CMS User's Guide
From Deep Thought
Contents |
Logging In
After we've created your theme, we will publish your CMS based website. To add content you go to a special section of your site, normally by tacking on /admin/ to the end of your site name. There you will enter the username and password we have assigned to you so that you can edit your site (and nobody else can mess with it).
If you've asked us to help create the initial pages for your site we'll have used the very same page manager and template system to create your starting site.
Note: You can not have two different users logged in with the same user ID at the same time. The system will not save your changes.
User Levels
Superuser
A superuser can do anything to the website, including overall system settings. Due to the nature of the items that can be changed, superuser access is normally not granted to a website owner. Cyber Sprocket is typically in control of the global site settings in order to ensure site stability. Certain settings can permanently disable your website if not configured properly.
Some of the abilities of a superuser include:
- Creating and changing site templates
- Global system settings
- All of the administrator and user abilities
Administrator
The administrator of a website can add pages, images, and other media to the website. This is the normal login level for a site owner.
Some of the abilities of the site administrator include:
- User management
- Page management
- Image and Uploaded Files management
User
The basic system user can interact with some CMS pages and view member-only restricted content.
The Control Panel
The CMS control panel is the "behind the scenes" software that helps you manage your website. This is where you add pages, update templates, upload files and images, configure your site, manage users, and more.
The control panel is the section of the site you access when you login at http://<your-site-name>/admin/
Template Manager : The Building Blocks For Your Pages
The template manager is where you keep the templates that define the "look and feel" of your website. Before you can create pages you must have at least one default template defined in the CMS.
See CMS Template for instructions on creating templates or details on modifying existing ones.
Page Manager : How Does My Page Look And Behave?
The primary job of the page manager is to manage your pages. What pages are on the site, how they look, how they appear in the navigation menus, etc. You can also edit your page content, by starting at the Page Manager, but once you are logged in you can edit any page by simply visiting them on your website. The Page Manager just provides a quick way to jump directly to a page within your site without having to "surf" your own site first.
You can easily add and remove pages, give them titles, attach search engine friendly keywords, and more via the administration interface via the Page Manager system. This allows you to expand your site or simplify it as your business needs change. No need to call the "web developer" every time you want to make a change.
Creating Web Pages
The first step in creating your pages is to login to the CMS Control panel. Just surf to your website name and add /admin/ to the end of the URL, for example http://www.mycybersprocketwebsite.com/admin/.
Once you are logged in to the control panel you will see the Page Manager and a list of pages that belong to your website along with a +new button at the top and bottom of the page list.
Adding A Page
Click on the +New button on the top or bottom of the page list shown in the Page Manager section of CMS Control Panel.
Fill in the functional details about the page, then save the page. This creates the page on the website, but it does not yet have content.
After you have inserted the page into your website, you have to add the content. Continue on to the Editing Pages section to learn how to add content to your new page.
Page Settings
- Full Title - The title that appears in the browser window title bar
- Nav Title (aka Short Title) - The text that appears on the menu bar for your website, assuming the menu bar has been included as part of your website design.
- File Name - The name of the HTML page that appears at then end of your website URL, this is effective for SEO keywords if you use hyphens to separate the words. (i.e. my-keyword-goes-here.html)
- Keywords - The background keywords set in the keywords meta tag. Used by search engines to categorize your page.
- Page Description - The description used by search engines to show what your page is about in summary format.
- Additional Features - Checkboxes that indicate functional details about this page
- Requires secure connection
- Site home page
- Login page
- Logout page
- Appears in navigation
- Page locked
- Content locked
- Component driven
- Parent Page - who is the parent of this page in the site navigation structure
- Access Restricted To - what type of users can see this page
- Template - which page template is used to define the look of this page
- Redirect To - send the visitor to a different page
Editing Pages
How To Get To The Page In Edit Mode
- Login to the CMS Control Panel
- Go to "Page Manager"
- Click on the page name (do not click "modify", that modifies the backround page information not the page content)
This will surf to that page on your site and present the page with a floating menu for editing. The menu allows you to switch between view and edit mode, go back to the control panel, or log out.
Note: when editing your web page you can only change or add "blocks" of stuff within the editable region of the page. The editable region is determined by the page template that is active for the page. The CMS Page Layout image shown to the right depicts a typical page layout with a fixed header, a auto-generated site navigation menu, a large editable content area, and a fixed footer.
Adding Or Changing The Page Content
You will normally start in view mode. Click "edit mode" from the floating edit menu to switch to edit mode. Edit mode allows you to change content in the editable region of your web page (see the CMS Page Layout image on the right).
Each editable region will have an "Add Content" button at the top and bottom edge of the region that can be updated. Within each region you can add as many blocks of content as you like. The blocks can be any number of pre-defined blocks of information that have been setup for your website. The most common block types are paragraphs and photos.
The "Edit Block" image on the right shows a typical template layout for a two column website where a user has added two blocks of "stuff" (paragraphs and images) to the page. The "Editing A Page" image on the right shows how the page looks with active content during the edit process.
New blocks can be added, deleted, moved up or down on the page, all without the need of knowing any HTML editing. If you can type you can update the content on your website without calling the webmaster.
Helpful Hints
- The paragraph block type that is typical on most site layouts can contain more than one paragraph of text. You can also use the Special Codes listed below one more times within the same text block without having to add a new paragraph type.
- New block types can be easily added vis the CMS Template system. Contact your CMS administrator and ask them to create a new block type if you need to regularly add a special type of image, web form, or text; for example a paragraph that is always indented with a light gray background and a border around it.
- When adding or modifying links, use a complete URL if you wish for the link to open in a new window/tab; alternately, just use the filename without a complete URL to make the link open in the same window (this is particularly useful with pages within your own site).
Editing A Paragraph
When editing a standard paragraph, you can enter plain text and it will be formatted in the proper font and color as defined in your website templates.
There are some special codes you can use when editing a paragraph.
Special Codes
The special codes can be typed in by hand or by using the helper-buttons that appear on the top of a paragraph when in edit mode. Javascript must be enabled on your browser for the helper-buttons to work.
- ::A Title:: - The text between the double-colons is shown in a header style (usually larger size and bold)
- *Bold Text* - The text between the asteriks is shown as bold
- "My Link":(http://www.cybersprocket.com) - The text in the quotation marks is the text that appears in the paragraph that is linked to the website shown in the parenthesis.
Links
The CMS
How To Guides
- CMS User's Guide - If you are the "website editor" for your company, click here
- CMS Store Administration - If you are the "manager of the webs store", click here
- CMS Building A New Site - How to build a brand new CMS site from a "clean slate" installation
- CMS Installation Guide - If you are a super techno-geek responsible for installing your own private copy of the CMS on your server, click here
