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: targets, templates, blocks (XML/HTML), stylesheets (XSL), configurations, configuration sets, and pages. Using these items, content is separated from presentation, and information is more efficiently managed.
A. Create a New Folder
The first thing you need to do is create a new base folder, target, and template to be used by the page and site. As you would expect, a folder is a standard way to group assets together. Shortly, you’ll tag this folder as the base folder for the new site.
To create a new top-level folder:
- Click on Home in the top navigation menu, if you’re not already on the asset screen, and click on Base Folder at the top of the left asset tree.
- From the top navigation menu, select New -> Default -> Folder.
- Type in web as the name of the folder.
- Click Submit to save the new folder.
B. Create a Target
With your new folder in place, you need to create your publishing target. A target contains the publishing location(s), format type, and other parameters. Targets act as publishing paths for different types of content. Targets control which templates and destinations are included for a select publishing output. When an asset is published to one or more servers, the target controls where it goes and how it gets there.
To create a target:
- Click on Administration in the top navigation menu.
- From the left navigation bar, select Targets & Destinations.
- Click on New Target.
- For the target Name, type in web.
- For the Base Folder, click the browse folder icon, select the web folder, and then click Submit.
- For the Output File Extension, type in .htm.
- Now click Submit to save the new target.
C. Create a New Template
With your target in place, your next step is to create a new template. A template is the XML/HTML 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 target, provides the pages with layout and rendering rules.
To create a new template:
- Click on Home in the top navigation menu.
- Select the web folder from the left asset tree.
- Once in that folder, use the top navigation menu and select New -> Default -> Template.
- Click on the System pane to give the template a name; in our case we will call it html.
- Click the browse folder icon next to Target, and choose the target web. You must specify a target for the template; otherwise the page will not be displayed.
- 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 Integration FAQ online). 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.
D. Create a New Configuration Set
With your template complete, you need a way to tie the template to a specific page. 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 stylesheets 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 web/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. Check the box marked default configuration.
- Click Submit to save the new configuration set.
E. Apply the Configuration Set to a Page
Our configuration set is now ready with the appropriate template attached. Now you will create an empty page and to this page apply the new configuration set with the template. What this step does, in effect, is associate a page to one or more templates. The page will then have all of the defined configurations from the configuration set. Those individual configurations each inherit blocks and stylesheets from a template.
To apply a configuration set to a page:
- Click Home to return to the assets area.
- Click on the web 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 web. If it isn't, click the browse icon, select web from the pop-up window, and then click Confirm to approve the folder selection.
- For Configuration Set, click the browse icon to choose the new set 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 and configuration set 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 stylesheet 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, stylesheets, templates, and external links.
- Administration
Administration is used to manage administrator and manager-level items. The main items managed include users, groups, roles, transports, targets, configuration sets, data definitions, workflow definitions, asset factories, and metadata sets.