Edit Mode: Content Editing operations

November 11, 2022

1 Introduction

Jahia Digital Experience Manager is a platform for managing a variety of digital initiatives in a productive and secure fashion. Initiatives such as building websites, mobile sites, intranets and portals, all of which can interact with visitors in order to deliver the best user experience possible. This document provides a practical explanation on basic content editing operations in Edit mode: - Create, edit, move, delete pages - Create, edit, move, delete content - Preview and publish pages and content It is complemented by the other User Guide documents available on the Jahia web site that explain in details the different tools and user interfaces.

2 Pages

Each web project has a least a first page created by default which is called “home”. Authors build the site structure under this first page in a tree organization. By default, this tree of pages is reflected in the navigation menu of the site as seen by the visitors. In other words, authors don’t have to manage pages and page classification on one side and the site navigation on another side, they are the same. Note: An important thing to recall when working with Digital Experience Manager is that what is called a page is a content item in itself, different form the content displayed in the page. A page is in fact a receptacle of other content-items that are located directly under it or somewhere else on the platform through references.

2.1 Pages and sitemap management

Pages management is done in the first tab of the Selector. All pages manually created by authors appear here. As explained in the first section of this document, content items that are not “pages” (news, articles, events…) and are called directly by users in live mode are rendered as html pages using content templates and therefore are not listed in the tree.

2.1.1 Page selection

Each page displayed in the tree can be selected (left-click on the page name); the page itself is then displayed in the Main panel. When a page is selected, the line is colored in light blue.

2.1.2 Page status

· When a page is published, its title is written in black · When a page is not published (exist only in staging version) the title is written in grey. · To have more information about the page status (page has been modified, unpublished, etc.) authors can use the Publication Manager (Publication menu) or the Site Manager (Managers menu).

2.1.3 Actions

All actions on pages can be done through a contextual-menu. Right-click on a page in the tree to display the available actions. Those actions depend on the page status, and the author role.

 

2.2 Create a page

 

To create a page, do a right-click on an existing page in the site tree, then choose “Create page” in the contextual menu.

An edit-form appears allowing to fill the following properties

- the system name: it is the name of the page in the system, and it determines tye default url of the page.

- the page title: the name that will appear in the tree, in the navigation menu and as page title by default

- the page template: the model that will drive the page structure

Depending on your platform or specific project, other options can appear in this form to offer a deeper control on the page behavior. For instance it happens often that authors need two different titles, one (shorter) that will be displayed in the navigation menu and a variant (longer) that will be displayed in the page itself. Another example is the possibility to hide a page in the navigation menu. Those kind of options can be added by developers to match functional needs; If you feel that an option is missing and would be interesting on your pages, you should ask for it to your administrators or project responsible.

2.3 Edit page properties

To change page properties, you can

  • Right click on the page in the site tree and choose “Edit” in the contextual menu
  • Click on the page in the site tree (the page appears in the main panel) and choose Edit in the top-right menu of the main panel (by default this menu reacts to the object selected in the main panel, when you select a page in the tree, until you choose to select a specific content in the page itself, it is the whole page that is selected by default).

2.4 Pages metadata

The metadata tab of the Edit-Engine shows the meta information automatically captured by Digital Experience Manager, as for any other content-item, like the creation date, the author, the last publication date or the last editor of the page. By default, two fields are available for manual editing: description and keywords. Those fields can be used to fill hidden information in the final page used by the search engines to analyze and rank your pages. Ask your webmaster or project manager if those fields are used or not in your templates and if you need to fill them when creating or updating a page. Note that custom fields can be added if necessary, or automated systems can be implemented to fill the metadata fields.

2.5 Delete a page

To delete a page, you can

  • Right click on the page in the site tree and choose “Delete” in the contextual menu
  • Click on the page in the site tree (the page appears in the main panel) and choose Delete in the top-right menu of the main panel (by default this menu reacts to the object selected in the main panel, when you select a page in the tree, until you choose to select a specific content in the page itself, it is the whole page that is selected by default).
  • Click on the page in the site tree and use the delete action in the right-click contextual menu.

