Your
Dynamic Website Kit has been built for you using the
Drupal
content management system. You need to know very little about Drupal,
because four of the five main layers
in the Drupal system have already
been created for you by OPLIN. The last layer—the actual site
content, the words and images that people will see—will be
created
and managed by you. This is not as hard as it sounds. This simple
documentation should be all you need to get started, and OPLIN staff
are always available to help when you need it. (If you want to dig
deeper into how Drupal works, we suggest "Drupal
concepts" at http://drupal.org/node/21951.)
The content (data) you create will be stored in a database. While this may seem more complicated than it needs to be, it is the feature of your Website Kit that makes it dynamic. Traditional websites are static, meaning the content doesn't change. You create a home page and then you create other pages and add links to them from your home page. For someone to find a specific page they will need to be on a page that contains a link to that page and the only links to that page will be ones you create. Your Website Kit, on the other hand, is dynamic, meaning your content is stored in a database and presented to the user when the web server receives a request from a browser. You create the information once, and then have various possibilities on how you want it to look, and where and when someone will or won't see it.
To start using your Website Kit, open your web browser—any common browser should work—and go to the URL OPLIN gives you (typically http://<yourlibraryURL >/user); enter the username (usually "site_admin") and password OPLIN has assigned to you. Once you login you will see your website.
Notice, however, that your website now looks a little different. Across the top you will see a menu of things you can now do on your website.
Adding content will be the most common task you perform on the website, so let's start with an explanation of that task.
As you create the content for your Website Kit, you will find that not all content is similar. Some content will be fairly static and important. Other content may be created, changed, and removed fairly frequently by a variety of people. Some content, like announcements of events, will only be needed temporarily. So your Website Kit allows you to create different types of content.
The most typical content types you will have available in your Kit are:
Other types of content may also be available in your Kit, depending on the custom options you requested from OPLIN. Some of the most common include:
Nivo Slider
Nivo Sliders are images that appear in the rotating banner (carousel) that appears on the home pages of some Website Kits. These images can be linked to any internal or external URL.
Photo
Photographs uploaded into photo galleries.
Webform
Webforms are web forms created for people to fill out online and the results are emailed to specfied email addresses. OPLIN can build individual forms for your library's site, or your library can purchase the Webform module to build its own, basic forms. Forms built by OPLIN are not editable by the the client library; changes must be made through OPLIN.
To create a new page, click on the "Content" link on your administrative toolbar. You will see a list of the types of content you can create. (This list will depend on the content types which OPLIN has set up for you.)
Click on the type of content you wish to create and you get a blank creation template.
The Title is required. The Title is what will normally show in the menus that provide access to this page, so make it short but descriptive. And don't use exclamation points in your title. (For more information about why you should not use exclamation points on your website, see the Website Kit Style Guide--"Writing for the Web.") Also, if your site uses the "Story Block" layout, you will need to insure that your title's length is not too long or it will wrap to a second line and cause display issues.
Front Page Image (Story Block layout only)
The Front Page Image appears only in the Story/Article content type, and is required. Images may be in either JPG, JPEG, GIF or PNG format. Remember to optimize your images (using a tool such as http://www.compressor.io). The specific size of the images will be provided to you by OPLIN and will sometimes vary from Kit to Kit. Be sure to fill out the "Alternative Text" field that appears, or your site immediately ranks as inaccessible to those using screen reading software, such as people who are blind or visually impaired.
Let's
look now at the "Body" section of this page, which is where you will
actually create your content. You will write things in the
body using a rich-text editor that looks very much like Microsoft Word.
Don't be tempted, however, to
create complex pages in Word and paste them into this editor. Word
documents contain a lot of hidden formatting code that will not
translate well. You can paste portions of simple Word documents, or
other text with hidden formatting such as text from your old website,
into
the editor using the Word icon at the top of the editor—
—but
it is generally better to either work directly in the rich-text editor
or
paste from a simple text editor like Notepad. If you must have a very
specific page layout, perhaps for a newsletter, it is often best to
just
attach a standard pdf document to a simple, short Book Page. (We'll
talk more about file
attachments later in this document.)
