modules on the Page

Overview

Once you have one or more modules on a page, you may find yourself needing to edit them immediately, or at various points of time in the future.  When you edit a module, this means that you'll have new features available to you, such as settings for the module (module settings), and other features.

Requirements

The following prerequisites will be necessary to accomplish the goals of this article:

• Have an account that is assign editing permissions on your site
• Be familiar with the CMS control panel

Getting Started

There are no prerequisites to follow along with this article.

Editing Modules on The Page

Once you're logged in with an account that has appropriate permissions, you'll see the control panel docked on the top of the page.  If you hover over the "Edit Page" button a menu will appear. This menu has all kinds of features that are discussed in the CMS control panel documentation.

Click the "Edit this Page" button to do just that - edit the page you're looking at.  The page will reload with new features added.

When the page reloads, you'll see each module on the page updated a bit to display new editing options to you, provided that you're allowed to edit the module in question.

Edit Mode

If you open another page in another tab of the same web browser or navigate to another page in the same tab, edit mode will end.  You may find this out when you attempt to edit a page that's open, only to see it basically refresh without any of your changes applied.

If you wish to stay in edit mode long term, or if you wish to be in edit mode on multiple tabs in the same web browser, you should choose the "Stay in Edit Mode" option.

Permissions

Please note that depending on the user account you're using while logged in, you may see all of the options discussed here, or a portion of them.  Site administrators can and should be limiting the availability of features for the various people that manage a site.  Every user account should only see the features and abilities required to accomplish their job.

Actions Menus and Buttons

The dashed outline area allows you to drag and drop the module to a new place on the same page.  You'll notice your mouse change when you hover over it.  You'll generally see this docked on the top-most portion of the respective module.

The remaining icons are often referred to as "actions" or "action buttons."  The first one is indicated by a pencil icon for module editing.  You won't see this available to all modules.  It simply depends on whether or not the module has something to show in this edit menu.  If there are no options available, the icon is omitted entirely.

Actions: Configuration

The gear icon represents the various configuration options that are available to the module, which are discussed in more detail below.

Action	Description
Settings	This is most often heard referred to as "module settings."  If you're ever told to go to the module settings for any particular module, this is almost always what the other person means.  There will be a large number of common configuration options made available, usually in a popup.
Export Content	If the module supports it, you'll see an export option here.  This export option allows you to create an export file of the module that can be used to import the module contents into another instance of the module elsewhere on the same site or on another site altogether.
Import Content	This would be the opposite of the Export option above.  If the module supports it, you'll see this option and it will allow you to import the content from another previously exported instance of the module.
Help	If enabled on your site, you'll see the Help menu item.  Clicking it will open help information that's been provided by the creator of the module.
Develop	This option will only be available when you're viewing your site using a superuser account.  When available, it allows you to edit all of the non-compiled code for the module.  While this option is available to you, using this option to develop code on your site is not considered to be a best practice and is highly discouraged.
Delete	If you wish to remove this module from the page, you can choose this action and the module will be deleted.  The module will not be permanently removed from the site until you clear the recycle bin.
Refresh	Each module on the page is cached to varying degrees.  Choosing this action will clear any cache that is managed by the module's settings.  It's still possible that some other information is still cached depending on the module in use, like with the store modules.

Actions: Move

The move actions menu is next, where you can quickly move the module to another area on the page without having to drag and drop it with you mouse.

There will always be at least one "pane" in this menu.  The one that will always be there is named "ContentPane."  Any other panes may or may not be there from site to site or even page to page on the same site.  The number and name of panes depends entirely on whether or not your designer includes them into the theme.

Clicking on any specific pane name will instantly move the module to the pane you chose.  There will also be options to move the current module to the top or bottom of the current pane, depending on where the module is currently, in relation to any other modules that might be in the same pane.