OpenCms at CSE
This page provides information useful if you need to edit CSE web pages using OpenCms.What is OpenCms ?
OpenCms is a professional level Open Source Website Content Management System. OpenCms helps to create and manage complex websites easily without knowledge of html. An integrated WYSIWYG editor with a user interface similar to well known office applications helps the user creating the contents, while a sophisticated template engine enforces a site-wide corporate layout.The OpenCms Workplace
What is the OpenCms Workplace?
The Workplace is the centre of OpenCms. All Editors will use the Workplace to create and edit their web content. The majority of technical administration is done through the Workplace, and system administrators will use it to manage cache, check logs and install new modules.Logging in
To be able to use the OpenCms Workplace you will need to use your CSE credentials. If you have not previously updated web pages, you might not have write access on the OpenCms system. If that is the case for your then you will need to contact the web administrator to get update privileges on the OpenCms system. If you have not yet done so please contact web admin on webmaster AT cse DOT unsw DOT edu DOT au.Next, surf to the OpenCms Workplace site were you would find the main page.
The Main OpenCms login web page:
From there just press the login link, which will take you to the login window. On the login window you will need to use the credentials that the web admin provided you with. If your login was successful you should see a new window pop open. If that does not happen, make sure that your browser does not block pop-ups. You are now in the OpenCms Workplace.
Can I make a certain directory my default starting point when I first login to the Workplace?
Yes you can. This is achieved by going to Preferences by clicking on the Preferences tab on the top right corner of the work place. From there and under the Startup Settings you will find the option "Start with folder" the default would be "/", by pressing the small yellow folder image, beside that option, you can choose where the Workplace should startup when you first login, after you choose the location press the Okay button and your are done. (see image below)
I don't know what all the buttons in the workplace navigation do, is there a way to display text of what they are?
Yes. The default setup is that the navigation buttons are only displayed as images. When this is the case if you go over the navigation button after a short period of time text will pop up telling you the name of the navigation button.You can however, change this behaviour and make it display the navigation button and its name all the time. You can achieve that by going into Preferences and under General options change Head button style to Image and text instead of Image only. (see image above)
Changing your password
You can not change your password from within OpenCms; the system uses your existing CSE credentials.If you forgot your password or need to change it please contact SS.
New web page creation
To add a new web page to your part of the CSE site you will need to do the following:- Login to the OpenCms Workplace (if you do not know ohw to do this, reading the heading Logging in above.
- go to the place in the file system were you want to create the new web page.
- Click on the New Button located on the top left-hand corner of the Workplace. (see image below)
- you would be presented with the a new resource type selection page, from it you will need to choose Page with free text then pressing continue.
- You would be presented with a Create new page form. You will need to choose the name of the web page which it would be saved under, and from a drop down menu, the CSE template it needs to use (for example index.html and CSE About Template) if you want to create the new page in the about cse section of the cse website.
- When you press continue, you would be faced with the Properties page of the newly created web page. Fill in the title of the page or simply just press Ok to finish the process.
I am not happy with WYSIWYG editors, can I use a straight HTML source editor instead?
Of course, when you go to the page you want to edit in the OpenCms Workplace you can just click on the word Source in the editor's navigation bar (see image below) and you will be switched to source code view were you can write pure HTML code there or do all your editing in your favourite web editor and just copy the source code to the source view of the page in question.
To switch back to the WYSIWYG view just press the Source button in the navigation again.
When I go to edit a page I only find it in HTML source, where is the WYSIWYG editor?
It depends on the browser you are using, if you happen to be using Safari or Opera web browsers, then you will only see a source editor, this is due to the fact that in their current versions Safari and Opera are not compatible with the WYSIWYG editor in OpenCms.Browsers known to show the WYSIWYG editor correctly are Firefox v2.0.11 and above and IE v7. Please try using one of those two browsers, we recommend Firefox since it is the browser we have done most of our testing on.
Where to upload images and documents?
There is a convention set-up in the OpenCms system to where to upload images and documents. This convention goes as follows:- Images (files with extensions like gif, png, jpg etc) Would go in the images folder in the immediate directory were you want to add the links to the web page in.
