Content Classes

The following sections describe each content class available in eZ Publish. As described above (in the section “Adding, editing and deleting content”), the list of content classes displayed in the drop-down list vary according to the content object that is currently displayed and whether your are logged in with a user account that belongs to an Editor or Administrator group.

The Article is the most commonly used content type. In addition to text, articles can display  images stored in other areas of the site, author information, etc. Single-page articles are created using the  Article content class (described in this section). Multi-page articles are created using the Article (main-page) and Article (sub-page) content classes (described in the following sections). To create an article, select Article from the drop-down menu in the Website Toolbar then click on the Create button.

Click on the desired link in order to see the information about it:

• Content - Article
• Content - Article (Main Page)
• Content - Article (Sub-Page)
• Content - Banner
• Content - Blog
• Content - Blog Post
• Content - Comment
• Content - Documentation Page
• Content - Event
• Content - Event Calendar
• Content - Feedback Form
• Content - Folder
• Content - Forum
• Content - Forum Reply
• Content - Forum Topic
• Content - Forums
• Content - Frontpage
• Content - Gallery
• Content - Infobox
• Content - Link
• Content - Multicalendar
• Content - Poll
• Content - Product
• Media - File
• Media - Flash, Quick Time, Real Video, Windows Media
• Media - Image
• Setup - Template Look
• Users - User
• Users - Group

Content | Article

Attributes

• Title: The title of the article is shown at the top of article pages, and as linked text when the article is included in a list.
• Short title: Used in the Administration Interface in the navigation tree-structure. It is also displayed (if set) in the public site in places like the title of the browser window, the navigation history  (breadcrumbs) and so on. Because of this, you should aim at keeping it short.
• Author: If these fields are filled in, the name and email address will be displayed under the title of th
• Summary: This is an introduction for the article. In the default design, this text is displayed in bold as a separate paragraph at the top of the page.
• Body: The content of the article.
• Enable comments: If this checkbox in enabled, site visitors can add comments that will be appended to the article.
• Image: To add an image from your local drive to an article, click the New image file for upload button and select the image from your local filesystem. This image will be displayed at the top of  the article. To embed an image that is already uploaded to the site, or to position an image in different areas of the article, use the Online Editor's Link function (described in the “Frontpage” section below). Use the Alternative image text to provide text that describes the image (particularly for browsers where images are not available). Use the Caption field to create a caption that will be displayed beneath the image.
• Publication date / Unpublish date: These fields are used to schedule the date and time when an article is published or archived. For example, if you set a publish date of twelve hours  ahead of the current time on the server, the article will not be available for viewing by site visitors until the system time matches the publish date and time. Similarly, if you set an unpublish date for twelve hours ahead of the current time, the article will be deleted when the system time matches the unpublish date and time. (See “Removing content” for instructions on accessing the trash.)
• Tags: Tags are used to add free-form keywords to content objects. These tags are used for meta-information for searching. For example, if an article contains the tag “millennium”, a search for the term “millennium” will include the article regardless of whether the article itself contains the word “ millennium”. To display a tag cloud for the entire site, load the URLhttp://www.example.com/<language>/content/view/tagcloud/2. Alternatively, see all items that have a specific tag by accessing the URL http://www.example.com/<language>/content/keyword/<tag>.

Content | Article (main page)

The difference between the Article content class described on and the Article (main page) content class described here is that the Article content class is used to create single-page articles, while  the Article (main-page) and Article (sub-page) classes are used to create multi-page articles. (The Article (main-page) class is a container for one or more Article (sub-page) content objects.)  Multi-page articles are automatically linked, allowing users to move from one page of the article to the next (or previous) page of the article. Also, they are displayed with a sidebar that lists each of the  pages in the article. The Article (main-page) content class is the same as the Article class, except for one additional field:

Index title: When you create a multi-page article, a list of the pages in the article is displayed to the right of the main page and sub pages. The content of this field is used as the text for the page within the list of pages. If this field is left blank, the content of the Short title or, if blank, the Title field is used.

Content | Article (sub-page)

The Article (sub-page) content class is used to create additional pages for Article (main page) content objects. Refer to the description above for details about this relationship. The attributes for the Article (sub-page) content class are a sub-set of the attributes available for the Article content class. Refer to the Content | Article section above for information about these fields.

