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Create your first page

This guide walks through creating your first Capell page from the admin panel. It is written for a first-time user who has already installed Capell and can log in to /admin.

If you have not installed Capell yet, start with the quickstart or the full install guide.

Open Pages from the sidebar. Pages are the main routable content records in Capell: they belong to a Site, can sit inside a page tree, and publish to frontend URLs.

The Pages list in Capell Admin The Pages list in Capell Admin

Click New page in the top-right corner.

The New page action on the Pages list The New page action on the Pages list

The first fields decide where the page lives before you write content.

The top fields on the create page form The top fields on the create page form

Site — which public website owns the page. Even on a single-site install, the Site carries the domain, languages, default pages, related sites, and brand-level details the frontend uses.

Parent Page — where the page sits in the tree.

  • Leave it empty for a top-level page such as /about.
  • Choose a parent when the page belongs under another, such as /about/team.

Internal name — the admin-facing name for the page record. It normally follows the page title, but you can keep the admin list clear when the frontend title is long or marketing-led.

The Site selector on the page form The Site selector on the page form The Parent Page selector on the page form The Parent Page selector on the page form

Capell builds URLs from the page tree.

Page setupResulting URL
Top-level page with slug about/about
Child page with slug team under about/about/team
Child page with slug careers under about/about/careers

Moving a page to a different parent changes the URL path. Capell creates automatic redirect Page URLs when a published page’s slug or parent path changes, so old URLs keep pointing at the current page. Use the Redirects or URL Manager package when you need manual redirects, imports, hit counts, or deeper redirect reporting.

For more background, read How Capell works.

Title — the main human-readable page title. It usually appears in the browser title, search snippets, social previews, and any frontend template that prints the page heading.

Slug — the URL segment. Capell fills it from the title, so About Our Team becomes about-our-team. Edit it when you need a shorter or clearer URL.

URL preview — shows the Site domain and parent path before the slug. Use it as a quick check before saving.

The title, slug, and URL preview fields The title, slug, and URL preview fields

Good first-page examples:

PageTitleSlug
About pageAboutabout
Contact pageContactcontact
Services pageServicesservices

Keep slugs short, lowercase, and stable. Changing a slug after publishing changes the public URL.

Content — the main body of the page.

The page content editor The page content editor

On a plain install, this is a rich text editor for headings, paragraphs, links, tables, lists, and simple formatting. With ContentSections installed, the content area becomes a section builder with rows, columns, reusable widgets, and richer page composition.

For your first page, keep it simple:

  1. Add a short heading or opening sentence.
  2. Add one paragraph of useful body copy.
  3. Save as draft.
  4. Preview the page before publishing.

Open Extra Content when the page needs supporting fields.

The Extra Content section on the page form The Extra Content section on the page form

The exact fields can vary by blueprint and installed packages, but the common ideas are:

FieldWhat it is for
SummaryA short description for cards, listings, and fallback metadata.
LabelAlternate text used by some themes or navigation surfaces.
Link text / CTA textButton or link copy when another page links to this one.

You do not need to fill every field on the first pass. Add the content that helps the frontend theme render the page well.

Layout — which frontend template renders the page. A normal content page can use the default layout; a landing page, article, product page, or campaign page may use a different one if your project has registered it.

Visible From — scheduled availability. Leave it empty when the page should be available as soon as it is published.

The layout and publish timing fields The layout and publish timing fields

Page Blueprint is closely related to layout, but it is not the same thing. Blueprints define reusable editing, rendering, and behaviour rules:

ConceptPractical meaning
BlueprintReusable editing, rendering, and behaviour rules.
LayoutControls how the frontend renders the page.
ContentThe text, media, and structured fields the editor adds.

Developers can register custom blueprints through Capell extension points. Read Blueprints for examples and screenshots, or How Capell works when you are ready for the deeper model.

Use Save as Draft while you are still editing. A draft is stored in the admin, but it is not the public version yet.

Use Create or Save changes when you are ready to store the record normally. On a plain install, use Save and Publish or Publish when the page is ready to go live. If workflow packages are installed, publishing may move through approvals, Publishing Studio, or scheduled publishing.

The create and save as draft actions The create and save as draft actions

For the first page, save a draft, then preview it.

Return to the Pages list and open the row action for your page. The preview action opens the frontend view so you can check the content before making it public.

After publishing, visit the page URL directly.

Use Unpublish from the edit page when the page should come down. To schedule a removal, set Visible until in the Publish Dates section. Use Cancel scheduled unpublish if the page should stay live after a removal date was set.

If the frontend still shows old content, use the admin Clear Cache action. Ask a developer to run the cache commands below only when the admin action does not clear the stale output:

Terminal window
php artisan capell:html-cache:clear

If the project uses capell-app/html-cache, a developer can also run php artisan capell:static-site to warm the generated public cache.

If the project uses a queue connection such as database or redis, a developer should keep a worker running while testing publishes:

Terminal window
php artisan queue:work

See Troubleshooting if the page shows a 404, stale content, or a blank frontend screen.

On edit screens, Capell shows additional page settings and package-provided fields. These can include SEO settings, canonical URL choices, cache behaviour, featured images, and other fields added by extensions.

The edit page settings tab The edit page settings tab

For a first page, avoid tuning everything at once. Confirm the page renders first, then come back for SEO and sharing details.

A Site is bigger than one page. It represents the public web property that all its pages belong to.

Site-level details can apply across every page for that site:

Site detailWhere it is used
Company or business nameFooter, contact blocks, schema, and theme copy.
Logo and inverted logoHeader, footer, dark backgrounds, and theme components.
Favicon and iconBrowser tabs, saved shortcuts, and app-like surfaces.
Brand colorTheme accents, buttons, and package-aware UI choices.
Email, phone, contact pageFooter, contact cards, schema, and reusable widgets.
Domains and languagesURL generation, language tabs, canonical links, and routing.

Site records live in the Settings area of the admin sidebar. Open Sites when you need to update the company, logo, favicon, brand, domain, language, or related site details behind the pages.

The Settings area where site-wide configuration is managed The Settings area where site-wide configuration is managed

Change Site details when the same value should affect the whole website. Change Page details when the value only belongs to one page.

For the full admin map, see the Admin interface guide.

Do not install every package on day one. Add the next package when the page you are building clearly needs it.

ExtensionAdd it when you need
ContentSectionsCustom rows, columns, widgets, reusable content blocks, and richer page layouts.
NavigationHeader, footer, sidebar, or utility menus that link your pages together.
RedirectsManual redirects or safer URL changes after pages have been published.
Built-in Default ThemeA practical frontend starting point provided by capell-app/frontend without installing a theme package.
Frontend AuthoringEdit page title, description, or content from the public page after the admin-only beacon confirms access.
Media LibraryThe Curator media backend and picker, instead of the default Spatie MediaLibrary backend.
SEO SuiteAudits, structured data, robots controls, and stronger social metadata.
Site DiscoveryHTML/XML sitemaps and discoverability files.

That order keeps the learning curve sane: create pages first, add layout power with ContentSections when the content needs structure, connect pages with Navigation, protect URLs with Redirects, then add SEO or richer operational tooling when the site is real enough to benefit.