When requesting this delete action, to avoid manipulation mistakes, Digital Experience Manager does not immediately delete the page but  

a) Ask for a confirmation in a popup window

b) If the author confirms, Digital Experience Manager

a. Lock the page to impeach editing on it by other users (and all sub-pages)

b. Place a mark on it. The page is, in fact, “marked for deletion”.

Note that, as the whole site organization is a tree, when a page is marked for deletion, automatically all sub-pages are also marked for deletion.

If the page has never been published, you can return in the same contextual menu and choose delete permanently.

The page and all the sub-pages and content-items will be deleted instantly. If you don’t want to delete the page, you can choose undelete and the page will return to its normal state and will be unlocked.

If the page has already been published the deletion can occur only through a publication process. The delete permanently option is not available in the right-click menu (only the undelete option). It is a constraint necessary to ensure the consistency of the repository.

You can then select publish <name of the page> in the contextual menu, or wait for a later publication process of the complete page or several pages including this one. If the publication is approved, then the deletion will be executed at the same time for the staging object and its published version.

Note: as we’ve seen previously, when requesting the deletion, Digital Experience Manager ask for a confirmation and let you write a message to motive your request. Filling this form is not mandatory, but can help reviewer to validate your request during the publication workflow.

2.6 Move pages

Pages can be reordered simply by moving them in the site tree with the mouse, or by cut and paste.

To move a page in the tree you can

  • click on the page, hold the mouse button pressed and drag the page on the page that will be its new parent then release the mouse button
  • right click on the page you want to move, choose “Cut” in the contextual menu, then right-click on the page that will be its new parent then choose “Paste” in the contextual menu

2.7 Site tree management

Because organizing the site navigation is highly strategic and typically an editorial choice, there is no automatic sorting on the page tree. When a new page is created it is added under its parent, in the latest position if siblings already exist. Authors can change the ordering at any time by drag and drop.

2.7.1 Reordering pages

To change the place of a page between others:

Select the page to drag at the desired place between other pages, an insertion line (a dashed line) appears to show the exact place the page will have. In the following example, the page ACME Space news is being dragged above the Corporate News page.

and then drop the page (release the mouse button). The page appears at its new location

Be careful to release your page between other pages, if you release it on an existing page, it will be moved as a child of that page (see above paragraph).

If you move a page by mistake at a wrong place, just reselect the page whatever its location is and move it to the desired place.

2.7.2 Move a page in the tree

Using drag and drop it is also possible to move a page (and all its child pages and content) to any other location in the tree.

To move a page, select and drag it on another page.

When your page hovers another page, the mouse cursor changes and shows a

 icon. Release the page, the tree is refreshed automatically and the page appears in its new location.

2.8 Adding Links in menus

Digital Experience Manager offers the possibility to add entries in the site tree that are not new pages but simple links (internal or external). This is convenient if you need to have in your menu an entry that points to a page located in fact at a deeper level of your site or that links to an external site.

To add an internal link:

  • Right-click on the page under which the link must appear and choose “New internal link”: an edit-engine appears that allows to set a title, to choose a page on the platform through a content-picker and a target window (a new window, the same window…).

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The content picker allows to navigate on the platform (left panel) and select the target (page or content-item) on the right.

To add an external link

  • Right-click on the page under which the link must appear and choose “New external link”: an edit-engine appears that allows to set the title (displayed in the menu), the url (do not forget the http://) and to choose the target window (a new window, the same window…).

Links (external and internal) appear in the site tree with different icons to differentiate them from standard pages.

2.9 Menu labels

Digital Experience Manager allows also to add entries in the site tree that will appear in menus but will not be clickable. This can be convenient to organize menus, especially long menus. The way labels will be visually rendered in menus seen by visitors depends on the graphic styling of your pages.