Content | Banner

The banner is a graphic file that is used as a “billboard” object on a page. A banner can only be created in the Administration Interface. Although the Website Interface provides the option to create a Banner, it is not properly stored in the Media library, and therefore it must be moved after creation. Therefore, it is best to create banners via the Administration Interface (rather than via the Website  Interface), as described below.

To add a new banner to the system, access the Administration Interface as described earlier in this document and click on the Media library button in the horizontal menu bar. Select the Banner link  from the left menu and add a new banner from the page that appears.

eZ Publish Website Interface comes with a range of demo banners that you can use, or you can provide your own. It is recommended that you create all your banners in the Media Library for better control of your media.

Attributes

• Name: The name or title of the banner.
• URL: Enter the URL that should be loaded if a visitor clicks on the banner.
• Image:

  • New image file for upload: Upload the file you want to use.
  • Alternative image text: Enter text describing the image (for web accessibility standards compliance).
• Image map: A image map is a set of instructions related to geometric regions in an image, and is mostly used implement an image as a navigation menu, where different regions of the image are links to other content (on the eZ Publish site or anywhere else). This is similar to having an entire image linked to a URL, but instead different areas of the image are linked to  different destinations. (See http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/objects.html#h-13.6 for more information.)
• Tags: Tags are used to add free-form keywords to content objects. These tags are used for meta-information for searching. For example, if an article contains the tag“millennium”, a search for the term “millennium” will include the article regardless ofwhether the article itself contains the word “ millennium”. To display a tag cloud forthe entire site, load the URL http://www.example.com/<language>/content/view/tagcloud/2. Alternatively, see all items that have a specific tab by accessing the URLhttp://www.example.com/<language>/content/keyword/<tag>.

Content | Blog

The Blog content class is used to create a blog. A “blog” (short for “weblog”) is a series of typically short articles by a single person and / or on a particular topic. Individual blog entries are created via the Blog post content class.

On the right side of the blog page, there are three elements that are specific to the Blog content class. At the top there is a “tag cloud”, where all the tags attached to each blog post are aggregated and displayed in varying font sizes according to the number of tags for each term. The description of the Blog content object is displayed below the tag cloud. Beneath the description there is an alphabetical list of all the tags for all the individual posts, with the number of occurrences of each tag.

Attributes

• Name: Enter the name of the blog.
• Description: Enter a description for the blog.
• Tags: Tags are used to add free-form keywords to content objects. These tags are used for meta-information for searching. For example, if an article contains the tag “millennium”, a search for the term “millennium” will include the article regardless of whether the article itself contains the word “millennium”. To display a tag cloud for the entire site, load the URLhttp://www.example.com/<language>/content/view/tagcloud/2. Alternatively, see all items that have a specific tab by accessing the URL http://www.example.com/<language>/content/keyword/<tag>.

Content | Blog Post

Individual blog posts are created beneath Blog content objects. When site visitors look at a blog, they see a list of the Blog posts associated with the blog. Users can click on the title of a blog post to view the post on a single page.

Attributes

• Title: Enter a title for the Blog post.
• Body: Enter the text of the Blog post.
• Publication date / Unpublish date: These fields are used to schedule the date and time when an article is published or archived. For example, if you set a publish date of twelve hours ahead of the current time on the server, the article will not be available for viewing by site visitors until the system time matches the publish date and time. Similarly, if you set an unpublish date for twelve hours ahead of the current time, the article will be deleted when the system time matches the unpublish date and time. (See “Removing content” for instructions on accessing the trash).
• Tags: Tags are used to add free-form keywords to content objects. These tags are used for meta-information for searching. For example, if an article contains the tag“millennium”, a search for the term “millennium” will include the article regardless of whether the article itself contains the word “ millennium”. To display a tag cloud for the entire site, load the URLhttp://www.example.com/<language>/content/view/tagcloud/2. Alternatively, see all items that have a specific tab by accessing the URL http://www.example.com/<language>/content/keyword/<tag>. In addition to searching for keywords via the standard, tags assigned to blog posts are automatically included in a tag list and “tag cloud” displayed to the right of the blog and to the right of each blog post. (A “tag cloud” is a list of all the tags assigned to a group of objects, with a varying font size based on the number of occurrences of each tag. That is, the greater the number of times a term is used as a tag, the larger the font used to display the term in the tag cloud. Each tag in the tag cloud can be clicked to display the associated posts.info) The tag list and tag cloud aggregate all the tags assigned to all posts within a single blog.
• Enable comments: If this checkbox in enabled, site visitors can add comments that will be appended to the blog post.

