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Add Content: Article / Testimonial / Case Study
Introduction
PTCFO.com is powered by a Content Management System (CMS) called Drupal. Drupal organizes all site content into a database, and serves it to visitors automatically and dynamically when they visit your site. It provides a web-based interface for managing content, allowing you to focus on the content of your website, not the code.
Drupal Administration Menu
One of the first things you should notice upon logging into the PTCFO.com website is the Drupal Administration Menu at the top of your browser window. It is a thin dark strip, with the following options: "Content Management," "Site Building," "Site Configuration," "Panels," "User Management," and "Help." This is where you will find all of your options for managing your website.
The menu items that you will use the most are "Content Management" and "User Management". These provide the bulk of the functionality you will use on a regular basis. The other menu items, "Site Building," "Site Configuration," "Panels" and "Help," are mainly placeholders for more advanced site administration. Much of the functionality available in them is hidden from users in order to keep things simple, and avoid the risk of accidentally messing up the site's functional structure.
Below is an overview of the options available to you for managing your site's content.
Content Management
Creating Content
There are three types of content that you can create: articles, case studies, and testimonials. Once created, these types of content will be automatically organized into their respective pages on the website. To create a new piece of content, from the Drupal Administration Menu move your mouse over "Content Management", then "Create Content," and click on the type of content you want to create. Or click one of the links below:
You will be presented with a form with many options for defining the content of your new Article, Testimonial, or Case Study. To learn about all of the content properties, read Editing Content below.
Editing Content
Finding the Content
Unless you are creating a new piece of content, the first thing you will have to do is find the content that you want to edit. There are two ways to do this. You will notice that when you log into the site, many of the pages acquire a set of "tabs" above their content, one of which is "Edit." By clicking the "Edit" tab, you will be able to edit the content of the page using the content form properties described below. This method of accessing a piece of content's editor will work for pages and Articles. For editing the content of Testimonials and Case Studies, you will need to use another option:
In the case of Testimonials and Case Studies, you can find them using the Content List (available only to site administrators). The Content List will allow you to locate specific pieces of content based on content type. Once you find the content you want, click on it's name in the search results and you will see the content with an "Edit" tab above it, as described in the paragraph above.
Content Properties
Each type of content has a unique set of properties that define it's content, as well as some properties that you will see on all types. The following is an outline of common content properties:
Title: The title of the content.
Author: For Articles and Testimonials, an author can be assigned to the content. In an Article this will be displayed under the Article Title, and in Testimonials it will appear under the Testimonial.
Body: This is the main body of the content. The Body field provides a number of formatting options similar to Microsoft Word or OpenOffice, such as text size and style, indenting, lists, tables, images, and links.
Keywords: The keywords that you type in here will be used for indexing the content in the PTCFO.com Search page. You will notice that if you start to type a keyword that has been used in previous content, the text will be automatically completed for you, allowing you to keep your keyword usage consistent.
Meta Tags: The Meta Tags are of the content editor gives you the ability to define Meta Keywords and Descriptions that are unique to that piece of content. This feature helps you to hone your site's results as they appear in search engines like Google.* Note that you don't have to specify a set of keywords or description for every piece of content. By default, Drupal will use the site's default keywords and the first few lines of text as a description.
* Most of the major search engines no longer look at the Meta Keywords in a page, because of the history of abuse that such tags have. Google has confirmed that they still use the Description tags when they are available.
Removing Content
To remove a piece of content, find and "Edit" it, using the instructions above. Scroll down to the bottom of the Edit form, and you will see a "Delete" button next to "Save" and "Preview." Click it to delete your content. Deleting content cannot be undone.
User Management
Adding Users
To add a user, select "User Management > Users > Add User" from the Administration Menu. You will be presented with a form to fill out. Type in the new user's Name, Email Address, and Password. You can send the new user an email notification of their new account by clicking the checkbox labeled "Notify user of new account."
Removing Users
To remove a user, select "User Management > Users" from the Administration Menu, and then click "Edit" next to the user you would like to delete. Scroll to the bottom of the User Edit page and click the "Delete" button