The page editor
How to open the page editor
The page editor appears, when you open a page in the Offline project. Moreover, you can open it from any other workplace app via the quick launch menu.
The editor's toolbar options
In the page editor, the toolbar looks as shown in Fig. [Page Editor Toolbar].
Available Options
-
Publish
Opens the publish dialog for publishing your changes.
-
Clipboard
Opens the clipboard, where favorites and recent changes can be accessed.
-
Add content
The "Add content" allows adding content to a page by drag & drop.
-
Galleries
Allows access to galleries, e.g., to upload pictures.
-
Page Info
Allows to display information about the current page and its elements. If elements on the page have unpublished changes, the symbol is marked with a red dot.
-
Edit point
Clicking "Edit point" marks editable elements on the page with grey points. Clicking it again you can hide these grey points again. Also the toolbar is hidden. Only an icon for showning edit points and toolbar again is displayed.
-
Context Menu
Shows the Context menu for the current page.
-
Quick launch
Switch to other apps.
-
User info
The icons shows a user specific configurable picture. It provides access to user information, preferences and the logout button.
Creating new content
Clicking the Add content opens the gallery dialog and shows a list of all possible content types that can be added to the current container page. Content types are grouped in element views, which can be changed via the dialog's drop-down menu.
This dialog enables the content editor to create new content and also to retrieve existing contents. In order to create a new content, the preferred content type is dragged onto the page and a new instance of that type is created internally.
While dragging an element, all sections are highlighted where the element can be dropped:
Searching Existing Content
In order to reuse existing content, click on the Add content icon , select one or more resource types and click on the results tab. If you want results from only one type, you can also simply click on that type. All elements displayed can be dragged onto the page. You can refine your search by selecting single or multiple criteria in each tab (Types, Categories, Folders and Advanced). A click on the results button will refresh the result list containing all contents matching your given criteria.
Element options
When hovering above the edit point of an element the optionbar becomes visible. Offering the following options.
-
Edit
Opens the form base editor.
-
Move
Moves the element within the page.
-
Element info
Opens the element info dialog.
-
Element settings
Opens the element settings dialog.
-
Add to favorites
Adds the element to favorites tab of the clipboard.
-
Remove
Removes the element from the page.
Remove
To remove an element from the page, click on the remove option. A dialog will be shown asking you to confirm this action.
This will not delete the element content but will only remove the reference to it from this page.
In case there are no other pages referencing this content element, the remove dialog will offer to completley delete the element.
This dialog can be configured to
- offer the delete option preselected (default)
- offer the delete option not preselected
- not to offer the delete option
- always delete without asking
This is done by editing the configuration file '/WEB-INF/config/opencms-workplace.xml' in the RFS. Add the element <element-delete-mode>
as last element with one of the following values: [askDelete,askKeep,alwaysKeep,alwaysDelete].
The Clipboard
By clicking on the on the Clipboard icon in the toolbar you can access your personal favorites and a list of elements you have recently used. You can directly add content from the clipboard to your page by drag & drop.
You can add a content element to your favorites by using the Add to favorites option shown when hovering over the element's edit point.
Context Menu
Available Options
- Properties
Display and edit the OpenCms properties of the current container page.
- Page info
Show the elements used on the page, page attributes, like date created, date last modified, etc. and links to the page.
- Show in device
Allows to get previews of your page for different devices. The option is only available if a template context provider is used.
- Element view
Shows the available element views and allows to switch the element view.
- Undo changes
Recovers the last published version of the container page.
- Edit small elements
If elements that do not have a certain height edit points for these elements are only shown when this option is checked.
- Advanced > Availability
Opens the availability dialog.
- Advanced > Lock report
Lock state report of current container page.
- Advanced > Assign categories
Opens a dialog to assign categories to the current container page.
- Advanced > SEO options
Tweak Search Engine Optimization options.
- Publish queue
Switch to the workplace app "Publish Queue".
- About
Display information about your OpenCms installation.
Page info
The page info dialog shows additional metadata alongside some general information about the container page, including: the page’s title, its resource type, file size, resource state (new, changed, deleted, etc.) and the information about who and when the page was created. Moreover, it shows the last modification date and the project the page belongs to. The language and the permissions the current user has are display also.
Furthermore, you get information about the elements used on the page and the resources that link to the page.
Element view
Container page elements can be grouped in views by their type. If elements are not in the view you currently work in, edit points on the elements are hidden and also the Add content does not provide the option to add such elements.
The context menu option "Element view" is only shown if more than one such view is available (and non-empty with respect to the available content types). Each user can also choose his default element view via the user preferences.
Besides via the context menu, the element view can also be switched in the Add content dialog. In that dialog an additional element view "System elements" is shown. By default it holds all the content types exposed by the OpenCms core.
Here you can learn more about element views, in particular how to configure them.
Availability
By selecting the Availability option from the context menu you can set several options concerning the container page’s online visibility.
Available Options
- Publish scheduled date
Using the publish scheduled function, this page will be published automatically on the set date/time.
- Date released
By setting the release date, this page will be visible online from the chosen date/time onwards (if published).
- Date expired
By setting the expiration date, this page will be online (if published) until this date/time and then will disappear from the public website but will still remain as a resource in OpenCms.
SEO options
This dialog offers a mask that enables the content manager to set the most relevant properties for SEO of a container page, meaning: Title, Description and Keywords. Additionally it is possible to define aliases for the page. As for rewrite rules you can choose between sending a temporary redirect (302 returned) or sending a permanent redirect (301) or just show the page (200). Already set aliases are displayed below. Learn more on SEO options here.