Builder

The page where you make something. A post, an event, a project, a group or an offering, with the place you started from already filled in.

Where this lives: Tools > Builder

What this is

Builder is the page where new things are made. It is also what the plus button in the bar at the top opens.

There is a second, separate surface with a similar name that publishes a website of as many pages as you need. It carries your own words alongside live content from what you already have. It is covered at the end of this page.

What you see

Builder is where you make and publish a website out of what is already in Rivr.

The page is panels you can rearrange. Above them sits the one control that is never hidden: a switch naming whose site you are editing. It lists you, and every group you administer. Whichever you pick is the site every panel below is about.

Sites you can edit sits down the left and is the longer version of that switch: each site you may work on, whether it is published yet, whether it is on its own address, and whether anything is wrong with it.

Pages lists the pages of the site, in the order they appear in its menu, and is where you add one, rename one, reorder them or choose what each page is made of. The site's look lives here too, because that is part of what the site is.

Preview shows the site as it would be. It shows the draft, including changes you have not published, which is not the same as what visitors see. Nothing is on the web until you publish.

Publish puts the current draft on the web, and lists what you have published before. You can go back to an earlier version from here; it asks twice, because it replaces a live site.

Domain is where the site gets its own web address, with the exact steps for wherever your address is registered.

Assistant is a conversation about this site. It can read the pages, propose changes and make them, and it works from what is on your screen rather than from what was last published.

What you can do here

• Get to the form. See Open the create page.
• Share something with a place, a group or everyone. See Make a post.
• Put something up for people to buy or book. See Make an offering.
• Turn what you have into a website. See Publish a site.

How to

Open the create page

1. Press the plus button in the bar at the top, or press Builder under Tools.
2. The Create page opens on the Post tab.

Starting from a place hub instead carries that place with you. The pill asking whether you have something to share opens the same page with the place already chosen.

Make a post

1. Open the create page.
2. Stay on the Post tab.
3. Write the post.
4. Choose Post as if you want it to go out as a group you steward rather than as you.
5. Choose the kind: Social, Offer, Request or Gratitude.
6. Leave Show globally on for everyone, or switch it off and name the places, groups or people who should see it.
7. Publish it. You land on the post you made.

Make an offering

1. Open the create page.
2. Press the Offering tab.
3. Choose what kind of offering it is.
4. Fill in the name, the description and the price.
5. Save it. You land on the offering you made.

Publish a site

1. Open the site publisher. It opens on a page list with one home page on it.
2. Press a page to open it. Give it a title, a menu label and an address. One page is the home page and sits at the top. A page whose address begins with the name of another page sits under that page in the menu, so a photography page beneath your offerings page appears there.
3. Add sections to the page. Hero, About, Posts, Events and Offerings fill themselves from your account. Rich text, Testimonials, Gallery, Call to action and Questions hold words you write.
4. In a rich text box, leave a blank line between paragraphs. Begin a line with two hashes for a heading, three for a smaller one, an angle bracket for a quotation, a hyphen for a list item, or three hyphens for a divider. Put two stars either side of words to make them strong, one star to emphasise them. For a link, put the words in square brackets and the address straight after in round brackets.
5. Press Add page for as many pages as you need, and use the arrows to order them.
6. Choose a theme.
7. Press Publish site. Every page goes out together. The version and the time it went live appear below.
8. To use your own domain, fill in the domain and choose one of your connected providers, then press Bind domain.

Add a page that does something

A page can do more than say things. It can show the actual work on one of your projects, or the list of what an event still needs, and let a visitor take a piece of it. It is recorded on your project, as them.

1. Open the site publisher and add a page.
2. Press Add block and choose one:
   • Barn raising shows a project's jobs and tasks, who has claimed what, and what is still open, and lets a signed-in visitor claim a piece of it.
   • Potluck lists what an event needs and who is bringing each thing, so nothing is doubled and nothing is forgotten.
   • Enquiry form asks your own questions and sends the answers to you.
3. Choose which project, or which event, the block shows. It only offers the ones you own or administer.
4. Choose whether one person per item, or several. Choose whether a visitor is asked to sign in before they see the claim buttons, or only when they press one. A potluck can also let people add something that was not on the list.
5. Publish. The block appears on that page and nowhere else.

