SRL Website

Systems Realization Laboratory

SRL Website

An Introduction to Plone


Outline

What is Plone? What does the site look like? How is the site organized? How do you edit your pages? How is the whole site managed? Special features

• Calendar

• News

• Announcements

Summary


What is Plone? (ref: plone.org)

Plone is an out-of-the-box ready content management system

It is deeply flexible, and provides a system for managing web content that is ideal for project groups, communities and intranets.

Plone is standard. Plone is Open Source. Plone is extensible. Plone is technology neutral. Plone can interoperate with most

relational database systems, open source and commercial, and runs on a vast array of platforms, including Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, Solaris and BSD.


What is a content management system?

A content management system (or CMS) is a system used to organize and facilitate collaborative content creation. Recently, the term has been associated almost entirely with programs for managing the content of web sites. Web Content Management (WCM) is also used to refer to these programs.

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_management_system



CMSs allow end-users (typically authors of some sort) to provide new content in the form of articles. The articles are typically entered as plain text, perhaps with markup to indicate where other resources (such as pictures) should be placed. The system then uses rules to style the article, which separates the display from the content, which has a number of advantages when trying to get many articles to conform to a consistent "look and feel". The system then adds the articles to a larger collection for publishing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_management_system



The systems also often include some sort of concept of the workflow for the target users, which defines how the new content is to be routed around the system.

A good example of a CMS would be a system for managing a newspaper. In such a system the reporters type articles into the system, which stores them in a database. Along with the article the system stores attributes, including keywords, the date and time of filing, the reporter's name, etc. The system then uses these attributes to find out, given its workflow rules, who should proofread the article, approve it for publication, edit it, etc. Later the editors can choose which articles to include (or ignore) in an edition of the newspaper, which is then laid out and printed automatically.




Administering users and groups and editing the content. (example: administrators, students, faculty, editors, guests)

Besides editing the content, a WCM tool often has functions for version control, to keep track of the history of the different versions of an item (helpful for “undo”ing your changes!)

As with all software areas, the companies that develop and sell/distribute WCM tools put more and more functions into them to make them as attractive as possible. The functions might include modules that are typically used when building a web site (intranet, extranet or public internet) like search engine, discussion forums, Online Shop, Customer Relationship Management, etc.



Overview of Plone

Users create their content in a structure way Styles and forms are defined centrally for consistency The entire site is built dynamically when pages are accessed The server searches a defined workflow to find the appropriate

page and build its content Whole site is built around an entered URL Navigation links maintained Extensions (calendars, news lists, discussion groups, libraries…)


Plone: First Look


Plone First Look: Main Navigation


Plone First Look: Special Features


Plone Site:


Plone Site: Directions


Plone Site: Maps


Plone Site: People (1)


Plone Site: People (2)


Plone Site: Personal Page


What do you need to do?

Login Set preferences Edit and add content Volunteer to create and maintain general content Keep it up to date! Visit the site for news and events

…And here’s how you make it happen!


Creating Your Page: Log in (1)


Creating Your Page: Log in (2)


Member Preferences (1)


Member Preferences (2)


Member preferences (3)How you edit your page

Your member photo(will show up on People Page)

How you edit your member photo

The types of announcements youwish to receive from the SRL

(more on this later)


Where is your member photo?

You can find the member files that we have at:

Or create your own; 75 pixels wide by 100 pixels high is recommended

http://westinghouse.marc.gatech.edu/MemberPhotos/Cropped%20New%20Lab%20Photos.zipOr

http://www.srl.gatech.edu/people/MemberImages/MembersPhotoIndex.htm


“My Folder” and Your Default Page

Default Page


Your folder contents

The bold page is your default.

The file “title” is not the URL.

Contents Tab

Add new content(more later)


A default member web page

Edit your page in your browser!


Editing a page (1)

•Short Name: The URL

•Title: Convenient, descriptive title

•Description


Editing a page (2)

WYSIWYG editor Epoz(a rich text box with a toolbar)

HTML pure text

Upload an html file(make sure you then check how it looks

and edit it to look right using Epoz)


Editing a page (3): The Epoz toolbar

Very much Microsoft Word icons.Note: if you hover the mouse over a button, you’ll get a tool-tip

Remove formatting

Add a link to a URL

Add an anchor link

Insert Image

Toolbox icon:Browse for item

to link or add

Text formats(see next slide)

Horizontal rule


Editing a page (4): Text styles

•A summary of what the current text styles are defined as.•If you don’t use Epoz and don’t use the correct tags, then your page won’t look the same as everyone else’s if the styles are updated in the future.


Editing a page (5): Final notes

Inserting links: enter the text that you want visible on the page first. Highlight this text, then click on the appropriate icon

• When adding a link to a file (e.g. resume.pdf), you need to enter “resume.pdf” (or use the toolbox icon!)

• When adding a link to an image, enter the image’s plone id (name) (or use the toolbox icon!)

Inserting Tables• Use sparingly.• Verify as you go that it’s what you want.• For large or complicated tables, this might be one of the few good time to use pure

html tags and not Epoz.

Complex formatting—you don’t need it!• Idea is to keep appearance consistent.• If you want to deviate for a specific reason, you are responsible for all style updates

and must face all consequences


Adding content (1)

Either through the “contents” view or on a page view


Adding content (2)

Available Types


Content Types

Document: a web page Event: item on the calendar File: word document, pdf, ppt, etc. Folder: a folder to contain other things (aka subdirectory) Image: an image. The type of thing you would reference with an

<img> tag Link: a URL link with description. (not necessary) News item: an item that will show up in the news slot and news

page


Submitting your page

The visibility of items to different types of users and in different locations is determined by the item’s state


Document States

Visible - this is the default state for newly generated content. It is visible to the world if the world knows where to look - explicitly, in order to view visible content, a user has to know the exact URL. Users will notice that content in the visible state will also not automatically appear in the navigation tree, however, visible content does appear when users search for items on the site! Published - once content is published, it is world readable to all users including Anonymous.

Private - private content is only accessible to Authenticated users who have permission to view the content.

Submit/Submitted: If you don’t have permission to publish content, you submit it to users with wider permissions to review and then publish


Calendar

Orange outline is today Dark backgrounds are days with

events Click on a day to see events, get

listing. Click link for more details.


Event Item


Creating an Event

Select from dropdown menu


Edit Event (1)

Short name: becomes part of URL

Title: descriptive phrase

Location

Type (see next slide)

Description

Associated URL(if any)


Edit event (2): Event types

The event types are descriptive The event types are used for searches The event types are used for sending announcements, a topic yet

to be discussed


Edit event (3):

Times/Dates

Contact Info


Event management

Like other content, has states (private, visible, published, submitted)

An event you create resides in your folder• You will see it in your “contents” folder

• Can be edited/deleted by you

• Can be edited/deleted by an administrator


News items

Similar to calendar items in terms of where they are stored and their states

Similar entry as with a webpage Lead-in will be displayed as a

“sub headline” on search page There are also properties to set

after you save the news item content. Click on “properties” tab


News item properties

Keywords• Control to whom announcements

about this event are sent.• Also used in searches.

Effective Dates• When will news item be visible

Discussion• Haven’t talked about this yet• It is available on all pages, if you turn

it on• Allows people (members) to post

comments• Example next page


Discussion

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