Adding content

Ok, of course this is what it is all about. We try to make life as easy as possible for you but also for us. This means we hide a lot of functionality for editor, that there are things that you can not do, but are possible for the administrators. Texts are filtered to be able to present clean code, images are shrinked to reduce bandwidth, stuff gets done automatically which means you can not influence every little dot of the website because we want a consequent look and feel and so on. This may sometimes be frustrating and sometimes it will be just plain wrong policy, but mostly the choices we've mad are very well considered. If this is not the case: report.

You can create content using the administration menu "Add content". After choosing the right content type you are presented a page with a range of fields that are not necesarily identical in different content types. Different content types can be presented in similar of greatly differing ways. Please make sure you select the right content type but if you haven't administrators can convert between them.

  • Introduction, summary and body: the difference between the introduction and the summary is that the introduction is displayed on top of the node page itself. The summary is displayed in overview pages like the front page or a taxonomy overview page. The summary is being created automatically if you don't edit it explicitly ('Edit summary' on top of the body field).
  • News article type: News articles are divided into types: analysis, comment, correspondence, letter to editor, news. Pick one.
  • Main image: will be transformed to article icon, which will not be displayed in the node page, but will be used in overview pages.
  • Issue, tags, keywords: the issue is the main issue, you can not add you own issue (ask your admin), the tags are a bit wider and can be more specific. They will be automatically addes as meta tags (see Search Engine Optimization).
  • Resources, attachments, publication as pdf: there are several fields where you can upload stuff. Attachments are actually there only for historical reasons, it is the old way attaching files to a node. As the resources field uses the media module it has better ways of manging files (you can attach fields that are already on the server, check what fields are being used in nodes...) so it is best to use this field. Hopefully in the futurre we can make this easier to handle.
    Publication as pdf should only contain nicely formatted or extended versions of the content, though normally you should include the full text in the website as this better for user experience and for Search Engine Optimization.

wysiwyg and text formatting

To add content easily a wysiwyg editor is used. This is by no means ideally from a developer's point of view because it tends to create a lot of unnecessary or erronous rubbish code. This is why at least the submitted code is filtered when displayed.

Unfortunately this also means that the content can be displayed differntly than wat you create in the editor and certainly different than your word processor. When pasting from a word processor, actually so much code is included that the least you have to do is to 'clean up messy code' with the brsuh icon  in the top bar. Even better would be to remove all formatting with the gum button or first paste the text in a simple text editor to remove all layout and start layouting in your browser.

As for the other buttons in the editor, most are self-explanatory. Except

  • Format: is the paragraph type. Normal test is paragraph, titles are hierarchically ranging from Heading 2 until 6, with 2 being the top level. 
  • Just before Format you find the blockquote button which can be used to add a quote to you text with specific display settings.
  • You can adjust the display of the blockquote and of tables with the styles button. There's the choice between left, right and full width. Experiment with them.
  • Just after the style button you find the table button to create table and next to it all the accompanying buttons to add or remove columns or rows, adding header and footer rows... When creating a table you can spcifiy the number of row and columns, the rest of the available options are best left open as they will be filtered, except for style which is equal to style in the top bar and useful to define the display of the table. To transform a row or cell to a table header or footer (with a different layout than the body), you put your cursor in the row or cell you want to change and click one of the next two buttons 'Table row properties' or 'Table Cell properties' and then choose the wanted table section in '. The rest of buttons can be used to insert ro remove rows and columns, split and merge cells.
  • Footnotes can be added with the footnote button or directly adding the footnote tag. Using the footnotes button creates these tags and when displaying the node this will be transformed automatically.
  • The Video filter will work in pretty much the same way. The button creates a tag that is automatically transformed to include the selected video when the pages is displayed. You can add videos from most popular video services (Youtube, Vimeo...). You can just add the url of the video and adjust width and height (though this is not necesary) ofr instance "http://vimeo.com/33337250".
  • Add media will pop-up a message where you can upload new media (images or other files) or select media existing on the server already (click Library on top).
  • The last button is called the teaser break. It is a helper to specify the summary: place your cursor where you wnat the summary to end and click on the button.