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Web Site Maintenance Guide
This web site is designed using a CMS "content management system" called Drupal. This means that many of the components of the web site are broken down into smaller pieces can be easily maintained.
Table of Contents
Content Types
Drupal allows you to define "nodes" of content of various types. The most common types are Event, Page, and Story node types. Each node stores some amount of text or information so that it can be retrieved by an independent URL link. For example, this guide is a page node that can be accessed again using the URL in the address bar of your browser. Thus, the URL can be bookmarked/favorited or emailed to someone and called upon later.
These are the primary purposes of each node type:
- Event: This is a node describing an event in time, typically for use when adding to a calendar.
- Page: This node type is used for large pages of text, such as this guide.
- Story: This node type is used for smaller excerpts of text, such as an announcement, short update, or other information that could be short enough to share with other stories on the home page.
Most of the time, web site updates will prefer to use the Story node type.
Publishing Content
When creating new content, there are many options to be aware of. Below are the most important to know when publishing content.
Published vs. Unpublished
Content can be created as either published or unpublished. Published content can be accessed by anybody who reaches the site or knows the URL to the node. Unpublished content is stored in the web site, but can only be accessed by the person who created it; very much like a draft version.
When editing, there is a Publishing section at the bottom that provides your options for publishing. By default, a new node is set to be published.
Promote to Front Page
In addition, there is a separate option for "Promote to front page". The home page of the site is a collection of all nodes with this option set. By default, you much check this box in order for a new node to appear on the front page of the site.
Teaser
The teaser is a condensed summary of the content in the node. This is typically used on the home page to show the first paragraph or two of text. Users click on the title to read the full text.
During editing, you will find the teaser input just above the body text. If left blank, it will just take the first paragraph or two of the body text. Otherwise, you can input whatever you want to show as the teaser.
Posting Category
This option can be left alone for now. It is not significant at the moment.
Comments
All nodes have the option of allowing other users to add comments to the node. Users must be registered and signed in to be able to comment, so that their username will display next to their comment. By default, new content has commenting disabled. While editing a node, you can turn this on in the Comments settings section.
Editing Text
When editing the body text in any content type, you will find the same basic text editor where you can input your information. here are some tips on editing text:
- While typing, it is possible to preview your edits by clicking the preview button at the bottom.
There are several features you can use to add style to the display:
- Bold text: You can enbolden text by surrounding the text with the following tags in the example: <strong>bold text</strong>
- Italicized text: To italicize text, use these tags: <em>italicized text<em>
- Links to web sites: Just type in the full web address, such as: http://www.doverunhomeowners.com The URL will automatically be recognized and turned to a link to that address.
If you want the link to appear as underlined text that is linked to the URL, use HTML code, such as:
<a href="http://www.doverunhomeowners.com">Link text</a> - Links to email addresses: Like the web site link, just type in the email address.
- Add an attachment: You can upload attachment files that will made available to readers by using the File attachments section towards the bottom of the edit page. Readers will find the attachments as clickable links at the bottom of the node they read.
- Add an image: You can also upload image files that can be inserted into the body text. The image must be either JPG, GIF, or PNG formats and be less than 800x600 in size. To insert an image:
- Use the File attachments section to upload your image.
- After attaching, uncheck the checkbox "List". This hides the clickable link to the file that appears at the bottom of the node.
- In your body text, insert the text: [inline:1] where '1' means the 1st attachment.
You can upload multiple images and reference each using the number in the inline tag.
Event Content
Events can be created to appear as events on the Events calendar link on the left-side navigation.
Creating an event is done like with any other type, but with the addition of start and end times. Times must be entered in a specific format for the site to understand it. For example:
09/16/2008 - 1:50pm
For easy input, you can click the calendar icon under each field to click a date from the calendar. Then, you must edit the time portion of the field.
To specify an event that runs the entire day, use this example for 9/16/2008:
There are a couple of known limitations to event types. You cannot create recurring events, such as weekly, monthly, or yearly events. Also, you can create events spanning multiple days, but the calendar will only display it on the first day, not each day.
Searching Content
There is a search field at the top of the page that all users can search for content by keywords. New content for this search is updated every 15 minutes.
You can also browse content sorted by time, author, etc. by going to the Archived content option on the left side navigation. You can click column headings to change the sorting.
You can also click on the author's username to view that person's profile. In the profile is a "Track" tab that will show all the content that person has maintained.