Content | Comment

When comments have been enabled for an object (by checking the Enable comments box while adding a content object), visitors can post comments that are appended to the bottom of the page. Not all content classes allow comments: those that do include the Folder, Article and Blog content classes. While you can create a Comment by adding a Comment content object through the Website Interface, comments are generally added through the “standard” interface (that is, the same interface that is displayed to regular site visitors).

Content | Documentation Page

A Documentation Page is used to present reference information, such as a knowledge base or FAQ page. It is also useful for building online manuals and other reference documentation. It is similar to the Folder content class, but only contains a subset of the Folder class attributes. The primary difference between these two content classes is the way they are displayed.

Attributes

• Title: The title of the page.
• Body: The content itself.
• Tags: Tags are used to add free-form keywords to content objects. These tags are used for meta-information for searching. For example, if an article contains the tag“millennium”, a search for the term “millennium” will include the article regardless of whether the article itself contains the word “millennium”. To display a tag cloud for the entire site, load the URLhttp://www.example.com/<language>/content/view/tagcloud/2. Alternatively, see all items that have a specific tab by accessing the URL http://www.example.com/<language>/content/keyword/<tag>.
• Display sub items: Check this box if you want the container to display content beneath it in the content hierarchy.

Content | Event

An Event is a content class that is contained in an Event Calendar content object (described below).

Attributes

• Full title: The full descriptive title of the event. Not displayed.
• Short title: The title of the event. Used as a header for the event.
• Text: The summary or description of the event.
• Category: This attribute is used to “tag” the event (a “Web 2.0” categorization technique; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tag_%28metadata%29 for more information). This is a text field where you can add keywords associated with the event.
• From time: The start time of the event.
• To time: The ending time of the event.

Content | Event Calendar

An Event Calendar is a container for events, and displays as a clickable calendar that allows the user to browse events.

Attributes

• Full title: The descriptive title of the calendar. Used as title of the calendar if the short title attribute is empty.
• Short title: Used in the Administration Interface in the navigation tree-structure. It is also displayed (if set) in the public site in places like the title of the browser window,the navigation history (breadcrumbs) and so on. Because of this, you should aim at keeping it short.
• View: Choose between displaying a calendar (with the events it contains) or a Program (a simple list of events).

Content | Feedback Form

A Feedback Form is used as a contact form.

Attributes

• Name: The title of the form.
• Description: A description of the use of the form.
• Sender name: The user can enter his name in this field. If you enter text in this field, it will be displayed on the web page as a default name.
• Subject: This is where the user will enter the title of their feedback. If you enter text in this field, it will be displayed on the web page as default text.
• Message: The body of the form. This is where the user enters the feedback. If you enter text in this field, it will be displayed on the web page as default text.
• Email: This is where the user enters his email address.
• Recipient: The email address where the feedback will be sent.

Content | Folder

The Folder content class is similar to the Article content class, but it does not allow image uploads or comments. It is a container that is used to display collections of content entities, such as articles, images, etc.

To create a folder, select Folder from the drop-down menu in the Website Toolbar and then click on the Create button.

To simply list the children of the folder, you only need to fill in the Name attribute. The Short name, Summary and Description fields are optional. The contents of these fields will be displayed above the list of the folder's children.

As an example, imagine that you want to create a folder that will contain news articles.You would give the folder the name “News” and enable the Display sub items checkbox.

After adding news articles beneath the new folder, the folder will display as a page with a list of the articles.

