The navigation on your Modern Journal site is customizable to fit your journal's needs, and it includes the ability to link to custom journal pages that you create. The tools described below provide an easy, self-service way to build and manage these critical information pages that help to professionalize a journal.

Navigation

Your Modern Journal’s navigation allows visitors, including authors and other potential contributors, to find important information about the journal such as guidelines, sponsors, or special issues.

The navigation menus contain customizable links that visitors can view by hovering over the menu name.

Navigation Bar Overview

The default display of the top navigation bar includes About and Publish menus along with a Browse Issues link. You can control menu contents as well as add an extra menu and a Submit link as needed.

Summary of navigation bar options:

• About menu: Links can be added or changed, including custom information pages (see below). This menu typically includes pages describing the journal, for example: About, Aims and Scope, Editorial Board, Contact, Indexing. You can link to these pages in your DC classic journal at first if you are not yet ready to create custom pages with the new tools.
• Publish menu: Links can be added or changed, including custom information pages (see below). This menu typically includes anything an author or reviewer needs to know to publish an article, for example: Author Guidelines, Reviewer Guidelines, Policies, Submission Guidelines, Publication Ethics. You can link to these pages in your DC classic journal at first if you are not yet ready to create custom pages with the new tools.
• Additional menu: You may add a custom menu that might be relevant to the journal such as Announcements, Resources, Awards.
• Browse Issues: This link goes to the All Issues page in the DC classic journal. This link is not adjustable.
• Submit link: You can enable a Submit link with your choice of URL (typically the submission form URL in your classic journal).
• Profile avatar: Has a link to the DC classic login or account page, depending on whether you are currently logged in. Also has a link to log out.

The steps below describe how to access the menu settings and customize the links in each menu.

Access the Navigation Settings

An Edit mode toggle button appears in the navigation bar for administrators and editors who are logged in.

Click the Edit mode button to reveal Edit Section links in the navigation bar and sections of the homepage.

Customize Menu Contents

You can add or adjust items in the About and Publish menus as well as in a third, custom menu, if desired. To customize an existing menu:

1. Click the Edit Section link in the navigation bar, once you have enabled Edit mode as described above. 
   
2. In the box that opens, click the name of the menu that you’d like to edit.        
   
3. Click Add Submenu within the menu’s expanded options.       
   
4. In the new row, enter the link label for display in the first field and a corresponding URL in the Enter URL field. This can be a link to any webpage, including a page in your classic journal or a Modern Journal custom page that you’ve created with the steps below under “Custom Information Pages.”      
   
5. You can click Add Submenu again to add more items, up to five total. You can delete an item using the trash can icon for a row. You can move items by clicking the 6 dots drag-and-drop icon to the left of a row.
6. Click Save Changes in the window when finished.

Add a Custom Menu

An extra menu may be added (with more options planned for future releases). For instance, if your journal publishes special issues, you may wish to add a “Special Issues” menu and link to those issues in your classic journal. To add a custom menu:

1. Click Edit Section in the top navigation bar, once you have enabled Edit mode as described above.        
   
2. In the box that opens, click New menu label to expand the options.     
   
3. Enter a label for the custom menu in the text field.   
   
4. Next, you can add menu items. Click Add Submenu to add a row for a menu item and populate each item with a display label and URL following the steps in the “Customize Menu Contents” section above.   
   
5. Click the Show this Menu button to make the new custom menu visible in the journal’s navigation bar. 
   
6. Click Save Changes when done.

Enable a Submit Link in the Navigation Bar

1. Click Edit Section in the top navigation bar.
2. In the box that opens, click Submit to expand the options.
   
3. Enter the URL for the Submit link (usually the submit form link in your classic journal).
   
4. Click the Show this menu toggle to enable the link.
5. Click Save changes to display the link in the navigation bar. The link will appear to the right of the other navigation bar contents.

Custom Information Pages

You can create custom information pages in your Modern Journal and include links to those pages in the navigation menus described above. The Page Listing screen contains all the tools you’ll need to create and edit custom pages.

Access the Page Listing Screen

To reach the Page Listing screen, click the Admin link in the journal’s navigation bar when logged in.

