Your course page: search and preview
Your course’s public page is where a stranger decides. It now does three things beyond listing the lessons: it puts your trailer (or cover image) right beside the enrol button, it shows a strip of real moments from inside the teaching, and it lets a visitor search everything you say in the lessons - and jump to the exact second you say it.
The prompt
“Show me how my [course name] course page looks to a visitor, and tell me whether the search box and the look-inside strip are showing.”
Signed in, Get my prompt fills in your site for you. Otherwise press Copy and fill in the [bracketed] parts. First time? Connect your AI to bernard once: Use your own AI (opens in a new tab).
The top of the page
The trailer sits beside the title, the price and the enrol button - one glance covers “what is this” and “how do I get it”. If the course has no trailer, the cover image stands in. You don’t arrange any of this; it’s how every course page is laid out.
A look inside
Below the syllabus, visitors see a row of small pictures cut from your free preview lesson - one per chapter. Each one jumps to that moment in the preview, so a visitor can taste the actual teaching before deciding. The strip builds itself from the preview lesson’s chapters: no chapters, no strip. Adding chapters to the preview video is the one lever that turns it on.
Modules at a glance
When your lessons are organised into sections, the page shows a grid of numbered cards just under the top - one per section, with its title, how many lessons it holds and roughly how long they run. It gives a stranger the shape of the whole course in one look, before they ever scroll the syllabus. The grid comes straight from your sections, so keeping those tidy is all it takes.
The contents list folds
Under the grid, the lessons themselves are listed module by module, and each module is a fold. The first one is open; the rest are closed, each showing its title, its lesson count and roughly how long it runs. Someone deciding whether to buy can read the shape of the course in a few lines rather than scrolling past two hundred lesson titles - which is what a long syllabus does to a phone. Tapping a module opens it.
A student who is part way through gets something better. Their device remembers which lessons they have finished, so when they come back, the module holding the next unfinished lesson is the one that opens. Nothing is configured and nothing is stored on our side; it is their own device remembering.
Courses with no sections keep the plain numbered list they have always had. Ask bernard to group the lessons into modules and the folds arrive with them.
Search the course
If your lessons have transcripts, the page carries a “Search the course” drawer. Open it, type a word or a phrase, and each result shows the lesson, the moment, and a line of what’s said there - clicking it opens the lesson at that exact second. It’s your own teaching answering, which is a stronger pitch than any blurb.
Two boundaries worth knowing. Search only speaks for courses that are live on your site - drafts and hidden courses say nothing. And it only ever gives away a snippet: the full lesson still sits behind whatever door the course has, so a paid course stays paid.
Questions people ask
- Why doesn’t my course page show the search box?
- The search box only appears once at least one lesson has a transcript. Transcripts are made automatically when bernard indexes a lesson’s video - so if your videos are hosted on bernard and have been indexed, you’re set. Courses whose videos live on YouTube or Vimeo don’t have transcripts here yet, so the box stays away rather than sitting there unable to answer.
- Can strangers read my paid lessons through search?
- No. A search result is a short snippet - a sentence or two around the match - plus a link to the moment in the lesson. Clicking through still meets the normal door: preview lessons play for anyone, paid lessons ask the visitor to enrol. Snippets only come from courses that are live on your site, never drafts or hidden ones.
- Where do the pictures in the look-inside strip come from?
- From your free preview lesson’s chapters. Each chapter’s thumbnail becomes a card, and clicking one jumps straight to that moment in the preview. If the preview lesson has no chapters yet, the strip stays hidden - add chapters to the video and it appears on its own.
- Where does the modules grid come from?
- From your course’s own sections. When your lessons are organised into sections, the page shows one card per section - a number, the section title, how many lessons it holds and roughly how long they run. No sections, no grid; organise the lessons into sections and it appears on its own.
- Can I collapse the modules on my course page?
- Yes - it happens on its own once your course has sections. Each module on the course page is a fold: the first one is open, the rest are closed, and each closed module shows its title, how many lessons it holds and roughly how long they run. A visitor sees the shape of the whole course without scrolling past every lesson, which is what a long syllabus does to a phone. A returning student gets one better: the module holding the next lesson they haven’t finished opens for them. If your course has no sections yet, ask bernard to group the lessons into modules and the folds appear with them.
- Do these page changes need my approval?
- The layout itself is how every course page renders, so there’s nothing to approve there. Anything that changes your course’s content - lessons, prices, descriptions - still goes through the usual approve-before-publish flow, and you can undo it the same way as any other change.