Attributes

• Name: This is the title of the content object and is shown on the web site.
• Short name: This is never displayed on the site, but can serve as a longer and more descriptive title for the editors.
• Summary: This is an introduction for the page. In the default design, this text is displayed in bold as a separate paragraph at the top of the page.
• Description: This text is the body of the page.
• Display sub items: If this checkbox is enabled, items that exist beneath this folder will be displayed on the folder page.
• Tags: Tags are used to add free-form keywords to content objects. These tags are used for meta-information for searching. For example, if an article contains the tag“millennium”, a search for the term “millennium” will include the article regardless of whether the article itself contains the word “ millennium”. To display a tag cloud for the entire site, load the URLhttp://www.example.com/<language>/content/view/tagcloud/2. Alternatively, see all items that have a specific tag by accessing the URL http://www.example.com/<language>/content/keyword/<tag>.
• Publish Date: This field is used to schedule the date and time when the folder is published. For example, if you set a publish date of twelve hours ahead of the current time on the server, the folder will not be available for viewing by site visitors until the system time matches the publish date and time.

Content | Forum

A Forum is a container for individual topics, and only holds a few attributes to describe the forum and its purpose.

Attributes

• Name: This is used as the title of the forum (if the short name attribute is empty).
• Description: This attribute is used for a full description of the forum. Forum topics and replies are added through the regular site interface.

Content | Forum Reply

The Forum reply content class stores replies that site visitors post in response to Forum topics. While you can create a Forum reply using the Website Interface, they are generally added through the “standard” forum interface (that is, the same interface that is displayed to regular site visitors).

Content | Forum Topic

The Forum topic is the container for conversation threads. A Forum topic “opens” the conversation; other participants carry on the discussion via Forum replies. While you can create a Forum topic  using the Website Interface, they are generally added through the “standard” forum interface (that is, the same interface that is displayed to regular site visitors).

Content | Forums

The Forums content class is a container for individual Forum objects. Typically, a top-level Forums content object contains several Forum content objects that organize the forum into topic areas. For example, in the screenshot below, the top-level Forums content object is called “Forums”, and it contains the Forum content objects “Technology”, “General” and “Setup & design”. The Forum content objects are children of the Forums content object.

Attributes

• Title: The name of the forum.
• Description: A description of the forum.

Content | Frontpage

The Frontpage content class is a very flexible content container used to present summaries of content from throughout the site. Rather than re-adding content from the site on the site's front page, you simply embed objects so that the frontpage is automatically updated whenever new content is added.

The Frontpage content class has four regions: three columns above a bottom row that spans the width of the page. The columns resize automatically; only the columns that contain content will be displayed, and the displayed columns will always use the whole width of the page. So, for example, if there is content in the left and center columns but nothing in the right column, the page will be rendered so that the center column takes its own space and that of the right column.

Content is embedded into the Frontpage's regions via the embedded objects function in the Online Editor. Any  class of content object can be embedded.

To add an embedded object, click the “Insert object” icon (the paperclip) on the Online Editor toolbar.

In the resulting popup window, choose the content you wish to embed and the class to use for its layout.

The following classes are available:

• Itemized Sub Items
• Itemized Subtree Items
• Vertically Listed Sub Items
• Horizontally Listed Sub Items
• Highlighted Object

The Itemized classes create a list of content available in the embedded container.

The Vertically/Horizontally Listed classes also display lists of content, but include images (if available).

The Highlighted Object class only displays one content object, but will use more space and different design (if provided through a custom site style, described in the Customization Manual) in order to draw focus to it.

Note that it is important that the View has been set to Embed, or the class will not apply. More information about the Online Editor can be found in the online manuals:http://ez.no/doc/extensions/online_editor/5_x

Attributes

• Name: The name of the Frontpage content object.
• Billboard: A banner image that will be displayed using the whole width of the page. Refer to the “Banner” section above for information about creating banners.
• Left column: Text and objects placed here are positioned in the left column.
• Center column:Text and objects placed here are positioned in the center column.
• Right column: Text and objects placed here are positioned in the right column.
• Bottom column: Text and objects placed here are positioned in the bottom row.
• Tags: Tags are used to add free-form keywords to content objects. These tags are used for meta-information for searching. For example, if an article contains the tag “millennium”, a search  for the term “millennium” will include the article regardless of whether the article itself contains the word “ millennium”. To display a tag cloud for the entire site, load the URLhttp://www.example.com/<language>/content/view/tagcloud/2. Alternatively, see all items that have a specific tab by accessing the URL http://www.example.com/<language>/content/keyword /<tag>.