Remember
that your page will be displayed on the Web, which requires that you
consider a few conventions that differ from traditional print
documents. For instance, underlining in an online document is very
confusing for the reader, since links are underlined. Because
of this, the editor does not include an "underline" option at
all. Also note that it
is best not to use the plain text editor
option or the source button--
-- for
creating content, unless you are very familiar with standards-compliant
HTML or XHTML coding
and want to achieve some special formatting that is not available in
the rich text editor.
NOTE: Trimming does not apply to Website Kit layouts that use Story/Article Blocks.
Large chunks of text should not appear on your library's homepage; it's very poor practice and will actively turn off users. To learn more about why large amounts of text create poor usability for your site's users, see http://oplin.org/sites/default/files/webkit_style_guide.html#writing.
There are two different ways that you can control the amount of text that appears on your site's homepage.
METHOD ONE: When a page is published on your site, a trimmed version is also published, a "teaser" that usually includes the first 500 or 600 characters of your page followed by a "read more" link to the full version. This trimmed version is used if you place your Event or Story/Story on your website's front page and will also appear in RSS feeds from your site. To control exactly what is included in the trimmed version, rather than cutting it off after a certain number of characters, go to the point in your text where you want the teaser to end and click on the "Teaser" button in the text editor's toolbar.
A double line will appear at this point in the text in the editor window, but it won't show up on your finished web page.
METHOD TWO: This second method allows for a great deal more control over what appears on the homepage; rather than cutting off the content after a To control exactly what is included in the summary, rather than cutting it off after a certain number of characters, click on "Edit summary" and the text box for the writing the summary will replace Body text box. Click "Hide summary" to return to the full text of the article. Note that, if anything is placed in the "Edit Summary" field, that will automatically replace any other teaser breaks in the body.
For more detailed help with using the editor to write your page content, see the CKEditor Users Guide.
One
other icon that will be unfamiliar, but important, is the image
icon—
.
Click this
icon to insert an image into your content. If you want to use
an image that is not already available to you on your site's server,
you will need to upload it. Note: don't try to
upload images from a digital camera before first optimizing them for
the web, they're much too big (size limit is 2MB); webresizer.com
works
well. A window will pop up
asking
for information about the image.
Notice the "Link" tab on the Image Properties window; this tab allows you to make your image into a link to another page.
Learn more about using graphics on websites at http://oplin.org/sites/default/files/webkit_style_guide.html#graphics.
Now notice the "Browse server" button; this button allows you to save and retrieve images (or other files) on the server for use on multiple pages. Clicking the "Browse server" button lets you look through all the images that have been saved on the website server and select one or more to insert on your page. To upload more than one image, hold down the CTRL key while clicking on the image names. You must upload images to the web server in order for them to be visible to other people, besides yourself. Click the "Browse server" button and a window will pop up. The OPLIN Dynamic Website Kits currently use two different image uploaders, so be sure to see the directions for the one your site uses.
This window is divided into four areas, the most important being the toolbar across the top and the files pane right below the toolbar.
For information about other tasks you can perform from this window, please see the CKFinder Users Guide.
The
editor also gives you the
ability to embed videos, from such services as YouTube or Vimeo,
directlly in your content. Click the Media Embed button--
--to insert the code generated by
such
sites for embedding. Then click "OK." When you ge to these video sites,
be sure to get the "embed" code and not just the URL of the video.
Editing a page is very similar to creating a page, except that you start by navigating through your site to the page you want to edit. Since you are logged in and able to edit content, you will see a tab at the top of your page that allows you to edit the page. (Note: the "Outline" tab is a shortcut that will allow you to assign the page to a book hierarchy or modify its weight, which will be discussed a little later. The "Track" tab shows a history of changes to the page.)
Once you click on "Edit," you will see a screen that has many features similar to the content creation screen, and behaves similarly. Note that, if you are editing content that has a summary, the summary will appear first, by default. The regular content will appear beneath the summary field.
Let's look now at all the options that are available on this screen for managing your page content.
Whether editing or creating content, there are options which can be set that control how and where a page will be displayed to visitors to your website. Below is an explanation of some of the most important options.
This option is required if you are working with Book Pages; it allows you to create and organize multi-level menus that collapse and expand. For example, in the image of the About Us page below,, the Parent item is "About the Library" (and it is a top-level page, meaning it has no Parent), while "Board of Trustees," "Donations," "Friends of the Library," and so forth are all "child" items of the Parent "About the Library."
