Create and edit pages

What this covers

Editing a page in the Pages module: which field does what, when to fill which one, what the save does. Reordering, moving, and deleting pages are covered in the Reorder, move, and delete pages topic; drafts and the preview workflow live in Drafts and preview.

Walkthrough

Step 1: Open the Pages module

Click Pages in the sidebar. The page tree appears on the left; the form on the right is empty until you select a row or create a new page.

Step 2: Create a new page, or edit an existing one

To create, click the + button next to the parent row in the tree (or the + at the top to create a root-level page). The form switches to "New page".

To edit, click a row in the tree. The form loads with that page's current values.

Step 3: Fill the form

The page form has nine fields, in this order:

  1. Name (required). The page's display name. Also the default for the page title in templates that do not override it. The Name has to be unique within the same parent.
  2. Menu Title (optional). What navigation menus show instead of the full Name. Use this when the Name is long and your sidebar is narrow ("Frequently Asked Questions" as Name, "FAQ" as Menu Title).
  3. Slug (optional). The URL segment. Leave empty to make the page the site root (only one page per site can have an empty slug; the editor rejects a second one). For everything else, type letters, digits, and hyphens; the editor sanitises punctuation.
  4. Content (required). The page body, written in markdown. The textarea grows as you type. The editor uses Parsedown safe-mode on the server, so raw HTML is escaped by default.
  5. Images. A FilePond uploader for images that belong to this page; the next topic (Files and images) covers this in detail.
  6. Parent Page. A dropdown listing every other page in the tree. Pick the one this page lives under. "Top" (or "Root", depending on language) means this is a top-level page.
  7. Page template. The theme template file that renders this page, without the .php extension. Leave empty for the theme's default. The template name is sanitised; only the theme decides which names are valid.
  8. Position. A small drag handle (in the tree, not the form) reorders siblings. The Reorder, move, and delete pages topic covers this in detail.
  9. Published (checkbox). When checked, the page is visible to visitors. When unchecked, the page exists in the editor but visitors get a 404. Drafts and the preview workflow are in Drafts and preview.

Step 4: Save

Click the Save button at the bottom of the form. The page reloads with a confirmation message at the top. The page tree refreshes to show your changes.

If the form rejects the save, an error message appears at the top of the form (CSRF token, duplicate name, empty required field, etc.). Fix the cause and save again.

Step 5: Preview your markdown content

The Pages form has a Preview action that renders the markdown content in an overlay so you can check formatting without saving. The preview applies the same markdown rules the frontend uses (Parsedown safe-mode), so what you see is what a visitor would see in the page body. The preview does not wrap the content in the active theme: it shows the body HTML on its own. For a full theme-rendered look, save the page and visit it in a separate browser tab.

What to check after

  • The page appears in the tree at the parent and position you expected.
  • Visiting the page on the frontend (in a separate browser tab) renders the content. If Published is unchecked, the frontend returns 404, which is correct.
  • If the page uses a non-default template, the rendered chrome matches that template, not the default.

Troubleshooting

"Page could not be saved, a page with the specified name already exists"

Names are unique within the same parent. Two top-level pages can both be named "About"; two children of the same parent cannot. Either rename the page or move one of the duplicates to a different parent.

Save succeeds but the frontend shows a 404

The Published checkbox is unchecked. The editor sees the page; visitors do not. Tick Published and save again.

The slug field clears itself when I save

You typed characters the sanitiser does not allow (spaces, punctuation, accented letters, etc.). Use only letters, digits, and hyphens. If you need a non-Latin slug, edit the page through the editor with your locale's keyboard layout; the sanitiser is ASCII-only.

A child page disappears after I rename its parent

The parent's slug changed, so the URL changed too. The page is still in the tree; click it and check the form. The URL is parent slug + page slug. If you renamed the parent and want the old URLs to keep working, set up a 301 redirect (see the Replace 404 with a fallback handler cookbook recipe).

See also