Ever wanted to tell something to your readers regardless of which article they are viewing? Or display navigation links in every single page? Well, you can do that with the global content block feature! This Guild feature will let you do that and much, much more. The only limit is your own imagination!
What’s the global content block?
The global content block is a text box that you can find in the Display tab of your world’s configuration page. Anything that you add in there will be displayed in every single article —and I mean anything! Plain text, statblocks, embeds… anything. Additionally, it has its own CSS selector, so you can give it a special style too!
Comparison of the global content block’s BBCode and its result, as shown in Black Light. As you can see, it has been styled with CSS to make it prettier!
Global table of contents
Fillimet’s global table of contents—check it out!
The [toc] BBCode tag displays the table of contents for your world. Add it to the global content block to have it displayed in every article! For example, Angela Biscup, writer of the Fillimet world, used this technique —it only took a little bit of CSS wizardry to seamlessly integrate it with the rest of the page.
If you use [toc], an automatic table of contents will be generated from your category tree. However, you can always use a list to customise its contents to your liking.
News and updates
List of published books in Wyrd West‘s global content block.
Sometimes you want to tell something to your readers. Maybe you just finished writing an article you are very proud of. Or you got a new cat and want to show some pics! Since the global content block is visible in all articles by default, you can do it! Just add a link to the new article (or the cat pic, why not) and all of your readers will see it.
Sable Aradia, author of the Wyrd West, had a similar idea and added the list of her published books. This way, her readers can easily see and purchase them!
Global content filters
Melior‘s global content filters.
One of the beauties of World Anvil is how the different features can be combined. An example of this is Melior, by TJ, who has combined the self-assigned groups with this feature to create content filters.
TJ made it even fancier, though. When you are logged-in, you can choose if you want to see graphic content and spoilers. However, when you are logged out, you see a link prompting you to log in instead!
How are you using this feature? Let me know in the comments!
I guess my use is a bit more mundane.
Since it shows on every page of the world, I make a fun graphic with links so I can announce when my new book or project comes out that readers would be interested in.
Love seeing the different uses! Thank you for sharing this =)
Implemented! Excited that I no longer have to add navigation to each new article, or have multiple versions in use as I come up with new things to put in the sidebar.