You can move the location of a Book Page by changing the options in the Book Outline tab. You can change the parent item, or even put the Book Page in another book entirely.
When
you have
moved the Book Page (changed the Book and/or the Parent), be sure to
click the "Update book outline" button. Note that you can
also transform a Book Page to a Basic Page, by clicking the "Remove
from book outline" button. (Basic Pages will be discussed
later in this document.)
If you see this, DO NOT change it! This has been set by OPLIN. It is only used in very select cases, working directly with OPLIN staff.
This option is found under "Book outline." It allows you to set a relative position within the menu: an item with a heavier "weight" (higher number) will appear below an item with a lower weight. (If all items have the same weight, they will display in alphabetical order on the menu.) In other words, items with weights of negative numbers will appear higher in a list than those with positive numbers.
This option allows you to browse your computer and attach a PDF file to your page. The maximum file size is 2Mb, which is about the largest file you should expect your users to be able to comfortably download. If you wish, you can (and probably should) change the name of the file if you want to use a name that makes more sense to your website visitors. The text you type in the "Description" field will become the name of the file seen by users.
If the "Display" option is checked, the file name will also appear on the bottom of your page for visitors to download. If you attach more than one file, you can use the drag-and-drop icon to the left of the file name to move files up or down in the list.
A "normal" Drupal page will have a URL like http://drupal.org/node/21951—not very handy for verbally telling people how to get to the page or remembering a page address. Your Website Kit is set to automatically rename your pages using your page title, so you will have URLs like http://www.mylibrary.org/content/board_information.
If you want to use something different in the URL, uncheck the "Automatic alias" box and enter your preferred alias. In the example above, for example, the URL will be http://www.mylibrary.org/board. WARNING: When linking to something inside your website, use a relative URL, not an absolutel URL.
These options control if and when your content will be visible on your website. You rarely delete content once you have created it; instead, you just unpublish it and it will not be visible to visitors.
If the "Published" box is checked when you submit the item after you've completed it, then the item will be visible to visitors to your website; if you want to hide the page and publish it later, after you have done more work on it, for example, then uncheck this box.
If you check "Promoted to front page," your item will appear on your website's home page as well as in the menu you specified. "Sticky at top of lists" keeps a news item at the top of your home page, instead of placing newer news items above it. Use this option with moderation! If you make more than one item sticky, your sticky items will appear with the newest sticky item at the top. (NOTE: These two options do not apply to "Story Block" layouts.)
Tip: If you really want more than one sticky item, then you can control the order of the stickies with this trick: go to the "Authoring information" option and manually change the authoring date to make your top sticky item "newer" than the others. (NOTE: This option does not apply to "Story Block" layouts.)
Once you are finished working on an item, it is a good idea to click on the "Preview" button at the bottom of the page to be sure it looks as you expected. If not, you are able to edit the content from the bottom of the preview page. When you are satisfied that everything is OK, click on "Submit." Nothing will be saved until you choose "Submit." If you want to save the page as a draft, or work on it with others, just remember to unpublish it before you submit it.
If you want to discard all of your unsaved work and start over, click on "Cancel." Once a page has been saved, a "Delete" button will appear at the bottom of the editing view if you want to completely remove the page from your server.
Other options are probably self-explanatory. If you need more assistance than the on-screen hints, or would just like to see a different explanation of how all these options work, we suggest Caign Web's Drupal guide at http://www.caignwebs.com.au/drupal-user-guide/default-content-management-facilities. (Note that their Drupal configurations are going to be somewhat different, but the concepts are generally the same.) You can also just call OPLIN Support at 1-888-966-7546, or email support@oplin.org, or chat with us at http://support.oplin.org.
As
a
library, one of the most common information items you create for your
page will be event announcements. The next several upcoming events
usually
appear on the home page, where they
will be most visible to visitors, and all upcoming events will
automatically appear on your Events Calendar. The creation of Events
differs from
Book Pages (and Stories) in some significant ways.
When you create or edit an Event, what you see at first is very similar to what you would normally see when creating a Book Page, except there are several choices to make before you get to the "Body" box for writing text :
Items followed by a red asterisk are required. The title is, of course, the name of your event.