 

3 Create new content

3.1 Create new content in-context

In context editing is the fact to work and create content directly in pages. It is the natural way to work with Digital Experience Manager in Edit mode and the most convenient for authors most of the time. When content is created in-context, the new content is stored underneath the containing object and appears immediately in the page where it has been created. In other words, when a content-item is created directly in page, this content will be stored as a child of the page and will appear immediately in the page in the area chosen by the author.

To create in-context content you must, in the Selector, select the page where the content must appear then

  • Open the second tab of the Selector, then drag and drop a component corresponding to your need. Component can be inserted in page areas/lists, at the top, at the bottom or between two existing content. When the component can be dropped a blue dashed line appears to indicate precisely where the content will be inserted.

Components are grouped in meaningful categories, but can be customized and rearranged for your platform. Please read the document Edit Mode: GUI and Tools overview available on Jahia.com to learn more about the Selector and use of components in depth.

  • Use the buttons visible in the page itself at the bottom of editable areas. If the area allows only certain types of content (this is defined by the developers in the templates) a buttons will be displayed for each content type.

When hitting (one of) the button(s) of a given content type the Edit-Form is displayed immediately.

If the area is not limited to certain content types, a generic button “any content” is displayed. When hitting the button, a popup window allows you to choose the content type that you want to create, once selected, the Edit-Form appears.

To know more about the Edit-Engine, please read the document Edit Mode: GUI and Tools overview accessible on the Jahia web site.

3.2 Create content out-of-context

Out of context editing is the fact to work and create content into folders, without placing them directly in pages. It is a less convenient approach than in-context editing except for some specific use cases. Working out-of-context can also be a preference for some users accustomed to work this way with other systems.

To create a content out-of-context you can

  • Activate the 3rd tab of the Selector, use the upper part of the Selector to select a destination folder and choose create new content in the right-click contextual menu. Then you’ll have to choose the type of content you want to create in a popup window, and then the Edit-Form appears.
  • Use the Content Manager (see Managers section)

 

Choose the type of content you want to create

 

Fill the edit-engine and save, as for any other content creation. The new item appears in the bottom part of the Selector with a red icon (the item has never been published)

 

4 Update content

To update content, you can

  • Double-click on the content item in the page
  • Left-click on a content item in the page to select it (it should be bordered in red) then do a right-click and choose edit in the contextual menu.

In both cases the result is to open the Edit-Form allowing to change the actual data in each property (field).

To know more about the Edit-Engine, please read the document Edit Mode: GUI and Tools overview accessible on the Jahia academy (https://academy.jahia.com/documentation/digital-experience-manager/7.1/functional/edit-mode-gui-and-tools-overview)

The Edit-Engine as it will be displayed depends first on your role as an author. The role defines what tools / tabs are available. The standard editor role, as provided with Digital Experience Manager, provides access to 9 tabs.

When editing content, the most important tab is the first one (the one displayed by default) that allows authors to type or edit the actual data of each field. The fields available are different

5 Delete content

To delete content, you can

  • Select the item inside the page (left click) then right-click and choose “delete” in the contextual menu.

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Digital Experience Manager ask for a confirmation then, if you confirm, the page is refreshed immediately and the content item is hovered with a special layout. The content item is not yet deleted but just marked for deletion.

To completely delete the content item, it depends of the content item status

  • if the content has never been published you can redo a right-click and choose “delete permanently” as for pages (see section 2.5 Delete a page)
  • If the content has already been published the deletion can occur only through a publication process. It is a constraint necessary to ensure the consistency of the repository. You can then select “publish “name of the item” in the contextual menu, or wait for a later publication process of the complete page or several pages. If the publication is approved, then the deletion will be executed at the same time for the staging object and its published version.

6 Preview content

By default, Contribute mode and Edit mode display pages in a fashion close to the final result but sometimes it is necessary to control what the page will look like exactly before publishing it.

6.1 Simple preview

To preview a page, you can

  • Use the Mode Menu and choose “preview” or “preview in a new window”. The page is displayed as it will be visible by unauthenticated users (simple visitors) if it is published now.
  • Use the View Menu and choose “customized preview” if you want to see the page as it will be for a given user profile and / or at a given date. In case some content items have been configured to become visible only at a specific date or during a certain amount of time or the page may contain content items that have specific access rights thus not visible by every visitor.