- Documents (any files that are not images or web pages, eg. files with extensions like doc,pdf,txt etc) Same as images, such files go to a designated folder called downloads. Like the example above, if you wanted to add a link to a pdf you will need to upload the pdf file to /people/studentoffice/downloads/
Notes:
When referencing to images and documents in your web pages, you should either browse to the file in question, or if you know where it is, just write the address directly in. However, if you do the latter, make sure that you do not add the main web address eg. www.cse.unsw.edu.au, instead just put the address relative to OpenCms. In the example above, if the pdf document is called document.pdf, it would be referenced in the link to it as follows: "/people/studentoffice/downloads/example.pdf" This way OpenCms would be able to check internally for correct links in the web page when published.
If you do not find an image folder in the place you expect, then keep going to one directory above the one you are searching at until you find it. For example, if you want to add images to "/people/studentoffice/extrafolder/images/", but you don't find an images folder there, then if you go one directory above, you will generally find it there. In this example it would be "/people/studentoffice/images/".
I press the upload button but nothing happens?
The default way OpenCms uses to upload files is via a Java applet. There is a possibility that the applet is not compatible with your computer's setup. To make uploads work do the following:Press on the Preferences tab on the top right hand side of the OpenCms navigation panel. In the page you are presented with you will need to un-tick the box beside the words "Use Upload-Applet" then press ok.
Now when you press the upload button a standard HTML upload page will be presented to you.
I created a group of web-pages externally, can I import them to OpenCms?
If you created web pages outside of OpenCms and want to upload them all to OpenCms and apply template formatting you will need to do the following:- Zip all the webpages (directories intact) in a somename.zip format.
- Login to the OpenCms Workplace.
- Go to the location of were you want the files to be uploaded.
- You will need to press the New button on the top left side of the Workplace in the Cms. choose "Extended HTML-Import" then press next, press Advance (you should be presented with something similar to the image below) then browse to the zip file you have created.
- You will only need to choose the zip file, fill the Image gallery and the Download gallery sections with the relevant information depending on the location of the files you are working with, and choose the Template you want to use (for example is CSE undergrad Template) and check the Overwrite Files and Keep Broken Links check boxes.
- Now press the Ok button and the OpenCms should do the formatting and template modifying of the pages to the one you choose as it uploads all the files to OpenCms, it will basically, move all images to /specifiedfolder/images/ all downloads (i.e documents, pdfs etc) to /specifiedFolder/downloads/ and give all web pages the correct template you picked from the list.
- Please make sure that all links for your newly created web pages are properly referenced before you upload them.
Editing an existing web page
You are able to edit an existing web page via two methods.- First Method:
- Second Method: (Recommended method)
On the page you want to edit simply press on the Direct Edit button as indicated by the arrow in the image below.
How to add/delete/modify links in sections of the CSE website that have side navigation?
The side navigation is read dynamically to each section of the CSE website that has one. If you want to add/delete/modify the links or their position in the navigation you can do it in the following way:- Login to the OpenCms workplace.
- Navigate to the section of the site you want to modify.
- If you left click (or control click for one button Mac mice) over the image beside the name of a file you will come up with a list of options.
- Choose from the list Properties. You will be presented with something similar to the image below.
- If the file was not in the side navigation then you will need to check the checkbox called Add to navigation, then write what you want the link to be called and lastly specify where do you want the link to be located. After that just press Ok.
- press on the actual word of the file to make the OpenCms workplace take you to that page in the offline site, from it you can see how the new link looks like and if it works if you are happy with it then close that page and from the workplace publish that page.
- If the link you want to add to the side navigation is to an external webpage (one that does not reside inside OpenCms) then you will need to create an external link first to the desired destination. You can do that by pressing the New Button (an Image that looks like a wand) on the top left corner of the OpenCms workplace, from the list of new resource types choose External Link then press Continue. In the next screen give the link a name (preferably a short name with .html attached to the end e.g. contacts.html), provide the actual full link URL then press continue. In the next screen you are given the chance to add the link to navigation if you want to then press finish. After you publish the newly created link it will show up on the side navigation.
