Overview:
- Page content can be directly edited as an “LCG structured text” document. The format is described in the formatting manual.
- Images, external documents, sound recordings, videos and other types of additional content may be included within a page using Attachments.
- Extension modules can be used for embedding “smart” content within a page.
- Pages can be arranged into a hierarchy, which is automatically respected by site navigation menus.
- The content of each page can be defined in multiple language variants.
Main menu management
The main menu is generated automatically by the system according to page hierarchy and order. See also Navigation for more information about menus from the point of view of a website visitor.
Positioning a page within the main menu is controlled by certain values within page “Global options” (these settings apply to all language variants of given page). Use the button “Options” in page actions menu to change these values.
The field Parent defines the immediately upper page in the hierarchy. You can leave it blank to put the page to the top level.
The field Menu order defines the order of pages at the same hierarchy level. Pages will be ordered according to this number so that pages with lower values will appear first. If you leave this field blank when creating a new page, the number will be assigned automatically to put the page to the end of the corresponding menu hierarchy level (as set by "Parent").
If you check the Hidden checkbox, the page will not appear in the main menu. Such page can be still displayed if the user enters its explicit address (see Page URIs) or if you create a link from some other page (recommended). So hiding pages only controls their presence in the menu and has no effect on security or availability of the page itself.
Page URIs
Page URI (address of the page as seen from outside) is determined by the identifier. The page with an identifier set to "mypage", for example, will have the followin address (URI): "http://www.yourdomain.com/mypage"
You need to fill in a valid identifier for each new page. It is not possible to change the identifier later, since this would break all links to this page from the internet (including search engines), so please think twice before choosing an identifier. You should also remember, that the identifier is the same for all language variants of the page, so it is a good practise to use English names for them (at least for multilingual sites which have an English version).
The URIs intentionaly ignore the page hierarchy – the page "subpage", which is a subpage of "page" will still have the URI "http://www.yourdomain.com/subpage", not "http://www.yourdomain.com/page/subpage". This approach allows you to make changes in page hierarchy without breaking external links.
Page states
The page state (displayed in WMI) can have one of the following values:
- Not published ... The page is not published in the current language so the visitors can not access it.
- Changed ... The page is published in the current language, but the content was modified since last publication, so visitors still get the previous content.
- Ok ... The page is published and up to date.
Published/unpublished pages
It is possible to control the availability of each page by publishing/unpublishing it using the corresponding action buttons. An unpublished page exist in the database, so it is possible to work on its content, but it is not visible to website visitors. Unpublished pages only appear in the WMI.
The state of publication can be controlled independently for each language variant. The changes always apply just for the current language, so it is necessary to switch the language to be able to publish/unpublish items in other languages. This feature in fact allows you to have a different set of pages available in each language variant of the website.
Access control (private pages)
Private pages are only accessible to logged in users (only registered users enabled by the administrator are able to log in). A private page may appear in the menu, so anyone can see that it exists, but only authorized users will be able display it. Private items must still be published to become available for the website visitors (these two properties are independent).
Attachments
Attachments are external files attached to pages. You can attach images, documents, sound recordings, videos etc.
You can manage page attachments through the item "Attachments" in the menu of actions at the bottom of each page (this menu appears only when you are logged in and you have the privilegs for given page). Here you can add new attachments or edit the existing ones.
You can supply a title and description for each attachment apart from the actual file. Title and description are not mandatory, but it is recommended to fill them out. Title, if supplied, will be automatically used instead of the filename when the attachment link is displayed on the page. The description is used in the automatic attchements list (see below) and as link tooltip. Images are displayed inline and the title and description are used as its ALT/LONGDESC attributes.
Automatic attachment lists
If you leave the field “Listed” checked in the attachment properties, the attachment will be listed automatically. If you provide a title, this title will appear in the list instead of the filename. If you provide a description, it will appear in the list.
Please note that the title and description are language specific texts, so when you enter them, they are used only for the current language. You will need to switch the language and enter the values again to supply their multiple language variants.
The attachment file, on the other hand, is independent on the language, so uploading a new file changes the attachment for all language variants of the page.
Explicit references
You can refer to any attachment by simply putting its filename into square brackets anywhere within the page text. Images will be automatically displayed inline, for other file types a link will be created. Thus a reference to a PDF document will automatically open the document in user's browser (or PDF viewer) and a reference to an MP3 file will start playback when the user clicks the link.
Example:
When you create a new attachment by uploading a file 'image.jpg', you can include this file within the page by the following reference:
[image.jpg]
Attachment links are treated as any other links within the LCG structured text document. You can specify an explicit title, enforce image alignment etc. See the formatting manual for more information.