Upon a successful login, the administration interface will default to the "Dashboard" page. The Dashboard is the users personal area. This area gives access to miscellaneous elements and interfaces that belong to the user who is currently logged in.

Note: The next time you log in, the start page will default to the page you last worked in.

The following screenshot shows the page that appears depending on the rights of the user logging in.

Overview of the administration interface

As shown above, the interface can be divided into 7 zones. These zones are interactive and will always be present. They are the primary elements of the administration interface. Please note that some zones will be automatically disabled when a user triggers a specific action (for example, some parts of the interface are non-interactive during editing).

The interface consists of the following elements:

1. Main menu
2. Path
3. Secondary menu
4. Main area
5. Sub items
6. Right area/Collapsible right menu
7. Search interface

Note: The red arrows points to adjustable areas of the screen. The upper right arrow points to the angel quotes that collapses/expands the right menu. The left, upper arrow points to a field where you can adjust the margins of the left menu. The left, lower arrow points to a +/- sign that is used to collapse/expand the main area/tabs content of the screen. By collapsing this area, you hide the middle area of the selected tab.

(1) - Main menu

The main menu is a collection of tabs located below the "eZ Publish" logo and the search interface. The left / secondary menu (3) and the main area (4) will display elements that belong to the selected tab. In addition, the path (2) will also be updated. The right area which contains the personal bar and the optional debug tools will remain unchanged regardless of which tab that is selected. Please note that the first three tabs function in the very same way. The only difference is that they give access to different parts of the node tree. The remaining tabs function in a different way.

Note: Premium customers will get a separate tab called "Premium", where they can move seamlessly between their "Service Portal" services and the administration interface with a single-sign-on function.

The following table gives a brief overview of the available menu items along with a short description.

(2) - Path

There is an interactive path (2) located just below the tabs that provide the main menu (1). This path will always reveal the location that the user is currently at regardless of the content/functionality that is being accessed. The path is built up of words separated by slashes. All but the last element are links, this means that the path can be used to navigate backwards.

(3) - Secondary menu

The secondary menu gives access to content and/or interfaces that are associated with the tab that was selected in the main menu (1). The left menu of the first three tabs ("Content structure", "Media library" and "User accounts") look and behave in the very same way. These menus provide access to different parts of the node tree. When the "Content structure" tab is selected, the left menu will give access to the content tree, when the "Media library" is selected, the left menu will give access to the media tree, etc. These menus can be enabled/disabled using the +/- buttons. The left menu for the remaining tabs behave differently and give access to various interfaces. Unlike the tree representations, these menus can not be disabled and thus they will always be displayed.

(4) - Main area

The main area is the most dynamic and most important part of the administration interface. It displays the actual content and/or the interfaces that are associated with the last menu / link selection. This is where most of the work is done. In the screenshot above the main area displays the contents of the content top level node.

(5) - Sub items

The sub items area displays the sub-pages, folders, forums and other objects that are connected to the content, media or user objects you are working on. The list of sub items or children has a flexible sort function so that you are able to sort the sub items more or less as you wish. Notice that the sub items of a published page are sorted according to the order set up for them in the "Ordering" tab that is accessible from the "Content structure", the "Media library" and "User Accounts" tabs. Note also that the "ContentStructure", "Media library" and "User accounts" tabs are now pre-defined with a different default set of columns in the sub items table. These columns can be customized by the user under "Table options" as described in the The content structure tab tab documentation.

(6) - The collapsible right menu

The right area is dedicated to the user who is currently logged in. This is a collapsible menu. Click the button with the angel quotes shown in the print screen above to expand/collapse the menu. It reveals the name of the user and provides links that can be used to change the user's name, password, etc. In addition, it provides the "Logout" link that can be used to end the session by logging out of the system. The "Bookmarks" section contains a list of the current user's bookmarks. These are internal / eZ Publish bookmarks to different nodes in the tree (not the same as the bookmarks of the web browser). It also provides a button that can be used to bookmark the node that is currently being displayed. Please note that the last/lower part of the right area may also contain developer tools, Quick settings (requires additional configuration). Under Quick settings you will quickly be able to make configuration changes to the siteaccesses of your ez Publish installation. Look to the bottom of your page for the results of your changes.

(7) - Search interface

The search interface is located in the upper right corner. It is always present and can be used to search regardless of which part of the administration interface that is being accessed. However, it is disabled whenever the interface is in edit mode (for example, when an object is being edited). The default behavior is that the system will search for the specified word(s) within the entire node tree. The "Current location" radio button makes it possible to limit the search only to the node (and all items below) that is being displayed. This feature is only available when the user is navigating the node three (when one of the first three tabs are selected). The "Advanced" link brings the user to the advanced search interface.