Creating Content

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The Content Dashboard

The content dashboard at Administration > Content lists all of your site's content items, often referred to as nodes.

This page serves as the main interface for content editors to navigate and create or edit content:

You can create content by clicking the Add content button and selecting which type of content you want to create.

Node edit forms 

All standard content creation pages - also called node edit forms, have the same layout: 

  • on the left hand side you'll usually find content related fields (title, body, image(s), tags/keywords/categories, …)
  • on the right side you'll find collapsible field sets with metadata fields (author, creation date, path, and so on)

Note: 

Site builders sometimes modify or extend forms such as these. As a result, you may come across node edit forms that look very different from the default one discussed here.

Activity 1 

  • Create content of the type Basic Page
  • You only need to fill in the Title and Body fields for now. Leave all the other fields as they are.
  • Be sure to scroll down and click Save
Hints

Regardless of where else your content may appear on your site, you can always find it via the Content Dashboard (Administration > Content).

Activity 2 

  • Create content of the type Article.
  • Set a value for Title and Body, and upload an image.
  • Leave all the other fields as they are.
  • Be sure to scroll down and click 'Save'.

Activity 3 

  • Open your new Basic Page in one browser tab, and your new Article in a second browser tab.
  • Switching between both tabs, compare both pages. Do they look different? Do they offer the same functionality to visitors?

Activity 4 

This task is similar to the last one, but this time you'll compare the node edit forms of articles and basic pages. 

  • Edit your new basic page in one browser tab.
  • Edit your new article in a second browser tab.
  • Compare both edit pages. What is different?

Activity 5 

In a third browser tab, open up the home page. 

Of the two content items you created, one shows up on the home page and one doesn't. 

→ Compare both node edit forms in your other two browser tabs and try to find a difference in settings that could explain this.

Hints
This setting is part of the metadata settings on the right side of node edit forms.
Answer / solution

On node edit forms, the Promotion options → Promoted to front page setting will cause this node to be shown on the home page. 

Note: 

Site builders can choose ignore to ignore this setting on content items, and use their own logic to decide which content gets shown on the home page.

Summary 

  • The main Content Dashboard is located at Administration > Content.
  • Node edit forms have a similar layout, but site builders can override that layout:
    • left hand side: mostly content related fields
    • right hand side: mostly metadata related fields