Spanglefish is a system which allows you to easily create a simple website at a low cost.

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This website is the manual for the Spanglefish 3 system and is itself built on Spanglefish. It explains how you manage your website.

This first page contains some quick start information to allow you to get going immediately.

Other pages will cover topics in more depth...

To edit your website you need to add /admin/ to the end of your site address. So for instance, to log into this website you'd go to

https://manual.spanglefish.org/admin/

You log in with your email address and your password. If you've forgotten your password you'll find that there's a reset link.

Unless you've switched it off, you can also log in by using the Cog icon  at the top right of your site. This won't be visible on many mobile phones held in portrait mode.

To edit a page on your site you need to go to it in the same way as a site visitor would. (If you're on your Dashboard page then on your Admin Toolbar at the top left you'll see Edit Site. Click this to be taken to your Home page. Now use the public menu to find the page you want to edit.)

When you hover over different sections of your page you'll see buttons or links appearing depending upon whether you're using the old or new admin theme. The old style, with buttons will look like:

The new style, with links looks like

Hover over the buttons or links for tooltips.

When you are editing text you'll see that you have an editor which looks a bit like a word processor toolbar. It has buttons to make text bold or italic for instance. Once you've made your changes click the Update button below it. You should save your changes regularly in case something goes wrong to log you out, or if you have a power cut.

Other buttons on this menu allow you to move blocks up and down, change the styles of the block (such as the background colour) or change some other settings depending upon the block type.

To add a new page go to your Dashboard (by clicking Dashboard in the top menu), click on Manage Pages then Add Page.

There are three steps before your page will be added. You need to give it a name, a filename (or page address) and a couple of settings. Once you've done that you'll be taken to the new page ready to edit it.

If your site has more than one page then you'll want to control how the menu lets visitors navigate around. There are two aspects to this - deciding which pages you want on the menu, and setting where on the menu they are.

Every page (except your home page which is always visible) has a Visibility setting which you control by clicking Page Settings in the Admin Toolbar. Pages which are Visible or Protected will be shown on the menu. Pages which are Hidden or Switched Off won't.

To decide the order of pages on your menu go to your Dashboard, click Manage Pages then Manage Menu. You can drag the pages into the position you want then click Update when you're happy. Note that pages which are Hidden or Switched Off show here even though they don't show on the public menu. So you might have a page about Christmas which you switch off for 10 months of the year, but switch back on again in November and it will automatically show on the menu where you left it.

When you are finished editing you can click the Log Out link in your admin toolbar. However if you just shut down your browser or don't do anything for about 20 minutes you'll be logged out automatically.