You can also describe what you want in words. Say "a page where my crew can sign up to help with the greenhouse build" and the assistant picks the block and says which project it is binding it to, before anything goes out. If your words could mean two of your projects, it asks which rather than guessing.

Put a form on your site

A form is a thing you own, like a project or an event. You write the questions once; a page shows them. Eight different forms, say an application, an enquiry, a waiting list and a plain "say hello", are eight forms and one block rather than eight pages of machinery.

1. Open the site publisher and press Forms.
2. Give the form a name. That name is the heading people read, so write it the way you would say it.
3. Add your questions. Each one is a short line, an email address, a phone number, a longer answer, a choose-one, a tick-all-that-apply, or a box somebody has to agree to. Mark the ones you will not do without.
4. Write what you want to say back once somebody has sent it. That sentence replaces the form on the page, which is why you do not need a thank-you page.
5. Add a page, press Add block, choose Enquiry form, and choose which form it shows.
6. Publish.

Nobody needs an account to answer. That is the point of a form, and it is the only thing on a published site that works that way. Somebody signed in to Rivr can send it as themselves and it arrives with their name on it; somebody who is not sends it as a stranger, and it arrives with whatever they typed.

What changes for you

You must be signed in to make anything.

The place you started from is carried into the form. Posting from a place hub posts to that place without you choosing it again.

Starting from a group carries the group with you. The event form arrives with post as a group already ticked.

Selling a paid offering or a paid listing needs a Seller membership or higher. Creating a paid ticketed event needs a Host membership or higher. Without one, a window explains that and offers the plans.

Whatever you make, you land on the thing you made.

The site publisher works for you and for any group you administer. Your stored provider credentials are used on the server and are never typed into the page.

A site is published whole. Every page goes out in one go, and a saved version is the whole site, so going back to an earlier one brings back every page of it. Your posts, events and offerings stay live on the published site: they are read from your account when somebody visits, so a new post appears without you republishing.

An app page works the same way and one thing more. What it shows is read from your account when somebody visits, so a task somebody claimed this morning is gone from the list this afternoon without you touching the site. The counts on it are real: they are what your project actually says, not a number anybody typed.

A visitor who is not signed in sees the public part of the list and an honest line about what signing in would add. A visitor who signs in is asked only for what the block needs: to know who they are, and to claim one thing. A published site can never ask for your wallet, your account export, or anything administrative, whatever it is built with. Only the blocks above can appear on a page: nobody, including the assistant, can put a program of their own on your site.

Someone who has hidden their name from strangers still counts on the list, so nothing gets doubled. They are shown as Someone rather than named.

You do not have to make anything public to put it on your site. A page reads as the person looking at it. Somebody signed in to Rivr sees what Rivr already lets them see: a member of your group sees the members-only jobs, and somebody outside it does not, on the same page at the same address. Somebody who is not signed in sees the parts that are public, which is what anybody may see.

So a private project on a public page is not a mistake. It shows the people who are entitled to it and nobody else, and the page tells a stranger that signing in may show them more. If you did mean everybody to see it, make it public in the app; the publisher says so when you publish something most visitors will not be able to see.

Changing your mind takes effect on the next visit, in both directions, because nothing about who may see what is decided when you publish.

An answer to a form is a request in Rivr, addressed to you. It shows up in your notifications and in "Waiting on you" beside your join requests, your bookings and everything else somebody is waiting on you for. It does not go to a separate inbox you have to remember to check, and there is no export step.

The person who answered becomes a contact in your account: a person record with their name and the address they gave. If they ever make a Rivr account with that same address, the record becomes theirs and everything they sent you is already attached to it. A form's questions are public, because people have to be able to read them. The answers are private rows addressed to you.

Sending a form is protected without sending your visitors anywhere else. There is no puzzle to solve, no pictures of traffic lights, and no third company watching the people who write to you. The page is handed a ticket that only works for that form on that site and only for a while, a message sent faster than anybody could have read the first question is refused, and there is a limit on how many can arrive from one place in an hour. If somebody presses send twice because the first press seemed to do nothing, you get one message, not two.

Where this connects

• Making things is the shorter explanation of the five tabs.
• Who can see what explains the visibility control on every form.
• Canvas is what the Design button opens.