Featured Items is where you choose the books your website puts in front of visitors, most often the row of featured books on your home page. Each group of featured books is called a section. You manage them at Website › Featured Items in BookRouter™.
What a section is
A section is a short list of books with three parts:
- Hand-picked items: books you choose yourself, in the order you set.
- Fill automatically (optional): a rule that keeps the section stocked from your inventory and swaps books in and out on a schedule.
- On your website: how many books show at a time and in what order.
Most shops have a single section, the one their home page shows. If your site has only one, Website › Featured Items opens straight into it. If it has several, you see a list of sections (with tabs for All, Automatic and Hand-picked only); click a section's name to open it.
Picking items by hand
- In the Hand-picked items card, type in Find an item by title, author or item number.
- Click the book you want in the list that appears. It is added as a tile marked New.
- Drag the tiles by their handle to set the order. The number beside the card title shows how many items you have picked.
- To take a book out, click the × on its tile (Remove from this section).
- Click Save. Nothing changes on your website until you save.
Hand-picked items are always in the section. A tile marked Out of stock is still in your list but has sold; a tile that reads No longer in your inventory points at a book that has been deleted, so remove it.
On some sites each tile also has a picture slot and an Edit description button, so a featured book can show its own picture or a note of your own instead of the regular listing. If you do not see these, your site does not use them.
Filling a section automatically
Switch on Fill automatically to let BookRouter keep the section stocked from your inventory. Books matching the rule are added after your hand-picked ones. The rule can use any of these:
- Categories
- Author
- Keywords, with All (every word must match) or Any (one word is enough)
- Price from and Price to (leave blank for no price limit; your site's own currency is used)
- Only items with a photo
Then choose Keep up to this many items in the section (your hand-picked items count towards it) and how often to Refresh the automatic picks, from every day to every month. Under those settings the page tells you how many items are in the section now and when the next refresh is. Click Refresh now to rebuild it straight away; saving also refreshes.
Switch the fill off and only your hand-picked items show, on the website and on its See all page. You can switch it back on at any time.
How the section shows on your website
The On your website card holds the two settings a page uses:
- How many show at a time: for example 4 books in the home page row.
- Order: Picked items first shows your hand-picked books first, in your order, followed by the automatic ones shuffled on every visit. Shuffle everything shuffles every item in the section on every visit, hand-picked or not.
Below them a sentence sums up what happens, for example “Your home page shows 4 of these at a time, picked items first.” The card also lists Pages showing this section, and says when a page sets its own count or order. For your main section, See all page opens the website page that lists the whole section.
The picture style, items per row and the heading are set by your theme, or per page in the Advanced page editor. The Section name at the top of the form is for you (and for the page editor's section picker); it is not the heading your visitors see.
More than one section
A second section is useful only where something on your website can show it, so who can add one depends on your site. Bibliopolis can always add a section for you. On a site that uses the modern theme with the Advanced page editor, an administrator can click Add New Section on the section list and then place it on any page with the editor's Featured Items block.
If you try to add a section where your site cannot show it, you see: “Adding a featured section is not available on this site yet. Ask Bibliopolis if you need another one.”
A section other than the first can be deleted from the ... menu at the top of its page, or from the list.
Collections and reordering sections
Sections belong to a collection, a second layer that a Featured Collection block on a page can show as a group, each section with its own description, link and picture. Most shops never need to touch collections. Where you can use them, Collections appears in the gear menu of Featured Items, and each section's page has an In its collection card with:
- Active in its collection: an inactive section stays saved but the collection skips it.
- Section description, Section link and Section picture: what the collection shows beside the section's items. Leave them blank if you do not use collections.
- Reorder sections: opens a window where you drag the collection's sections into the order your website shows them. With only one section in the collection the button is greyed out.
Staff Picks
If your site uses Staff Picks, each person's picks are a section of their own, named like “Chris's Picks”. You start one from that person's page under Website › Content & Design › Staff (the Staff Picks card, Start ... when I save), then choose the books here in Featured Items like any other section.
New Arrivals settings have moved
New Arrivals no longer has its own page. Its settings are at Website › Site Settings › Storefront Display, under New Arrivals:
- What counts as new: Date added (the usual choice) or Item number (the highest numbers count as newest; offered only when items are numbered by the system).
- Items on the New Arrivals page: how many the page lists (default 100).
- Only from one category: limits the New Arrivals page to one category.
For the emails your customers receive, see Managing your New Arrival emails.
Common questions
Why doesn't a book I picked show on my website?
A featured section only shows books your website would show anywhere else. A book that has sold, is out of stock, is hidden or private, or was saved as a draft (not published) stays in your list but does not appear. Check the item itself in Manage Inventory. Also check that you clicked Save after adding it.
Why does my home page show fewer books than I set?
How many show at a time is a maximum. If the section has fewer books your website can show (picked items that have sold, or an automatic rule that matches only a few books), fewer appear. Pick more items, widen the rule, or click Refresh now. A page placed in the Advanced page editor may also set its own count; the Pages showing this section list tells you when it does.
Why can't I delete my first section?
The first section is the one your home page shows, so it cannot be deleted. To stop it showing anything, remove its hand-picked items and switch off Fill automatically.
How do these settings relate to the Featured Items block in the page editor?
When a Featured Items block in the Advanced page editor leaves its own count or order blank (“As set on the Featured Items page”), it uses the How many show at a time and Order you set here. If the block sets its own, the block wins on that page only. Either way, the books themselves always come from the section you manage here.
The page says nothing on my website shows this section. What does that mean?
The section is saved but no page displays it yet. On a site with the Advanced page editor, place it on a page with the Featured Items block; otherwise ask Bibliopolis.