CME (Content Management Environment)

What is it?

The "CME" is where your site's content is created and managed.

The OmniMagnet CME features a drag & drop visual editor and a suite of pre-formatted and defined templates, headers, etc.   Of course, if you are technically inclined, direct HTML-srouce editing is also accessible.  However, we still recommend you examine the pre-created tempaltes and format as these will save you a lot of time.

Note: If this is your first time here, we highly recommend that you check out the video tutorials to the right before reading on. This will most likely better understand the functionality and options available in the CME.

Article Defined
Each article is a chunk of content that always belongs to a "Topic". The simple topics are News and Events. See below ("In Depth") on how you can get many features and functionality out of the article/topic model.

In Depth
On a slightly more abstract level, an Article can be any web page of content you wish to have on your site. For instance, the About topics houses all the 'corporate-type' pages such as About Us, President's Letter, Terms and Conditions, etc.... Jobs, Sponsors, Member Benefits are also article types or topics. Why does it matter? Your Topic selection will determine the behavior of your article throughout the system. For instance, an Event article will be automatically displayed on the Events page while a Jobs article will be automatically displayed on the list of Recent Job Postings. Your site can have unlimited topics which you can utilize to create a very sophisticated content structure and automate many of the content related tasks throughout the site. The topic/article model directly integrates into many of our features (The modules: Job Board v.1 , Featured Volunteer, Monthly Minutes, Member Benefits, Sponsors Page and more all piggy-back on the Article Repository).
 

Restricting an article

You can restrict access to an article by going to the Manage Articles admin menu; selecting the article you wish to restrict; and then clicking the "restrict" link for that article. This allows you to restrict the article based on whether a user is in a certain membership category or user group.

By the way, it's a similar process if you wish to restrict a Forum to a particular user group -- go to the Manage Forums admin menu; click the edit link for the forum you wish to restrict; and then select from the "Restrict to Group" drop-down menu the user group you wish to restrict the forum to.

Single vs Double Spacing within the CME

To make a single space in your articles, just hold down the SHIFT key when you press the RETURN key on your keyboard. This will give you what a single-space in your article.

There's a bit more going on here, though. When you press the RETURN key without holding down the SHIFT key--and you get what appears to be a double-space--it also allows you to have different HTML formatting for the new line. When you do the single space, any formatting you have will continue from the previous line. Keep this in mind when you're editing.

Video Content

CME Part 1 - Creating & Editing Articles (Basic)

• Creating an article correctly (using the pre-made templates).
• Using the drag and drop visual editor
• How to navigate the tool box
• Inserting and editing images

CME Part 2 - Content Parameters

• Defining your article
• Setting your event parameters
• Publishing your article (taking it live)

CME Part 3 - Creating & Editing Articles (Advanced)

• Advanced helpers for web masters
• The text edit toolbar
• HTML manual manipulation
• Advanced image editing

CME - Event Dashboard Widget

• Adding the "event dashboard widget" to event articles to display maps, rsvp lists, and other info

CME - Including a file link in an article

• Locating the file's "absolute url"
• Linking your text to a file

CME - Article Versioning

• Recover your article content from an older saved version
• Use the versioning as a creative tool when creating new article content.
• Create a more user-friendly (readable) article target (URL).

CME - Article Shortcuts

• A simple URL-shortening capability.

Topics Explained...

Why Topics?
Let's talk about newspapers for a brief moment.  One reader is interested in International News articles, while another is looking for that used sofa in good conditions.  If all articles were simply lumped together in no particular order, reading it would be difficult.   To prevent endless searching by the reader, a structure of "Sections" is the norm.  National News, Business, Sports, Classifieds, etc…  Each Section lists articles and other items in it and the user is left with a much more user friendly task.

When it comes to content, think of your Magnet site as an online newspaper - a vehicle with which you publish content to your readers.  And to continue this analogy, think of every web-page as a newspaper article.  And to put it all together, we call Sections: Topics.

Ok, so what are the pre-created Topics?
Since Topics are basically an organizational tool, we have chosen some common subjects and built Topics around them.  Most of these Topics have some functionality built around them.  Usually, a Collection page (like news.html) and also a Portal Page Pod (like the Upcoming Events Pod on most of our home pages).  Let's look at those "stock" pre-created topics:
 

• Generic - this is a catch-all.  Basically, any article that you DO NOT want to include in a collection should be Generic.
• Internal - used by some clients for items such as Bylaws, management instructions, internal manuals, etc…  Basically, a library of your organization's various rules and procedures.
• News - anything you feel is newsy about or around your organizations (say, a member just sold her company, or won a prestigious award).
• Events - any upcoming events.
• Member Benefits - anything your members get as a benefit for joining.  50 % off WSJ, $20 off at the local Starbucks, etc…
• Jobs - if you'd like to create a mini job board for your users - this is one way to go about it.
• Blog - used in our Blog feature (see http://www.hbsab.org/blog.html).
• Chapters - reserved for Enterprise clients.
• Featured Volunteers - the perfect way to acknowledge your volunteers.
• Featured Member - same as volunteers, but for your members.
• Sponsors - a way to highlight your organization's sponsors.
• Partners - by now you probably got the point…
• Events MultiTrack and SubEvents - this is reserved for Enterprise clients as well.
• Video - If you would like to create an article featuring a video and add it to your video vault.

And what if you want to create another Topic?
Ah ha!  We can create any topic you want, with its own collection page and Pod.  There are usually some minor production charges.

Great, why are there 3 Topic drop-downs?
In some cases, you may want to place one article in multiple sections (try to do that in a real newspaper).  For instance, say, Joe just won an Oscar for his gripping documentary about life in the suburbs of Sheboygan, WI.  You create one article, use Topic 1 as News, ad Topic 2 as Featured Members.  Bam!

Adding anchors to your articles

So, yo want to create a page with some links at the top and a bunch of text with subheadings below. Each link will scroll the page down to a subheading.  Here goes...

Step 0: Yes...  Step 0.
You have to have your content ready first.  The reason it is '0' is because this is not really a part of the anchor creation process.  But without the content, there is noting to anchor.  So, first, write out your entire article, including the 'mini-table-of-contents' at the top (or where ever.  Now let's get down to business:

Step 1: Creating the anchors.
To create each anchor move the cursor to the beginning of the subheading and press the Insert/edit anchor icon (looks like... an anchor, usually third from left). Enter the name of the anchor in the Anchor name field. Then click ok.  Repeat for all desired anchors on the page (don't stress, you can always add more later).

Step 2: Creating the links to the anchors.
Now select each of the links in your mini-table-of-contents and click the Insert/edit link icon (looks like... a link, left-most icon). Instead of inserting a link though, you will select the appropriate anchor from the drop-down right below (you should see it populated with the anchors you just created in step 1).  Repeat for each subheading.

Note: it is important to follow the correct order. Of course, you can always add more anchors later.