Contact Area

The layout redesign introduces the contact area to the layout. It's purpose is to show how the user may contact the person about that site with questions and concerns. It is not a replacement for a site's separate contact page.

Required Files

contact.html should be in the site's /includes/ folder. The /includes/ folder should be in the root folder of the site.

Proper Use

The contact area serves to show the user how to contact a person about the site. It should contain at minimum a phone number or an email address. It might also contain the name of the person to contact, at that person's discretion.

The contact area is not the same as a web page that lists the contact information for a department. Such a page can contain much more information and go into more detail. It could contain fax numbers, instructions on who to contact for what purpose, listings for everyone in the department, etc. The contact area instead contains just enough information so that the user can contact the person responsible for the site. That person can either handle the request or forward the request to the appropriate person in the department.

Do not put a link to a contact page as the only content of the contact area. That is not it's purpose. A contacts page should be a link in the site menu instead.

The contact area may be styled using the site styles; however, the styles may not remove the contact area.

Turning the Contact Area Off

You may occasionally need to turn the contact area off for a particular page. The page may be the site home page, for example. If necessary, the contact area can be turned off with the contactarea attribute in the cf_layout tag:

<cf_layout contactarea="off" ... >

The contact.html file is still required, but is not included into that page.

You should only use this attribute on pages where absolutely necessary. The contact area serves an important purpose for your site. Only turn it off where necessary.