You must also choose an Event Category and an Event Location (the latter usually only if your library has more than one location) from the lists provided. The items in these lists were previously defined by your library's staff, but you can contact OPLIN to add/delete/change these at any time.
The "From date" and "To date" fields set the beginning and ending date and time for the event. A week-long festival, for example, would cover several days, while most events will only cover a few hours.
If the event repeats, click on the "Repeat" checkbox to open that menu:
Note that, for a repeating event to work properly, you will need to fill out both the start and end date for the first instance. For example: your library has a program that goes for six weeks, beginning on June 1st. You will need to set the start and end dates both to June 1st, then create the repeat pattern.
The "Exclude dates" and "Include dates" boxes allow you to remove or add specific dates to the pattern. This is especially helpful if a program, say, doesn't happen on a holiday in the middle of a set pattern of dates. You can also add on dates if you want to extend an existing program.
Once you have defined your Event, be sure to save it as you would any other content.
To change the email address or password associated with your account, click your username ("site_admin") on the top right of the administrative toolbar. You will have the option of changing some of your account parameters under the "Edit" tab.
Multiple people can use the same account at the same time, so one account is usually sufficient. If you wish, OPLIN can create new, specific accounts for you that only have permission to create certain content types (e.g., Events).
There are several other links on the administrative toolbar that allow you to perform some administration tasks on your site. Let's look at some of the more important administration tasks.
The Books option ("Content"-->"Books") gives you a tool for quickly changing the structure of an entire "Book" from your site, without the need to individually edit Book Pages.
As
you can see, this is a clear
depiction of the hierarchy of
the
Book Pages within the Book. You can edit or delete Book Pages directly
from this menu, and you can also change the order of the Book Pages by
using the drag-and-drop icons to the left of each title.
Perhaps the most useful item on the administrative toolbar is the link to Content. This gives you "control panel" access to all the content in your website.
By using the pull-down menus at the top of the page, you can see and modify all the content in your site, including unpublished content. You can also select a number of content items and transform them all at once by using the "Operations" pull-down menu. Your options here are to publish/unpublish, promote/demote to front page, add or remove stickiness, or delete. This can be very handy, or very dangerous; be careful!
Remember to logout when you are done (at the top right of the administrative toolbar); the next person to use your computer will have access to your content if you don't logout. After you logout you will be returned to the normal view of your website, without the "Edit" button at the top of the pages.
The most common issue reported to OPLIN is seeing an "Access Denied" message. However, this message is very misleading: if you enter the incorrect password or username, you actually will receive a very different message. The "Access Denied" message actually means that you (or someone else on the same computer) did not logout of the website the last time. The browser now believes that you are attempting to open a new session, when session cookies for an existing session still exist. In order to clear the problem, you will need to clear the cookies from your browser. To prevent this issue, always be sure to click the "Logout" option on the administrative toolbar when you're finished.
How to add links to the drop-down menus:
3. Put in the title
of the link (such as "Hours & Locations").
4.
Put in the path of the
link. If it is
an external link (something NOT on your site, like your catalog), put
in the
full link (absolute URL). If
it is another
page on your site,
put in a relative URL (such as "about" or
"content/outreach"). NOTE:
Relative URLs should not have a forward-leaning slash in front of the
page. We do not
recommend putting full,
absolute URLs to internal links.
5.
Ignore all other fields (really!) and click "Save"
at the bottom of the page.
However,
if you'd like, you can
use the "Parent Link" field to place your link into the drop-down
hierarchy in the correct place.
Otherwise, you can use the
drag-and-drop interface, in the next step, to do
this. Either way will work.
1. All
menu items, regardless of level, have a
drag-and-drop handle to the left.
Simply drag items into the order/level you'd like.
2. When you're satisfied,
click "Save configuration" at the
bottom
of the page.
1.
Create
gallery for photos to go into: Go to
Structure > Taxonomy
> Image Galleries >
Add Term.
2.
Add a new
gallery. You only need to fill in the
“Name” field. No other fields are needed. Click “Save” at the bottom.
3.
Now add
photos: Go to
Content > Add Content
> Photos.
4. Fill
in the necessary information and upload the photo.
