Draft: How SE17 Works

These instructions should help you get started with the creation and editing of content. Basic content creation is very simple. You may also have editing permissions for this page. If so, please feel free to edit and extend its content.

Permissions and Editing Overview

Each area or content type can have its own access rules.

Below is a list of the current "roles" that one may have in SE17. Each role may have permissions set for all kinds of things. A single person may have multiple roles assigned.

There are two basic roles. One who is logged in is an "authenticated user." Everyone else is an "anonymous user." For each role, menus may change and various other options may change hiding or revealing what one can see or do.

"Authenticated users" may have additional roles like "execom" and/or one or more of the "editor" roles seen below. In the case of editors, their permissions allow them to create or edit specific content types like features or member news. The "announcements editor" role allows one to edit any of the posts in the annoucements content-type: jobs, call for papers, etc. The "content admin" may edit any of the pages.

If you go to your "My account" page, you can see the roles that are assigned to your account.

The matrix of settings can be overwhelming as they become more granular. So, it can be a bit a juggle to get them all aligned when so many options are possible. Please contact us if your role isn't working as you expect it to.

Content Types

There are many content types in the site. These are referred to as "content-types" in the system.

The two primary content types used the site are "page" and "story".

The "page" type is used for content that is to be placed directly in the site menu or placed into collections called "books". The membership "page" or the governace "page" are example of menu assigned pages. The cahiers pages are examples of the use of pages on books. Books can be attached to menus. When a page is created, it must be assigned to a "site section" -- a term that corresponds to a menu area. This is a artifact of early implementations of the site which limits the use of pages.

The "story" type is not used much in the site. It is very similar to the "page" but is not associated with a "site section" and may be assigned to a menu or not. The "story" type can be used as a substitute for a "page" when the ?page" type is too limiting. The page type is the basis for most/many of the other content types in this site. Content types like announcments, features, historical, and so on are based on pages.

Adding and Editing Content

Since open editing is new to the site, you may find bugs here and there. Please advise me (Tad Macy: macy at bowdoin dot edu) of bugs and I'll fix them.

To create new content:

1.  Under the "Member Options" menu on the left, click on the "Create content" option.

2. The next screen will present a list of content types. Depending on your editorial range, this list may be long or short. Look for type of content that you would like to add to the site and click on it. This takes you to the editing screen/form.

These options may appear for some editors but they should be avoided: "Blog entry", "Book page", "Execom wiki", "Feed", "Feed item", "Forum topic", "Image", "Journal Article" (that's Rose's thing for the journals),  "Page", and "Panel".

3. Editing is very much like composing email. There is a form to fill out. You'll have limited editing possibilities in so far as font, color, and so on. This is by design. When the edit is saved. the system will apply the styles set for all SE17 content.

A note about copying content from other sources and pasting it here. The underlying system is designed for creation of new content that is consistent with the overall graphic design of the site. It was not designed to take content from other websites and display it properly. Therefore there are often limitations to what will actually be inserted. And, how the pasted content will appear will depend on many factors. You can improve the chances for success using the following tips:

1. Paste using one of three "clipboard: icons at the top right menu of the editing panel. Here is their intended uses:
   1. Paste: inserts everything in the clipboard. This is the most daring paste. Results will vary. Advanced users will finf it equivalent to CTRL-v.
   2. Paste text (icon with clipboard with a blue dot) : removes everything from the content, i.e., converts markup language such as HTML to plain text. All formating, fonts, colors are removed.
   3. Paste from Word (icon with clipboard with a W): this is generally the best paste when copying materials from other sites.
2. An alternate to pasting a great deal of content is to author and abstract or summary and include an HTML link to the site that are referencing. This is, of course, how the web should work. The small teal circle over a chain link will make adding links easy. That icon is just left of the center of the menu.
3. When all else fails, you can using Microsoft to transition the materials. That is, open a new document in Word, paste the content, and save to a temporary file. Then copy the material from Word and paste using the Word paste icon in 1.3.

4. You will notice that after the primary editing pane are several options. Only the "Publishing options" will be useful to you. The publishing options allow you control the visibility of the "post" in several ways. The three check box options are:

• Published option: When checked the content is visible to visitors and members. Leave it  unchecked when working on  drafts. You can come back later and change this when you are ready . You may hide any post at any time, too, and it is not deleted from the system. It should be rare that a post is ever removed. Finding unpublished posts is a bit tricky and it is explained below.
• Promoted to the front page option: This is usually unchecked for all content. Currently it is only used to control a "Feature". Only one feature is displayed on the front page. So, when you want that article to appear on the front page check this. (Note that rules for this are also dependent on creation date - latest first - so restoring an older feature to the front page may necessitate unpublishing another one.)
• Sticky at top of lists: Leave unchecked. Used only on something like a blog where a summary, welcome message, or instructions should always appear first. Normaly used only on blogs and forums.

5. Skipping to the bottom of the page, note the "Save" and "Preview" buttons. The "Save" is a must. If you stray from the page without hitting save, you will lose your edits. So, use it often. When coupled with publishing off, you may want to use it often.  Use "Preview" cautiously. It can give you the impression that you saved when you did not. I've lost too much to use this unless I'm performing simple fixes that can be easily repeated. Preview will bring up your post in a highlighted area above the editing pane. If you don't scroll down you may miss that and subsequently forget to save.

A published saved "post" should appear immediately in the site with other content of the same type. For materials that are for the home page, you may need to refresh the page to see the new post.

6. You may edit any existing "post" by viewing it. If your account has the appropriate roles set, you will find "View", "Edit" and "Outline" options listed at the top of the page.

To find content that is unpubished, navigate here: http://se17.bowdoin.edu/admin/content/node

There is no easy way right now to locate your content. We are hopeful that we can find a solution for that.