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.

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 and enable an extra menu and a Submit link, too:

Below is a summary of navigation bar options. All three menus allow you to display a single link instead of a menu, if desired. Links that you add to your navigation can go to any webpage, including a page in your classic journal or a Modern Journal custom page that you’ve created with the steps provided under “Custom Information Pages.” 

• About menu: Links can be changed or added, including to custom pages. This menu typically includes pages describing the journal, for example: About, Aims and Scope, Editorial Board, Contact, or Indexing.
• Publish menu: Links can be changed or added, including to custom pages. 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.
• Custom menu: You may add a custom menu that might be relevant to the journal such as Announcements, Resources, or Awards.
• Browse Issues: This link goes to the All Issues page in the DC classic journal. The 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).
• Log In link/Avatar: The Log In link changes to a user avatar when logged in; the avatar menu includes a link to the DC classic account page and a link to log out.

The steps below describe how to access the navigation settings and customize menus and links. 

Access Navigation Settings

The navigation settings are accessible via the Admin link in the navigation bar when logged in.

After clicking the Admin link, click the Navigation tab.

The Navigation preview at the top of the page allows you to see how menus and links will look as you make changes to the below settings.

Edit the About and Publish Menus

To customize the About and Publish menus:

1. Click Admin in the top navigation bar, then click Navigation.
2. Scroll down to the menu you want to edit and select a radio button for either a “Submenu” or a “Single link.” 
   • Submenu: This will add a drop-down menu to the navigation bar. Click + Add item to enter link names and URLs for menu 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 drag handle to the left of a row. To preview menu changes, scroll up to the Navigation preview.
   • Single link: This will add a link to the navigation bar; the link will have an “About” or “Publish” label depending on which menu you’re editing. For Page type, either choose “Internal page” (default) and select a custom page you’ve created from the Page menu, or choose “External page” to paste a page URL.
3. If the Hide button is enabled, click to toggle it off and make the menu visible in the navigation bar.
4. Click Publish when done.

Add a Custom Menu

An extra menu may be added to the navigation bar to the right of the About and Publish menus. 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 Admin in the top navigation bar, then click Navigation.
2. Scroll down to the Wildcard menu settings and enter a custom Display name (the display name has been customized to “Custom Link or Menu” in the below images).
3. Select a radio button to choose either a “Submenu” or “Single link.” 
   • Submenu: Adds a custom drop-down menu to the navigation bar. Click + Add item to enter link names and URLs for menu 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 drag handle to the left of a row. To preview menu changes, scroll up to the Navigation preview.
   • Single link: Adds a custom link to the navigation bar; the link label will use what’s entered in Display name. For Page type, either choose “Internal page” (default) and select a custom page you’ve created from the Page menu, or choose “External page” to paste a page URL.
4. If the Hide button is enabled, click to toggle it off and make the menu visible in the navigation bar.
5. Click Publish when done.

Enable a Submit Link

A Submit link can be enabled in the main navigation menu to the right of the other links and menus.

1. Click Admin in the top navigation bar, then click Navigation.
2. Scroll down to the Submit section and enter the URL for the Submit link.
3. If the Hide button is enabled, click to toggle it off and make the link visible in the navigation bar.
4. Click Save changes.

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.

Page Listing Screen Overview

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

The Page Listing screen includes a Create new page button for adding pages and has a number of options, listed below, for managing each custom page you create.

Options on the Page Listing screen:

• 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 by default. 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 when logged in.
2. On the Page listing screen, click Create new page.
   
3. Enter a Page title as you would like it to appear in search engine results and the browser tab. This 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 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 when 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. After making changes on the page editor screen, you can choose Save draft and then Preview, if desired.
4. Click Publish to make changes live and return to the Page Listing screen.

Place a Custom Page in a Navigation Menu

Once you’ve created and published a new page, it will show up automatically when editing menus in the Navigation settings so you can easily include a link to the page. See the “Navigation” section above about adding links/menus in the navigation bar.

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 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.