A page in Edit mode

The same page in Preview mode: button, toolbar and areas has disappeared

6.2 Customized preview

If the page you want to preview has access rights set on different content-items, r if some content must appear or disappear at specified dates, the simple preview will not allow to verify that everything works as expected, as it display the page

  • Only for guest users
  • On a standard “desktop” web browser
  • As if published right now

To preview a page for a given user, or channel, or date, you can use the Customized preview entry in the View menu. A pop-up window allows to specify the desired criteria.

7 Move content

7.1 In the same page

To move content in the same page, you can:

  • Simply drag and drop the content-item from one place to another, in the same area, or into another area if the destination area allows that type of content. When you start moving an item, for ergonomic reasons the rendering is changed to, whatever the original size of the content in the page

Digital Experience Manager help users to know if a content-item can be dropped by using icons. If the item is not droppable the icon is

, as soon as the content can be dropped somewhere the icon changes to
 and a dotted line appears in the page to show exactly where the content will be inserted

  • Another possibility is to select the item you want to move (left click, the item is then bordered in red) and choose “cut” in the right-click contextual menu.

As soon as an item is cut (placed in the clipboard) “paste” buttons appear in the different areas of the page where the content can be moved.

Click on paste, the item disappears from its original location and appears in the new location; the paste buttons disappear from the page.

Obviously, the rendering of the item may not be perfect instantly, as each area has a different size and specific rendering styles. Being able to move items from one location to another requires that you know your templates and what is possible or not. If the rendering of some content types in a specific area is not correct in your opinion, you should ask your webmaster or designer to create a specific view (rendering) that will match this location nicely.

7.2 Move a content into another page

To move a content from one page to another page, the procedure is nearly the same: select the item you want to move (left click, the item is then bordered in red) and choose “cut” in the right-click contextual menu, then go to the destination page and click on one of the paste button that appears on the destination page.

Note: using the same procedure but using the copy action, instead of cut, the content will be duplicated where it is pasted. Sometimes it can be safer to copy-paste then delete the original manually than cut and paste. Also, it is sometimes simpler and faster to start with a filled content and retyping what you want in it, rather than starting with an empty content.

8 Publish content

Publishing is a necessary step to make content accessible to visitors. Basically a publication consists to copy the staging content (stored in a private warehouse) in a second location (a public warehouse). Sure things are not always as simple:

1. Publication is subject to certain rules that ensure integrity of content:

  • Content in a given language cannot be issued if the fields defined as mandatory are not met.
  • Content in a given language cannot be issued if the fields defined as mandatory are not filled in other languages themselves defined as mandatory.
  • Content cannot be issued if the parent is not itself published.

2. Publication can be launched

  • On a single content-item
  • On a page (and all content-items that appear in this page)
  • On a page and all sub-pages (and all content that appear in those pages)
  • On the whole site

3. Publication is done per language.

4. When a publication workflow is started

  • The content-items that must be published are temporally locked (they cannot be edit until the end of the publication process, whether is approved or rejected)
  • A publication task is created and automatically notified to all users that can handle it.

Moreover, although this is not an obligation, it is very common that the publication is subject to a workflow/validation process consisting in one or more stages. Digital Experience Manager offers even the possibility of using different publishing process for each page or each content-item within a page. Thus we can imagine a site that most pages are subject to a single stage of validation, but specifically the contents of the "press releases" were subjected to two stages of validation and the financial section with three validation steps: a proof reader, a first validator and, finally, the Chief Financial Officer.

As a publisher, details of the process that runs when you request the publication is ultimately of little importance and you do not even need to know the details, whatever its complexity, such as the number of steps and actors involved.

For an editor, the publication should remain as transparent as possible. And what matters is

  • To find out about the current publication status of a page or content.
  • Know how to request a publication.

8.1 Publication status

8.1.1 Of a page

Choose Publication manager in the Publication menu.

