Use Microsites in the Lightbox Content Library

You can use the Sales Lightbox content library to store and share microsite content. The content library supports multiple-page and single-page microsite content. You construct your microsite content in .zip file format. The .zip file contains the required .html and supporting files, such as images and cascading style sheets.

For a procedure about creating and uploading the microsite files, see Create and Upload a Microsite .Zip File.

About the .Zip File

You create the microsite file structure on your hard drive and then you use a .zip compression utility to compress the files for upload. Only .zip compression format is allowed. The microsite's main landing page can have its own domain name or subdomain name. Your .zip file structure determines whether Lightbox considers the microsite a single-page microsite or a multiple-page microsite.

Single-page microsite: The .zip file contains no embedded .zip files and contains one .html (or .htm) file in the directory structure. The page also contains additional supporting image files, cascading style sheet (.css) files, or JavaScript (.js) files in a separate folder.
Multiple-page microsite: The .zip file contains embedded .zip files that contain one .html (or .htm) file in the directory structure. The page also contains additional supporting image files, cascading style sheet (.css) files, or JavaScript (.js) files in a separate folder.

This topic contains examples of the supported folder construction for microsite .zip files.

The following rules apply to the .html files:

For a single-page microsite, the .zip file must contain only one .html (or .htm) file at the top location in the folder. For multiple-page microsites, the embedded .zip files serve as independent microsite pages. That is, each embedded .zip file must contain all of the elements that a single-page microsite contains, including the .html file.
The .html file must be named identically to the .zip file. For example, visionservers.zip must contain a file named visionservers.html (or .htm) at the top location in the folder.
If a properly-named, full-sized thumbnail image is provided in the .zip file, the application uses it as the thumbnail. See the rules on image files following this text for more information.

The following rules apply to the image files:

Supported image file types are .png and .jpg.
To designate a thumbnail image in the microsite, include the image file at the same location as the .html file. and append -full to the file name. For example, in the visionservers.zip file, include an image file named visionservers-full.jpg.
If no image is designated as the thumbnail, then Lightbox displays its default thumbnail image.

You can enable keyword search for microsites by including a text file with the keywords. See the section on enabling keyword search for microsites later in this topic.

Name and Structure Microsite Files

For microsites to be accepted for upload into the content library, you must follow some rules for naming and structuring the files. Each page must contain a folder of the same name, and that folder must contain an .html file of the same name. Thus, visionservers.zip must contain a folder, visionservers. In that folder there must be a file, visionservers.html. It can contain any number of other files and folders, but it must at least contain that file.

For a single-page microsite, you supply the .zip file that contains an .html file named the same as the .zip file. Optionally, you also supply a thumbnail image, a text file for keyword search, and supporting files, such as a cascading style sheet and JavaScript files.

The following figure shows an example of a well-constructed single-page microsite folder structure called visionservers.

For multiple-page microsites, you construct the .zip file as multiple .zip files within a parent .zip file.

The following figure shows an example of a well-constructed multiple-page microsite folder structure called visionservers.

Enable Keyword Search for Microsites

You can add the ability for users to search for microsite files by keywords. Add a text file with the keywords to the microsite .zip file and name the file appropriately. If keyword search isn't enabled, then the main .html file is scrubbed of HTML tags and stored as searchable content. Use the following guidance when creating the text file:

Use a text editor application, such as Microsoft Notepad, to create the text file.
Name the text file with the same name as the .zip and .html files and append it with -Searchdata (note the file name is case-sensitive). For example, name it visionservers-Searchdata.txt.
Include the text (.txt) file in the same location as its corresponding .html file.
Enter the keywords with only spaces between them.
Don't use punctuation marks, such as commas or periods, in the text file.