Oxfam America

Adding and Editing Content

How to add, edit, move, and delete content within the system.

How to Edit, Save and Publish a Page

To edit an individual existing page, navigate to the appropriate Workspace, browse for the page you seek—using either the left navigation (which can become unwieldy if there are many pages) or by selecting the “contents” view tab—and click the title to open the page. Pages, by default, open in the “view” tab.

Click the “edit” tab to move to the editing view. The text fields in this view are mostly self-explanatory:

  • Title is the title of the document. NOTE, however, that Plone will name the document according to the title you give it, so very long titles will create pages with very long names. You may, however, give the page a more succinct, but clear, name and, after you save it, change the name to the longer version (Plone is flexible enough to keep the original name while publishing your preferred name).
  • Navigation Title is what appears in the public Web site navigation and "breadcrumb trail" (the text links that tell a site visitor where she is on the site). It is, therefore, critical that this be as short, succinct and descriptive as possible.
  • Description is optional, but is most frequently used for Feature Stories and, occasionally, for News Updates and Press Releases. It is also used for Slideshows, Research Papers, Briefing Notes, Briefing Papers and other publications that require a description to accompany a document download (such as a PDF). The description should be succinct while providing the reader with a reliable summary of the content.
  • Start Date is the date assigned to the article. It is sometimes, though not always, visible on the public Web site. The system will set a default start date and time for your content, which you can manually override if you prefer.
  • Teaser is a very brief summary of the article that appears alongside a thumbnail image on the public Web site. It is usually 15-25 words or less in length.
  • Body is, predictably, the body of your document. You will notice that the “body” portion of the page is contained within an embedded HTML editing window. You can edit content directly in the “Microsoft Word-style” view that appears by default, or you can click the “HTML” button to edit the HTML directly. PLEASE NOTE that, if you are creating a new document, you SHOULD NEVER copy and paste text from Microsoft Word directly into the editing window, as it will not generate standard HTML and may create problems with content presentation. You should copy and paste your text into a pure text editor, such as Notepad or WordPad in Windows or the default Text editor on Mac systems. Then, copy and paste the pure text into the editing window of the CMS.

Previewing Your Edits

Once your edits are complete, click SAVE at the bottom of the screen to save your changes. You can click the red “eye” icon in the upper right to preview your work in another browser window. (The document will be presented in the Oxfam America template, as if it were a public page.)

Publishing the Workspace

When you are done, click the contents tab. From the “contents” view, select “deployment.” Write a very brief description of the change(s) you have made, then click “Incremental Deployment” to publish your changes. Deployment typically takes about one to two minutes for an incremental deployment, however, if the system is experiencing heavy traffic for any reason, it may take longer. Do not close the window or link away from the page while the Workspace is being deployed! You must wait for the system to confirm that your deployment was successful.

How to Create a New Page

Editorial staff are responsible for creating a handful content types of the various types possible in the system: Feature Stories, Press Releases, News Updates, Files, Briefing Notes, Briefing Papers, Research Papers, Documents, SidebarText, Photos and Images. This is not a definitive list, but represents the types of content most often created.

To create a new content item, navigate to the appropriate Workspace and, if necessary, to the appropriate folder within the Workspace. There are two methods for adding new content to a folder:

  1. From the "view" tab, select the "add to folder" option from the drop-down menus in the upper right (on the green bar);
  2. Click the "contents" tab then, using the drop-down menu directly above the list of files, select the type of content you wish to add and click the "add new item" button. (Note: This option does not apply to the top level of Workspaces. Option 1 is the only option available in that case.)

Once you have created a blank content item, complete the fields as described above and then click SAVE. Remember to complete the "Properties" tab and, if necessary, the "Design" tab before publishing the Workspace.