News & Events page creation
The creation of News pages is set-up to be dynamic via the OpenCms system; to create a new News entry, you will need first to logon into the OpenCms workplace, then proceed to the News & Events page via the OpenCms file explorer. (see image below)
When you click on the news/index.html link via the Workplace explorer, the actual page will come up with extra information that only users logged into the OpenCms workplace would be able to see. (see image below)
If you press the plus sign as shown in the image above, you will be presented with a formatted page, which you would need to fill. (see image below)
You will be faced with several fields, which are explained in the table below. (The information in the table below would be displayed for each field while you are on the form page if you go over the question mark bubble image)
| Title: | Enter the title of the news article (this will show up as the title on the full detailed view of the news article). (Mandatory field) |
| Teaser Title: | Enter the teaser title of the news article (This is what people will see as the article link on the News page/Front page of the CSE website). (Mandatory field) |
| Content: | Is the actual news content for this article, you also have the option here of adding images to the article. (Mandatory field) |
| Links: | If there are supplementary links that will help the reader of the article this is where you add them. |
| Priority: | The priority of the news article, needed to build a sort order for news article lists, else it will sort by date |
| Release date: | Enter the date when this news article should be available to the public. (Mandatory field) |
| Archive date: | Enter the date when this news article should move to the news archive page. |
- If you publish a news article before the release date, the article will only show up on the news page (in the online project) after the release date.
- The Links and Priority fields are the only optional fields.
Is there an easy way to create redirects to external/internal web pages?
If you want to have a link for example www.cse.unsw.edu.au/somewhere/something.html, that goes to www.someplace.com then you should do the following:- Login to the OpenCms Workplace.
- Go to the location were you want to add the redirect.
- Press on the New button in the navigation bar (it has an image of a magic wand)
- From the list of new resource types that show up choose External Link then press Continue.
- Choose the name of the external link (e.g something.html) then type in the URL you want this file to actually go to in the Link URL field then press continue.
- Unless you want to add it to the side navigation (if there is one at that location) you can press Ok here.
- Go with your mouse over the small image of the globe beside the name of the new file and press the left click on the mouse. From the menu that pops up choose Publish directly.
- Go to the new created page via the web to make sure that it goes to the intended destination.
You are done.
Restrict web access to a file/web page
If you want to render a web page inaccessible via the Online project, but you want to keep the file, you will need first to login into the OpenCms workplace, go to the said file/web page, left click your mouse over the file you need to deny access to and then choose Availability. (see image below)
From the screen you are presented with (see image below) you will need to fill in the Date expired field by choosing the calendar icon, as shown in the image below, then choose the date you want the page/file to expire on, doing so would render the file/web-page inaccessible from the CSE website, but still accessible in the OpenCms workplace.
Publishing web pages to the Online Project
You finished updating a web page via the OpenCms workplace in the OfflineProject, how do I get the page published in the Online Project?After saving the page and taking a look at the updated page making sure it is all correct, you can update the page via two methods:
1 Enter the page again via the Direct Edit button as explained above and then press the Publish Directly button located on the Top left side of the page. (see image below)
2 Via the workplace section you can right click the webpage/s you just updated (any page that has been updated since last publish will display a small yellow flag beside it) and then from the menu that pops up choose Publish Directly._(see image below)_
Both methods above will initiate the publishing procedure and check the page/s for any link errors and then inform you when the page/s have been published successfully.
Whenever I try to publish some pages, OpenCms complains that there are broken links even though when I check them they work!
OpenCms has a link checking system that goes through each page that is about to be published. In CSE we have a special situation were there are still parts of our site that exist outside of OpenCms, however, all the redirections are made in the background and are done before the link request reaches OpenCms. The OpenCms system itself does not know of this special arrangment and thus if there are links that seem to be coming from inside the Cms that OpenCms can not find, it will complain about them.If you encounter any of the following you can ignore the broken link warnings (though if you added such a link yourself, you should check that it is working manually to be safe).
- Any link that starts with ~
- Any link that starts with /db/