Content | Gallery

The Gallery content class is mostly used as a container for images. A gallery will display a list of images represented by a thumbnail version of the image, with a link to a page with a larger image and a full description. This content class can also be used as a gallery of video files.

Attributes

• Name: The name of the gallery.
• Short description: A short description of the gallery.
• Description: A full description of the gallery.
• Image: An image representing the gallery.

Content | Infobox

The Infobox content class is used to display small content entities on the right side of the webpage.

Attributes

• Header: The title of the Infobox.
• Image: You can upload an image that will be displayed within the infobox.
• Alternative text for image: A description of the image (for web accessibility standards compliance).
• URL (image): Images can link to destinations within the site or to external URLs. Note the following syntax:

  • External link: “http://www.google.com” (must include the “http://” prefix)
  • Internal link: “ezinfo/about” (results in the URL “http://www.example.com/eng/ezinfo/about”, where “example.com” is the URL of your installation and “eng” is the default siteaccess)
• Content: The text inside the infobox.
• URL: A link displayed at the bottom of the infobox.
• Text: Text for the URL link.

Content | Link

The Link content class is used to create and display a link. The link will be displayed in the container above the location of the link in the content hierarchy.

Attributes

• Name: The title of the link.
• Description: A description of the link.
• Location: This attribute contains two fields:

  • URL: The actual URL. If it is an external link outside of your web site, then it must start with “http://”. For internal links, use the site's hierarchy path (for example “ezinfo/about”).
  • Text: Text that is shown instead of the URL on the web page. Optional.

Content | Multicalendar

A Multicalendar is a content object that displays one or more Event calendar objects. For example, if you maintain both a calendar of training sessions and a calendar of conferences on your site, you could use a Multicalendar content object to display all events in both calendars in a single list.

Attributes

• Name: Enter a name for the Multicalendar.
• Description: Enter a description for the Multicalendar that will be displayed beneath the name.
• Calendars: Add one or more calendars to the Multicalendar by clicking the Add objects button and navigating to the desired calendars.

Content | Poll

A Poll is a form used to collect simple user feedback. A Poll asks a single question and provides a list of answers from which the user can choose a single answer.

Attributes

• Name: Enter a name for the Poll.
• Description: Enter a description for the Poll.
• Question:

  • Name: Enter the text of the question.
  • Options: Click Add option to add an answer, then enter the answer in the text field on the right. To delete an answer, check the box to the left of the option and click Remove selected.

Content | Product

If your site is configured as a Webshop, use the Product content class to create new items in the shop. The product type is fairly advanced, allowing you to add options to the product that the customer can choose in order to increase revenue. Configuring a Webshop is beyond the scope of this manual; for complete information, refer to the online documentation: http://ez.no/doc/ez_publish/technical_manual/3_8/concepts_and_basics/webshop

Attributes

• Name: The name of the product.
• Product number: The product number or model name.
• Short description: A short summary of the product.
• Description: A full description of the product.
• Price: A collection of elements related to the price.

  • Price: The price of the product.
  • VAT: Determines if the price includes VAT or not.
  • VAT type: VAT factor. Different products may have different VAT.
• Image: An image of the product.
• Alternative image text: Enter text describing the image (for web accessibility standards compliance).
• Caption: A caption for the image.
• Additional options: You can create a drop-down list of additional options that the customer can buy with the product.

  • Option set name: The title of the option set.
  • Name: The title of the option list. (You can have several lists.)
  • Options: The option text and price. You may also decide which option should be the default option. You can add and remove options and option lists with the buttons associated with  the options.

Add option sets by clicking the button Add multi option, and add options within an option set by clicking the Add option button.

To remove option sets, enable the checkbox beside the desired option set and click Remove. To remove an option within an option set, enable the checkbox beside the specific option then click the Remove selected button associated with the option set.

• Tags: Tags are used to add free-form keywords to content objects. These tags are used for meta-information for searching. For example, if an article contains the tag “millennium”, a search for the term “millennium” will include the article regardless of whether the article itself contains the word “millennium”. To display a tag cloud for the entire site, load the URLhttp://www.example.com/<language>/content/view/tagcloud/2. Alternatively, see all items that have a specific tab by accessing the URL http://www.example.com/<language>/content/keyword/<tag>.

