Adding and Editing Documents

 Once you have joined and logged in to the CACVoices site, a folder has been created for you where you can store content. Of course, you can add content to any folder that the site administrator has given you the rights to, which includes News, Events, Volunteer Posting, and Forums, but by default every user can add content to their member folder.

 Each type of content you can add is distinct, and you can edit and view it in different ways. For this reason, CACVoices references each type of content differently; for example, you can add images, links, documents, and so on.

• Document: This is an item that presents some static information to the user. This is the most common type of content added and most closely represents a typical Web page. 

• News item: This is a document that’s to be shown under the news tab (for example, a press release).

• Link: This is a link to another item, which may be internal or external to another Web site.

• Image: This is an image, such as a .gif or .jpeg file.

• Event: This is an upcoming event, meeting, conference, or other event.

• Folder: This is like a folder on a hard drive; this is a folder for putting content into so that it’s easy to find later.

• Topic: This is a grouping of other content. This is essentially a saved search criteria that you can reuse later. Only privileged site users can add topics. We do not recommend using topics in this site.

 • File: This is another piece of content such as a movie, sound clip, text file, spreadsheet, compressed file, or anything else you’d like to upload.

Understanding the Document Content Types

Rather than detailing how to add and edit all the different types of content available, I’ll cover adding one type of content, a document, in detail.

After adding and editing a few of these documents, the approach to adding content should be second nature, and editing other content will be easy.

A document is a page of content, usually a self-contained piece of text. Although all items added to CACVoices are accessible as Web pages, if there’s one content type you could think of as a Web page, this is it.

Adding a Document

 You have two ways to add any piece of content using a Web browser.

First, ensure you’re logged in, because only logged-in users can add content. Second, select the my folder link from the top-right navigation bar. This will take you to your home folder, an area that you control.

If you’re able to add content to a folder, then the folder will show up with the green border around the top. If the green border doesn’t appear, then you won’t be able to add content; this border contains the actions you can perform in the current location.

In the above picture, you can see that the page shows the view of the folder, because that’s the highlighted tab. Other tabs appear such as contents, sharing, and properties for more advanced options.

In the top-right corner of the green border, you’ll see an Add New Item drop-down menu and a State drop-down menu. Click the Add New Item menu to open a drop-down list of items to add.

To add a new document, select Document. Alternatively, if you look in the body of the page, you can see another Add New Item drop-down box. Again, click the down arrow to open a list of items that can be added and then select the item you’d like to add.

Adding a document from the main folder’s content menu

Using the Add New Item list from the green border is a handy menu since it’s available most of the time.

Understanding Where to Add Content

 The easiest place to add content at the beginning is in the user’s member folder, accessible by clicking the my folder link. Although this is useful, it’s probably not the best approach for a long-term solution. Most noticeably it creates long URLs (for example, /Members/andy/Docum....).

It also means your content isn’t accurately reflected in the navigation tree. As you’ll see later, a few solutions exist for this; the most common solution is to make a folder and give certain users the right to access it. For example, that folder may be Help or News.

Editing a Document

Once you’ve clicked to add a document, you’ll be taken directly to the edit page with a message telling you that the document has been created. If this doesn’t happen, you can click a document and then click the edit tab. Again, you’ll see that the edit tab becomes highlighted in green.

Now you can edit the document in your Web browser, using the form provided. If you look at the URL in the address bar of your browser, you’ll note that a short name for the object has been created for you, something such as Document.2003-12-29.43787.

The following is a list of the fields and their meanings:

Short name: The short name will become part of the document’s URL, so keep the name short and descriptive, preferably without spaces. Keeping to these rules will make URLs easier to read. For example, use something such as audit-report-2003. If you don’t provide a name, CACVoices will create one for you.

NOTE This field won’t appear if you selected No for the short names in your preferences page.

Title: This is the title for the item, and it’ll be shown throughout the site (for example, at the top of the page, in the search interface, in the title of the browser, and so on). This field is required. Description: This is a short lead-in to the document, usually about 20 words to introduce the document and provide a teaser for the remainder of the document. This is useful for pages that show summaries of documents, such as search results and folder contents.

Body text: This contains the body of the document. The format for the content is set using the Format field (described next).

Format: You have three choices for the format of body content: Structured Text, HTML, and Plain Text. If you’re unsure, leave this field alone and type the body text as usual.

Upload document: If you do have your document as a file on your computer, you can upload it instead of typing the content into the Body Text field. Use the Upload button at the bottom of the page to select a file. The contents of an uploaded file will replace any content in the Body Text field. Once you’ve finished editing your document, click the Save button to commit your changes. You’ll be returned to the view tab where you can see how the document will be shown to users.

To edit it again, click the edit tab.

Saving the content will take you to the view tab. If you don’t provide the correct input on the edit form, when you save the document you’ll be returned to the edit page, and your errors will be highlighted. At this point your changes haven’t been applied—you must correct the mistakes and click Save again before the changes will be committed.

The view tab shows the document you’ve created. You’ll see that the title, description, and content are all shown in slightly different styles. At the bottom of the page is a byline that contains information about the author of the document, including the date the page was created.

You’ll note that if you go back to folder  contents after saving your changes, you’ll see two documents in your folder: the existing one that’s created for you and the new one you’ve just added. You can edit either of these documents by clicking them to open the view tab, which allows you to select the edit tab.

>

All help documentation adapted from Andy McKay's Definitive Guide to Plone in PDF format