Document Actions
Content types
A short description of the content types you can add.
Page
A Page is normally the most frequently used content type, and corresponds to the HTML pages, you normally see on a web site. A page can be made in any of the following formats:
- Structured Text
- A relatively simple text format with some possibilities of formatting the text without using HTML.
- reStructured Text (not recommended)
- A somewhat complicated text format. It has a lot of possibilities, but it is probably easier to use HTML.
- HTML
- A lot of documentation regarding HTML exists, but it is probably easier just to use an editor like MS FrontPage. After finishing the page, you just copy the HTML codes to the contents window. Don't copy all of the codes, just the ones between <BODY> and </BODY>.
- Plain Text
- This format does not support any kind of formatting. On the other hand it is extremely easy to use. Just type in your text, or copy it from somewhere else. You don't need to know anything about formatting codes.
Folder
All contents on the portal is organised in Folders. A folder is, in principle, an object equal to a Page, a News Item, an Event and others. But unlike these a folder can contain other objects including other folders. This concept will be quite familiar for most people - e.g. the way you access your files on a hard disk. In fact, the organisation of the contents on the portal is very similar to the file system on a hard disk for instance.
It might seem quite confusing to a new user of the portal, that when you choose a folder, you might not necessarily see the contents of the folder. This is because the webmaster has the possibility of choosing, that one of the pages in the folder should be shown in stead. This is done with the function "Display, which is described in "Overview". In this situation, if you would rather see the contents of the folder, just choose the tab "Contents".
When you have chosen the tab "Contents" for a folder, you have the possibility of performing various actions on the contents of the folder. You just have to mark the checkboxes next to the objects, you want the action to be performed on. Afterwards you choose the action from the buttons right under the table. Among others you have the possibility of copying, moving, deleting and renaming the chosen objects.
Image
If you want to have an image on the portal, then you would create an Image object. During the creation of the Image object you will be given the opportunity to upload the image itself. You can look at it as though the image file (e.g. picture.jpg) is wrapped in an Image object, so that it can work as any other object in Plone. That way the image gets to hold the same data, as is common for all Plone objects as described in "Introduction".
Folders containing only Image objects can work as photo albums. For that purpose you would chose the display for the folder to be "Photo Album View".
You can also use Image objects as illustrations in pages. In that case you will have to refer to the short name of the Image object. This would normally be name of the uploaded image file - e.g. picture.jpg. You can always figure out the short name by choosing the picture and looking at the address line of the browser. If says something like "http://www.domain.tld/photo-album/picture.jpg/view", then the short name is picture.jpg (you should disregard "/view" in this context). If for example you wanted to use the image in an HTML page, you might use the following HTML code:
<img src="/photo-album/picture.jpg" />
If you want to change the short name of an Image object, then you would have to rename it. Use the method described earlier under "Folder".
File
If you want to have a file on the portal, for instance for other people to download, then you would create a File object. During the creation of the File object you will be given the opportunity to upload the file itself. Please note, that you will have to choose "Replace with new file:" to be able to choose which file to upload using the button right below.
A file can be of any type, but normally it would be a PDF file, a Word document or some other kind of document. The File object is very similar to the Image object, and the description the Image object also covers the File object in many ways.
You can use folders with files as file archives, or you can have links to them in Page objects. For the latter purpose you might use the following HTML code:
<a href="/file-archive/word-document.doc">Link to a Word document</a>
Event
Objects of the content type Event is used for storing information about Events. The advantage of using specialised objects for this purpose is, that it makes it possible for the system to find and present Events in an advantageous manner. E.g. the IGU portal shows the next 3 upcoming events in the right column. Nobody has to maintain this list, as the system knows, which objects are events and how to read the date of these events.
When an Event object is created, it is mandatory to input a start and an end time. If this is not relevant for that event, just choose 00:00 or --:--. Please note that you also have to choose "Event Type(s)", otherwise the Event object can not be created.
News Item
The content type News Item is very similar to Event. There is one difference worth noting though, a News Item does not happen at a particular time. But it does have a publication date, and using this information, the system shows the latest 5 news in the right column. The publication date can be set under Properties for the News Item object. In this context it is called "Effective Date".