Media | File

The File content class is used to hold a file and a description of the file.

Attributes

• Name: The name of the content object (not the name of the actual file).
• Description: A description of the file.
• File: The actual file. In the interface, there is an Upload button for uploading the file, and a Remove button to delete an existing file.
• Tags: Tags are used to add free-form keywords to content objects. These tags are used for meta-information for searching. For example, if an article contains the tag “millennium”, a search for the term “millennium” will include the article regardless of whether the article itself contains the word “millennium”. To display a tag cloud for the entire site, load the URLhttp://www.example.com/<language>/content/view/tagcloud/2. Alternatively, see all items that have a specific tab by accessing the URL http://www.example.com/<language>/content/keyword/<tag>.

Media | Flash, Quicktime, Real Video, Windows Media

eZ Publish supports the following multimedia file types:

• Real Video
• Windows Media
• Flash
• Quicktime

All these multimedia standards have a corresponding content class you can use to integrate these files into your web pages. All the multimedia content classes have some similar attributes, and some that are specific to the individual file type.

Attributes

• Name: The name of the file.
• Description: A description of the file.
• File: The file itself.

  • Width: The width of the box where the video is displayed.
  • Height: The height of the box where the video is displayed.
  • Autoplay: If you want the media to play automatically when the page is loaded, enable this checkbox.
• Tags: Tags are used to add free-form keywords to content objects. These tags are used for meta-information for searching. For example, if an article contains the tag “millennium”, a search for the term “millennium” will include the article regardless of whether the article itself contains the word “millennium”. To display a tag cloud for the entire site, load the URLhttp://www.example.com/<language>/content/view/tagcloud/2. Alternatively, see all items that have a specific tab by accessing the URL http://www.example.com/<language>/content/keyword/<tag>.

This is a screenshot of the file edit interface of a Real media content object:

The interface for the other multimedia types are similar.

Format-specific attributes

• Controller (Quicktime, Windows media): Enable this checkbox if you want the user to be able to start and stop the video.
• Loop (Flash, Quicktime): Enable this checkbox if you want the multimedia file to play in a loop (that is, to play again after it has finished playing once).
• Quality (Flash): You may tag the multimedia file with a quality identifier.
• Controls (Real media): This setting determines how the controls are displayed.

Media | Image

The Image content class contains both an image file and a description of the file.

Images created this way can be displayed as an image with description in a gallery or can also be embedded in other content. For example, you can embed an image in an article by clicking on the Insert Object button in the Online Editor while editing the article.

Attributes

• Name: The name of the image.
• Caption: A caption for the image.
• Image: The image file.
• Alternative image text: Text describing the image (for web accessibility standards compliance).
• Tags: Tags are used to add free-form keywords to content objects. These tags are used for meta-information for searching. For example, if an article contains the tag “millennium”, a search for the term “millennium” will include the article regardless of whether the article itself contains the word “millennium”. To display a tag cloud for the entire site, load the URLhttp://www.example.com/<language>/content/view/tagcloud/2. Alternatively, see all items that have a specific tab by accessing the URL http://www.example.com/<language>/content/keyword/<tag>.

Setup | Template look

These options are the same as those accessed via the Site settings menu item in the top right corner of the interface. They are described in the Website Interface Installation Manual.

Users | User

This option is only displayed to users who belong to the Administrators group. While it is possible to create a user object via the Website Toolbar, the object is not stored in the User accounts branch of  the content node tree. (This is because the Website Interface only has access to the Content branch of the node tree.) Therefore, the user account will not be valid until the object has been  manually moved to the correct location, which can only be done via the Administration Interface. Therefore, we recommend that you create users through the Administration Interface as it is less  trouble.

Users | Group

This option is only displayed to users who belong to the Administrators group. While it is  possible to create a group object via the Website Toolbar, the object is not stored in the User accounts branch of the content node tree. (This is because the Website Interface only has access to the Content branch of the node tree.) Therefore, the group will not be valid until the object has been manually moved to the correct location, which can only be done via the Administration Interface. Therefore, we recommend that you create groups through the Administration interface as it is less trouble.