Plone-Tips
Adding new content to radiance-online.org
Presently radiance-online.org uses the Plone CMS for its website.
Plone was chosen because it recognizes traditional html or preformatted plain text files as its pages, and allows entire file folders of pages and their linked media or binary files to be uploaded via a navigable WebDAV mount.
Plone allows you add and edit content through its back-end by mounting the site as a WebDAV drive and using drag and drop, or by making changes through its front-end using the web browser.
Page names (which are taken from the <title> tag inside the html), navigational links in the left margin and above the the page content, and the websites look and feel are all added automatically.
If the time comes when you'd like to migrate away from Plone, you'll be able to retrieve your content through the WebDAV mount in the same manner that you were able to upload it.
First register and then log-in.
Using WebDAV
By mounting the Plone-based website as a drive by utilizing one of the WebDAV clients mentioned below one can drag and drop to upload individual files or entire folders of
.html , htm - core or static HyperText Markup Language
.rst - ReStructuredText markup language,
.txt - text files
and their linked content - (ie .jpg .tif .png .pdf .mov etc)
Simply mount the site via webdav at...
(as a user)
https://radiance-online.org:444/Plone/Members/<your login
id>
(as an administrator)
https://radiance-online.org:444/Plone
...then drag and drop to upload new content.
It actively processes .html .htm .txt .jpg .png and .tiff files into the zope database - sending all others straight to the filesystem with a uuid filename.
To edit existing content, you can open it using your preferred HTML editor.
Occasionally file-locking issues arise which will prevent you from saving your work. To resolve this:
-
Navigate to the concerned web page from the browser
-
'Edit' it without making changes
-
Then 'Cancel' the edit
Performing these three steps will usually release the lock.
Often dragging the file over locally - editing - and then dragging it back can be effective if your WebDAV mount is behaving unpredictably.
Using the front-end of the website
Plone also allows you to edit content straight from the web browser after you have logged-in.
To add a new page, find the "Add new..." tab (towards the right of the page) then choose "Page" and name it <somename>.html.
(Adding the .html suffix enables
Plone to treat this like an html page rather than raw text.)
Select the "Edit' tab to edit using:
TinyMCE - the built-in javascript-based HTML wysiwyg editor ...
- Or depending on the 'Wysiwyg editor' setting in your 'Personal Preferences'
None - which provides a blank text field which will accomodate:
-
pre-edited raw .html .htm - HTML by pasting into the text field with 'HTML' selected
A basic html template page is provided here that can be used as a starting point.
-
pre-edited raw .rst - ReStructured Text by pasting into the text field with 'reStructured Text' selected
-
pre-edited raw .txt - plain text by pasting into the text field with 'Plain Text' selected
WebDAV Clients
Mount points- as a user
https://radiance-online.org:444/Plone/Members/<your login id>
- as an administrator
https://radiance-online.org:444/Plone
Windows
Mac OS
- From the Finder > click on the Desktop > type 'cmd-k' > < add mountpoint >
type cmd-shift-. (dot) to toggle hidden files in the Finder and delete them when finished editing.
- or you can use Transmit - Mounts and does everything correctly for $45.
HTML Editors
-
SeaMonkey Composer (preferred) https://www.seamonkey-project.org is a combination browser and html page composer based off of Mozilla Firefox.
It is the easiest to use to produce the kind of simple html pages that work with Plone.
-
Open a Plone html file straight from the File > Open File menu
-
ctrl-e (cmd-e Mac ) to edit opened page
-
ctrl-s (cmd-s Mac ) to save
-
-
LibreOffice https://www.libreoffice.org is an open source office suite that is able to open edit and save directly to HTML.
-
Or any text editor (NotePad ++ on Windows or BBEdit on Mac OS) if you are comfortable with basic HTML
Further information
Plone Documentation
Plone FAQ