This section explains how to add, edit, and remove content using the Website Interface. In order to manage content, you must be logged in as a user with editing rights (by default, a member of the Editors or Administrators groups).

About Content

eZ Publish supports various types of content, such as images, articles, multimedia files, forums, feedback forms, etc. A particular kind of content is called a content class, while a specific piece of  content is called a content object.

A content class can be thought of as a template for a particular type of content that expresses that object's attributes. For example, the Article content class contains attributes like title, name of author, introduction text, the text of the article, etc. Although not all of these attributes are mandatory, they are all a part of the article content class, and so all content objects based on this class can have data for the attributes defined in the content class.

Content objects can be both individual objects and containers for content located beneath them in the content hierarchy. For example, one or more Article content objects is generally stored beneath a Folder object. When the Folder object is displayed, it automatically displays a summary list of the articles stored beneath it. (This is part of the internal template for the Folder content class.)

Each content class has a different template for displaying a content object's attributes. Therefore, just because one content object is stored beneath another content object in the content hierarchy  doesn't mean the lower content object will be displayed when the higher content object is displayed. For example, if “Article B” is located beneath “Article A”, “Article B” will not be shown when “Article A” is displayed, because displaying items located lower in the hierarchy is not part of the Article content class template.

In addition to the display characteristics defined by each content class's template, some content objects can display other objects located anywhere on the site. For example, you can “embed”  objects in other objects (for example, embedding an image in an article) using the linking tool in the Online Editor (described below). The content class of both the source object (in this example, the article) and the embedded objected (in this case, the image) determines whether or not they allow for object embedding. (For example, you cannot embed a folder in an image – it is not allowed by the Image content class.)

The content hierarchy is an important concept when creating new content. If you are relying on content objects higher in the hierarchy to display the new content that you are adding, you probably want to add the new content beneath the content container. For example, if you want a Folder content object to automatically display a list of articles, those articles must be located beneath the  Folder content object. You can manually add a link to an article in the text of a Folder content object; however, if you delete the article, the link will be broken.