Introductory CMS Training

Introductory CMS Training

Welcome to the new Montana State University Content Management

System!

Web and Digital Communications - www.montana.edu/web/

Getting Started

• Let’s get started!– http://ou.montana.edu/cms-training

• Key concept: staging vs published– Our CMS is a “push” CMS, it “pushes” or publishes

to the public web server when YOU are ready.

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http://ou.montana.edu/cms-training


Logging In

You can get to your individual training area from the main training page using the quick redirect at the bottom of the page.

Your NetID is your username for the CMS.

You will log in with your individual username (your NetID) and password (your NetID password).

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CMS User Accounts

When you log into the CMS, it is with an account that is unique to you.

– This allows for each individual to have their own account, which can be granted access to as many or as few areas as is appropriate for them.

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User Interface

• The red circled region at the top are the main CMS menu, which has sub menus for each option.

Clicking “Content” will take you to the main file navigation display.

• The green arrow points to a small folder that is circled. This expands the split view.

Clicking this will expose the left hand navigation.

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User Interface – Side Navigation

• The area circled in green contains the page specific controls.– These will change based on the page’s status.

• On the left is the side navigation display.– This gives an easy, quick way to access other files within the

same folder.– Clicking “Keep Synced” will make sure the current folder for

the page you are viewing is shown.

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Navigate

Let’s navigate to the first page we’ll edit within the CMS!

In the left sidebar is a list of files.

Click “first-page.pcf”

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Preview

You are now viewing the page in preview mode.– Remember, this is how the page looks with any

changes in the CMS. If you want to see the live published page, click the green button in the bottom right.

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Checking OutThe CMS has a workflow management

system. One key to this system is that pages are “checked out” when someone is editing them. • If a page is checked out to you, it will have a

lit lightbulb next to its name.• If a page is checked out to someone else, it

will have a red lock.– Only the user a page is checked out to can edit

it.– Admins can check a page back in.

Let’s check out this page!

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Editing

Now that we have our page checked out, let’s edit it.– Editing a page always checks it out, even if it’s not

already

Click “edit” on the top left of the page controls.

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Content Regions

Content in the CMS is divided into different regions. This lets certain things be automated, and allows you to edit just where you need to without worrying about other parts of the page.

When you are in edit view, these regions show up as green buttons.

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The Editor

We’re going to edit the main content region. • Click the green button labeled “MAIN CONTENT.”

The editing window should look very familiar: it is very similar to any standard word processing software. Most operations you are used to using are here, and many have similar keyboard shortcuts.

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Saving

Always remember to save your work. Let’s do that now.

Even though you have saved your work, it has still only changed in the CMS itself, which we call “staging.” The file that is viewed by others on the montana.edu website has not changed yet.– You can see this if you scroll down and click the green

“View as Published” button.

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Publishing

In order for your webpage changes to be visible to others, you must “Publish” your page to the web server.There are a couple of options for this. You can either Publish immediately, Schedule a Publish, or Submit the page to another user for approval for Publishing. You can also schedule an expiration for your page.• If your site has a workflow mandated for it, your pages

may always go to another user for review first.Select “Publish” from the page controls.

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Final Check

Before your page publishes, you have a chance to run it through some reviews, and give it a version description.– This is useful for checking spelling, links, and

accessibility.– The version description is useful for if you or

anyone else ever needs to remember what changes were made or why.

Scroll down and click “Publish.”

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First Published Page

Congratulations! You’ve published a page!• Notice that the page is now checked back in: it

no longer has the yellow, lit lightbulb next to it in the side navigation. This means it’s now open to editing for anyone with access to it.

Let’s click “View in new window” to see our page as it actually looks on the web server.

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New Page

Let’s make a new page!• Click “Content” in the main CMS menu• Select “new” from the options above and to

the right of the directory listing.You should see a number of template options.

Let’s make a new basic page. Select the “New Page” template.

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Page Options

Before your page can be made, you have to decide what content regions you want to have on it.You also need to give it a Title, and some other basic properties like a Description.Finally, at the bottom, you’ll need to name the file that the page will be saved as.

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Page Navigation

Make sure your new page is published. You can also do this by clicking the publish icon in the navigation area next to the page (hover), when it is checked out (all new pages are checked out at first).Navigate “up a directory” to your main training module folder.Select the “_sidenav.inc” file.

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Adding Navigation

You should see some content already in this file.Let’s edit it and add a link to our new page!

Add another line in the same indentation level as “Your First Edits!” You can type in whatever you like, but it should correspond to the page name and be short enough to navigate easily.Now select this, and click the hyperlink button.

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Adding Links

Within the link display, you can navigate through the structure of your site to pages which are already published.When you make a selection within your own site, it will show up as a strange looking tag with brackets. This is so that the CMS can keep track of where your link goes even if the target page moves.

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Snippets

“Snippets” are special pre-created chunks of html code. They will often not look the same in the editor as they do on a finished page, because they allow for easy ways to create polished, consistent content.

Expand the left navigation area, and let’s go to the file called “snippets.pcf”

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Folder Use

• Documents• Images

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