Manage Web Content FAQ

Before editing or creating new content you should read:

• Before going live - checklist - this applies everytime you add or change a page.
• Public Relations Office house style guide - applies equally to printed material.
• Guidelines for Writing Usable and Accessible Web Content - just to get an overview of the various issues.

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To edit an existing page with the simplified control screens you need to:

• Have been added to the list of authorised people who may maintain web site content
• Navigate to the folder containing the web page you wish to add/edit
• In the address bar (normally at the top of your browser) add /control after the folder name and press enter
• Enter your normal uob id and password when requested
• Select the page from the list of all pages in the folder and follow the on screen instructions

For example, if you want to edit a page at

   http://www.bristol.ac.uk/civilengineering/staff/tea-rota.html 

in the address bar type

   http://www.bristol.ac.uk/civilengineering/staff/control 

For a complete guide to using the simplified control screens read the maintaining a zope web site reference guide (PDF, 515KB).

For more information about the in browser editing tool read the edit-on Pro reference guide (PDF, 250KB).

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To add a new page to the site follow the instructions for editing a page given above, i.e. select the folder in which you wish to create the new page. When presented with the simplified control screen use the add new item box to add a 'page template content' item.

You will need to consider how to navigate to the new page. Links from existing pages can be added by editing those pages, however to add new sidebar links on the left of the page see below.

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The simplified control screens do not allow the navigation links to be amended. To do this you need to use the zope native management interface, which displays all files in the folder.

To amend the navigation links:

• Navigate to the folder containing the web page you wish to link
• In the address bar (normally at the top of your browser) add /manage after the folder name and press enter
• Enter your normal uob id and password when requested
• From the list of files presented click on the file called standard_navigation (if there isn't one then this means the navigation links are inherited from higher in the site structure - please contact a site manager for help)
• Edit the links, following the template supplied and save the changes
• Syntax is important! Make sure that brackets, quotes and commas are matched

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To add new sections, by which I mean sub-folders, please consider the following:

• Either the simplified control screens (/control) or zope management interface (/manage) can be used to add a folder
• As discussed above, new links can only be created through the /manage interface
• You must create a file called index_html which is the default page (home page) for the folder. This is created under /manage if you select 'create public interface' when adding the folder.

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When you create a web page (page template content) in the simplified control screen there is a property added which flags the page as viewable. If you create the page (as a page template) from the zope management interface (/manage) you must add this property manually. To do this:

• After selecting the page select the properties tab
• Add a new property with name subtype and value pt_content (leave the type as string)

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The general rule is that all names should be meaningful. This is a compromise between giving a full description of the page as its name and using a meaningless name. Bear in mind that the page will be in the context of a folder.

Specific recommendations are:

• The default page displayed for each folder must be called index_html
• All other html pages should be of the form xxxx.html
• All objects must be named in lowercase only
• Images should have an extension indicating their type for example xxxx.jpg

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Where the linked object is in the same folder as the page then use the file name. For example

   tea-rota.html 

Where the linked object is in a different folder then use the path name from the root (home page). For example

   /civilengineering/aboutus/directions.html

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Each person in the department (excluding undergraduates) has a page, showing their photo, location and contact details.

The second part of this page (below the green line) can be user maintained by:

• Going to the person folder at /civilengineering/person/ in your web browser
• Typing /control at the end of the url in the address bar and pressing enter to start the simplified control screens
• Clicking on your department personal page which is <your email name>.html, for example:

•    /civilengineering/person/jonathan.evans.html
  

This department personal page is intended to be a brief introduction to you and a list of recent publications. You may enter more extensive information in your personal web pages which will continue to be hosted on the faculty server. Note that the appearance of these pages is completely under your control and they will not appear framed in the department web site style.

To manage these pages from your Windows desktop map a drive (typically w) to \\saker.fen.bris.ac.uk\www and then navigate to \cen\personal\<your userid>. To link to your personal pages from your department page add a link of the form:

http://www.cen.bris.ac.uk/personal/<your userid>/

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At the bottom right of each page is a feedback link, which provides a form for site visitors to request more information or make a comment, and a line showing the date of the last page update and who made it.

To change either of these:

• Select the page or folder in the zope native management interface (/manage)
• Select the properties tab
• To change the feedback email address
• • Add a new property with name maintainedEmail and value set to the full email address required (leave the type as string)
• To change the updated by name
• • Add a new property with name maintainedBy and value set to the name you wish to appear (leave the type as string)

As with other Zope behaviour, properties are acquired by subfolders and contained pages so that these values need only be set in one place if they are to be shared within a subarea of the site.

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This happens because of cached copies of pages, designed to improve performance. To remedy the problem, whilst viewing the (old) web page in your browser press ctrl+F5 (Mozilla Firefox or Internet Explorer). This updates the server cache so that all requests should get the new page.

A short cacheing tutorial.

When your browser requests a web page it looks in the browser cache on your computer for a copy of the page and displays it, if found and not expired. If you want to get the latest page from the server press the refresh toolbar button or press F5.

However...various caches can be implemented between you and the server which hold a copy of the page to improve performance. So to insist on getting the original page press ctrl+F5. This retrieves the page from the server and also has the side effect of placing this new page in the caches on the way, making it available for other visitors to the site.

All of this has become more relevant with the new zope hosted site which uses a lot more dynamic page building.

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Just use the feedback link at the bottom right of this page to request the section maintainer to modify the faq.

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