The Page Listing screen, pictured below, includes a “Create new page” button for adding pages and has the following options for each custom information page you create:

• The linked title of the page, which goes to the page editor when clicked.
• The URL of the page, which goes to the published page when clicked. (If the page has been unpublished, the URL will display as “Unpublished”)
• A “copy link” option so you can copy/paste the page URL to add it to a navigation menu.
• A Status showing Published, Draft, Unpublished, or Republished.
• A “Last updated” date.
• An “Edit draft” link that goes to the page editor.
• A “View published” link to see the published page.
• A three-dots menu where you can delete a draft, unpublish a published page, republish an unpublished page, or “Edit page settings” (this opens a window where you can view/edit the page settings for search engines and the browser tab; these are the same settings that are entered in the New Page window when creating a page).

The journal homepage also appears as an entry on the Page Listing screen, listed as the journal title. See Customize Your Modern Journal Homepage for more information about homepage editing options.

Create a Custom Page

1. Click the Admin link in the navigation bar. The link is visible for administrators and editors who are logged in.
2. On the Page listing screen, click Create new page.
   
3. In the new page window, enter a Page title as you would like it to appear in search engine results and the browser tab. The page title will also determine the words used in the page URL (e.g., the page title “My Page Title” would become /my-page-title inserted at the end of your journal’s URL). You may also enter a Page description to provide suggested text for search engine results.
   
4. Click Create page.
5. In the page editor, enter Header Text and Body Text. These will display on the new page itself. The Header is typically the same as the Page Title entered above, though you can enter a different Header if you wish to display the title slightly differently on the page. 
   
6. Once you have entered page text, click Save draft. After saving, you can click Preview to see how the page will look. You may also click the Page details link if you'd like to edit the page title and description entered above.
7. When previewing a draft, click Return to draft to go back to the page editor.
   
8. In the page editor, click Publish if you wish to make the page live. You will return to the Page listing screen and see the new page in the list with a status of Published.
   • To save the page in draft form for now: instead of clicking the Publish button, you may use the breadcrumb to return to the Page Listing screen or Journal Home; then edit the page later, as described below, when you're ready to publish.

Edit a Custom Page

Once you’ve created pages with the above steps, you can go back and edit those pages when you need to make a change or publish a draft.

1. Click the Admin link in the navigation bar. The link is visible for administrators and editors who are logged in.
2. On the Page listing screen, find the page you’d like to edit and click the Edit draft link for that page.
   
3. If you make changes, you can choose Save draft and then Preview on the page editor screen, if desired.
4. Click Publish and any changes will go live and you will return to the Page Listing screen.

Place a Custom Page in a Navigation Menu

1. Once you’ve created and published a new page, on the Page listing screen, you will see a URL and a copy link option under the title of the page. (If the page is unpublished, the URL will display as “Unpublished”).
   
2. Click copy link.
3. Click Journal home in the breadcrumb to return to the homepage.
4. Enable the Edit mode toggle in the navigation bar if it’s not already enabled, and click Edit Section in the navigation bar.
5. Expand the menu where you’d like to add the page link and click Add Submenu.
6. In the newly added row, enter the copied link into the field that says Enter URL. Enter the page name/label in the first field, shortening or modifying the name for display in the menu as desired.

See the “Navigation” section above for more about customizing menus.

Unpublish a Custom Page

Published custom pages can be unpublished, except for the homepage.

Unpublish a page:

1. On the Page listing screen, find the page you’d like to unpublish.
2. In the three-dots menu for that page’s row, select Unpublish.
3. That will immediately remove the page from public view and change the page’s status on the Page Listing screen to Unpublished.

There is no delete option for custom pages. For pages that are no longer needed, you can either repurpose the page if the URL still fits, or you can unpublish the page. It will still appear on the Page Listing screen, but it won’t show on the front end.

Republish a page:

Unpublished pages can be republished. When a page is unpublished (see above), the option in the three dots menu on the Page Listing screen changes to “Republish.” To republish, choose Republish from the page’s three-dots menu, which will immediately change the status of the page to Republished and reinstate the page to be publicly visible.

If you have any questions, please contact Consulting Services.