Articles module

The Articles module adds a separate article content type to Superlite.

It is intended for websites that publish blog posts, news, guides, reviews or other content that belongs in an article archive rather than among the permanent pages of the website.

Articles use the same Superlite publishing system as pages, including the editor, SEO settings, revisions, static HTML generation and redirects.

Installing the Articles module

Open Modules in the Superlite administration interface.

Install the Articles module from the available modules or upload the module ZIP package manually.

Once the module has been installed, activate it.

After activation, Articles appears as a separate section in the Superlite administration interface.

The module also creates the structure required for the public article archive.

The Articles section

Open Articles from the main navigation to manage article content.

Articles are kept separate from Pages.

Use Pages for permanent website content such as About, Contact or Services.

Use Articles for content that belongs to a chronological or editorial section of the website.

The Articles section lets you create new articles and open existing articles for editing.

Creating an article

Open Articles and create a new article.

Enter the title and add the article content using the Superlite editor.

The editor works in the same way as it does for pages. You can use paragraphs, headings, images, lists and the other available content blocks.

You can save the article as a draft while working on it.

The article does not become available on the public website until it is published.

Article URLs

The Articles module uses a dedicated article URL structure.

An article with the slug:

screaming-frog-review

is published at:

example.com/articles/screaming-frog-review/

The permanent internal identity of the article is separate from the slug, so the URL can be changed later without creating a completely new content item.

Changing an article URL

You can change the slug of a published article.

Because this changes the public URL, Superlite can create a permanent 301 redirect from the previous address to the new one.

For example:

/articles/old-title/

can redirect to:

/articles/new-title/

This allows old links and search engine results to continue reaching the article.

Publication date

Articles have a publication date.

The publication date can be used when displaying the article itself and when ordering articles in archives.

It also helps distinguish articles from normal Pages, which are not primarily intended to be chronological content.

Featured image

An article can have a featured image.

Choose the image from the Superlite media library.

The featured image can be used by the active theme when displaying the article and can also be used in article listings.

Exactly how the featured image appears depends on the theme.

Excerpt

Articles can have an excerpt.

The excerpt is a short summary of the article that can be used in article listings and archives.

Write an excerpt that gives the reader a clear idea of what the article contains without reproducing the entire introduction.

The theme determines how and where excerpts are displayed.

Categories

Articles can be assigned to categories.

Categories are useful for grouping related articles into broader subjects.

For example, a website reviewing SEO tools could use categories such as:

• Technical SEO
• Rank tracking
• Keyword research

The Articles module can generate category archive pages containing the published articles assigned to each category.

Tags

Articles can also have tags.

Tags provide another way to group articles around more specific subjects.

The Articles module can generate tag archive pages for published articles that share the same tag.

Categories and tags are optional. You do not need to use them on every website.

SEO settings

Articles have their own SEO settings in the same way as pages.

These can include:

• SEO title
• Meta description
• Canonical URL
• Robots settings
• Open Graph title
• Open Graph description
• Open Graph image

If a field is left empty, Superlite can use the normal default values where available.

Publish the article after changing SEO settings so that the generated HTML is updated.

Article metadata

The Articles module can provide article specific metadata to the active theme.

This includes information that distinguishes an article from an ordinary web page.

The module can provide Article structured data and article specific Open Graph metadata when the article is rendered.

A compatible theme uses this information when generating the final HTML.

Publishing an article

When the article is ready, choose Publish.

Superlite validates the content and generates a static HTML version using the active theme.

Once publication succeeds, the article becomes available at its public URL.

The module also updates the article related parts of the site that are affected by the new publication.

This can include the main article archive, category and tag archives, the RSS feed and sitemap information.

Editing a published article

A published article can be edited without immediately replacing the live version.

Open the article and make your changes.

The existing published article remains available while you work.

When the changes are ready, publish the article again.

Superlite then generates the updated static HTML and replaces the previous public version.

The article archive

The Articles module creates an article archive at:

example.com/articles/

This is the main public listing of published articles.

When the module is activated, Superlite automatically creates an Articles Page for this archive.

The page behaves like a normal Superlite Page, but the module adds the article listing below the page content.

This means you can edit the Articles Page and add an introduction or other content above the list of articles.

Showing Articles in the site navigation

Publishing articles does not automatically add the Articles archive to your main navigation.

To make the article section easy for visitors to find, open Navigation and add the Articles Page to the appropriate menu.

The menu item then links to:

/articles/

Visitors can open this page to browse the published articles.

Editing the Articles Page

The automatically created Articles Page can be edited like another Superlite Page.

Content that you add to the page appears above the automatically generated article list.

For example, you can add an introduction explaining what readers will find in the article section.

Do not manually create a second list of articles in the page content. The Articles module generates the listing automatically.

Article listings and themes

The Articles module provides the article data, while the active theme controls how the listing is presented.

A theme can determine how titles, publication dates, featured images and excerpts appear in the archive.

If articles are published but the archive does not look correct, check that the active theme supports the Articles module and its article layouts.

Category archives

When categories are used, the module can generate archive pages containing articles from each category.

These archive pages are rebuilt when relevant articles are published or changed.

The archive displays only the articles associated with that category.

The active theme controls their visual presentation.

Tag archives

Tags can also have automatically generated archive pages.

A tag archive contains the published articles associated with that tag.

As with category archives, the Articles module provides the content and Superlite generates the static public files.

RSS feed

The Articles module generates an RSS feed for published articles.

The standard feed is available at:

example.com/articles/feed.xml

The feed can be used by RSS readers and other services that consume RSS.

When new articles are published, the feed is updated as part of the article publishing process.

Articles and sitemap.xml

Published articles are included in the website sitemap where appropriate.

This allows search engines to discover article URLs through the same sitemap system used by Superlite.

Publishing, changing or removing articles can therefore update sitemap information.

Revisions

Articles use the Superlite revision system.

When a new version is manually published, previous versions can be preserved as revisions.

This makes it possible to review or restore an earlier version if necessary.

Revision handling works in the same way as it does for other supported Superlite content.

Removing an article

An article that should no longer be public can be unpublished or removed according to the available article controls.

Before permanently removing an established article, consider what should happen to its URL.

If another article or page replaces it, create a 301 redirect to the relevant destination.

If there is no useful replacement, a redirect may not be necessary.

Articles and static publishing

Although Articles adds blog style functionality, it does not turn the public website into a dynamic blog application.

Articles, the main article archive, category archives, tag archives and the RSS feed are generated by Superlite.

Visitors receive the generated files from the web server.

This allows a Superlite website to have a full article section while retaining the static publishing model used by the rest of the CMS.