8.1.2 Of content-items inside a page

Choose Status in the Publication menu. Overlays appear on the different items with clear labels.

Note that those statuses disappear as soon as you click somewhere or if you navigate to another page. It’s just “on the fly” information.

8.2 Request a publication

8.2.1 On a page

To simply publish the page and the content inside it, right-click on the page name in the Selector and choose Publish <page name> <language> in the contextual menu or chose the same option in the Publication menu.

To publish a page and all sub-pages and content-items, select the page in the Selector and choose Publish all under <page name> <language> in the Publication menu.

8.2.2 On a content-item

In the Main panel, right-click on the desired item and choose Publish <content name> <language> or Publish all under <content name> <language>.

Publishing individual content-items provides several advantages

If several items have been modified in a page but are not all ready for publication you can still update your page in live mode with the ready to be published items. Most CMS does not provide this capacity, they are page-based and you have no choice but publish the complete page or nothing.

Publication of a single item is more secure (no risk to publish items changed by other users by mistake) and faster than publishing multiple content-items or pages at the same time (in fact, publishing a content-item is done instantly)

8.2.3 Unpublish

To remove a content-item or a page from the live mode and thus make it unavailable to visitors, the procedure is exactly the same as for publication, but you must choose the unpublish action.

9 Work in progress

Starting with Digital Experience Manager 7.1 a new feature has been added to secure editing work, notably in a multi-editors environment.

9.1 Context

Sometimes editors need to work on one or several pieces of content in Edit Mode but cannot achieve their work in a single work session. If they just save the content after starting to edit it, any other author with enough rights may publish this content by mistake even if this content is not really ready to be published.

Before Digital Experience Manager 7.1 the only solution for authors was to use the locking feature, but the drawback of locking a content is that other authors were not enable anymore to modify the locked content or to unlock it, which was not convenient if several editors were supposed to work : collaborate on the same pages / content.

Since Digital Experience Manager 7.1 a new status “Work in progress” (WIP) has been added that editors can check before saving their changes.

9.2 usage

To activate / remove Work In Progress status

  • In the content editing engine, just check the WIP checkbox located at the bottom of the panel, next to the cancel / save button. When the box is checked, the content has the status WIP, when the box is unchecked, the content doesn’t have this status.

9.3 Work in progress status consequences

When WIP status is applied on a content

  • All editors with editing rights on this content item can continue to edit it (by opposition to locks) and to keep or not this WIP status
  • The content will be ignored by all publication workflow
  • The content will be ignored by the Preview Mode, as the Preview Mode intends to show the page exactly as if it was published right now.
  • A special layer is added in the Edit mode on items that are flagged “Work In Progress” so the editors can identify visually in an instant what content items need some work.

A page with one item marked as Work In Progress

9.4 Work In Progress and languages

The WIP status is language dependent, meaning that this status is activated language by language. This choice of implementation allows to let one or several language versions of a particular item to be published (because the content is ready) while one or several other languages of the same item will remain in a Work in progress state (because the editing work or translation is not finished for instance).

9.5 Work in progress and publication status

Managers have been updated to reflect the WIP status. When an item is flagged as Work in progress it’s publication status is replaced by the following icon

For example

In the area Page Content (left tree), one content named History of Sienna in in WIP (right)

9.6 Work In Progress mode

Digital Experience Manager allows to activate WIP in two different modes

  • Manual (default mode): WIP status must be manually activated by editors on content items by clicking on the checkbox. This mode is recommended is there are one or few editors with few risks that one author publish another author’s content by mistake.
  • Automatic: WIP status is automatically checked as soon as a content editing engine is open. If the user saves the content without unchecking the box, the content will be in WIP. This mode is recommended if there are multiple authors / publishers and reviewers with overlapping roles and collaboration on the same pages / content items, hence a platform on which the risks of publication errors are high.

To change the default mode, please ask your System Administrator to configure Digital Experience Manager according to your needs. This setting can be changed in the Jahia.properties file.

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