Create a New Site
We will begin by creating a new site and a simple page completely from scratch. The first thing to understand is how seven of the core product pieces fit together: templates, blocks (XML/XHTML), formats (Script/XSLT), configurations, Configuration Sets, Content Types, and pages. Using these items, content is separated from presentation, and information is more efficiently managed.
A. Create a New Site
The first thing you need to do is create a new Site and template to be used by the Site pages. Let's log in as a site administrator with the username:admin and password:admin.
To create a new Site:
- Click on the Cascade Server logo in the top navigation menu and select Site Management.
- Click Create a new Site in the right-hand pane and Type in web as the name of the Site.
- Also enter the desired resulting URL for this website (i.e., http://www.web.com).
- Click Submit to save the new Site.
B. Create a New Template
With your site in place, your next step is to create a new template. A template is the XML/XHTML framework whereby content regions are defined. Templates contain one or more regions that specify areas where content blocks and stylesheets can be applied. The template serves as a basic layout structure for pages in the site and provides a mechanism for aggregating multiple pieces of content together. The template, when combined with a configuration set, provides the pages with layout and rendering rules.
To create a new template:
- Using the dropdown menu on top, select the newly created site called web.
- Once in that site, use the top navigation menu and select New -> Default -> Template.
- Click on the System pane to give the template a name and parent folder; in our case we will call it html and set the Parent Folder to Base Folder.
- Now go back to the Content pane, and for the XML field, enter some simple HTML:
- The title tag is automatically replaced with the title field from the page metadata and can be placed anywhere in the template; and it can be duplicated as necessary (there are several more tags available – please look at our Available System Tags concept). The DEFAULT tag is automatically replaced with the page content, which you’ll see shortly. You can have as many tags as you like in the template – the name attribute is only used internally and does not matter, aside from the special case of DEFAULT designating the page content (please note that the special region DEFAULT needs to be in all capital letters – other regions can be named whatever you desire). Alternatively, the region tags can be supplied as HTML comment tags in the same fashion as the standard Dreamweaver template editable regions and library items.
- When finished, please click the Submit button to save the new template. Your simple template is finished.
C. Create a New Configuration Set
With your template complete, you need a way to tie the template to a group of pages. Because pages are allowed to have more than one content output type, including HTML, WML, PDF, RTF, and XML among others, a Configuration Set is required to tie them all together. A Configuration Set is a method for grouping several different templates with a single page in the system. Another use for Configuration Sets is to allow a single template to be used across a particular Site, while allowing different blocks and formats to be applied depending on the Configuration Set. For example, if there is a set of pages using one template that has a specified footer block, but half of those pages do not need that footer block on the page, then you will create two Configuration Sets – one that has the footer block assigned and another that does not use the footer. By having two Configuration Sets, the Site will still have one template but two sets of pages that have different content plugged in the regions.
To create a new configuration set:
- Click on Administration, and select Configuration Sets in the left navigation bar.
- Click New Configuration Set.
- For the Name field, type Web Standard
- Now click on the Configurations pane.
- Under Add, attach a template by clicking the template browse icon and selecting the html template in the pop up window.
- Type in HTML for the name field.
- Click Add this new Configuration with the above template and name in order to save the configuration.
- Additional properties will now be made available. For the Output File Extension, type in .htm.
- Click Submit to save the new configuration set.
D. Create a New Content Type
Content Types allow you to have a single object that defines the identity of a page. For example, a Press Release might have a Configuration Set that displays other recent releases in the right column region and formats a Data Definition in the default region. A Press Release content type would also associate an appropriate Metadata Set and Data Definition with the page, controlling the fields you will see when you create or edit a page with the Press Release Content Type. Content Types also allow you to quickly locate all pages of a particular type, regardless of where they are located in your site's folder structure.
To create a new Content Type:
- Select Content Types in the left navigation bar.
- Click New Content Type.
- For the Name field, type Web Standard.
- For Configuration Set, click the browse icon to choose the new set Web Standard.
- For Metadata Set, click the browse icon to choose the Default metadata set.
- Leave the Data Definition field blank or unassigned.
- Click Submit to save the new content type.
E. Apply the Content Type to a Page
Our content type is now ready with the appropriate template attached. Now you will create an empty page and to this page apply the new Content Type. What this step does, in effect, is associate a page to one or more templates (from the configuration set) and a set of metadata fields. The page will then have all of the defined configurations from the Configuration Set. Those individual configurations each inherit blocks and formats from a template.
To apply a content type to a page:
- Click Home to return to the assets area.
- Click on the Base Folder in the left asset tree.
- Click on New -> Default -> Page in the top navigation menu.
- Type in This is a test of the word processor followed by a Ctrl-A (to select all content) and select Heading 2 as the style from the drop down menu, which is labeled Format, in the upper right area of the word processor toolbar.
- Click the System pane in order to type in a value for the Name field. We will set the page name to example.
- The Parent Folder field under the system menu should already set to /. If it isn't, click the browse icon, select Base Folder from the pop-up window, and then click Confirm to approve the folder selection.
- For Content Type, click the browse icon to choose the new type Web Standard.
- Click Submit to save the new page. You’ll see the resulting page with the newly entered content.
Congratulations – you’ve created your first site and page entirely from scratch. Subsequent pages are much faster to create, since you can just copy the new page as many times as necessary or use an asset factory for users to create new content based on a pre-defined type. Additionally, as the template, configuration set, and content type are abstracted from the page, you can change the structurally independent items and have them automatically reflected in the pages based on them. The template defines the layout structure and basic regions. The Configuration Set inherits the block and format assignments from the template. These can be overridden at the configuration set level. Additionally, assignments made at the template or Configuration Set level may be overridden at the page instance level for any available region. This provides for powerful architecture when managing large websites.
Feel free to browse around the two main areas to see the different features and options available:
- Home
Home is used to manage individual content-related assets. The main primitive types in the software include pages, files, folders, blocks, formats, templates, and external links.
- Administration
Administration is used to manage administrator and manager-level items. The main items managed include users, groups and roles in the Global "site" area, and asset factories, configuration sets, content types, data definitions, metadata sets, publish sets, destinations, transports, and workflow definitions.