Creating New Objects

Introduction

Welcome to the eCrowds Technical Primer! The purpose of this guide is to give new users a basic introduction to eCrowds. This guide will walk you through creating a simple website from scratch. After completion, you will have:

• Created a default site template with multiple regions
• Created a form for structuring content
• Created a content type for the main pages (which will bring together a page's form, a template for that page, and that page itself)
• Created a homepage with assets (stylesheets, images, javascripts)
• Advanced Topics you will cover:
  • Site Mode
  • Custom Fields
  • Using Taxonomies
  • Advanced Menus and Formats
  • Roles and Security

A. Create a new Site

When creating a new site in eCrowds, the name will become a subdomain of eCrowds, so if you were to create a site named 'example' the url for the homepage would be example.ecrowds.com. However, once you have completed construction of your site and decide to make it "live," you can brand your site and url as you see fit, removing the ecrowds from the URL, if desired (e.g. www.site.com).

Let's begin by creating a new site named 'example.' To create the site itself:

1. Click on "Quick Links" at the top of the page. 
2. Under the Quick Links tab, select "Sites"
3. Once in the Sites interface, click "Create new site"
4. Enter your company name for the name of the site, and enter the description, "This is my example web site!"
5. Click "Create site" and we've now added a new site to your eCrowds account.

Your site is now ready to go! If you were to browse to the companyname.ecrowds.com (where companyname is replaced with the name of the sub-domain) right now, you would see a simple welcome page.

B. Create a new Form

Now that we have a site, let's start on our first step toward making the homepage.  The first step in creating this page is to create a form that defines what information is associated with each page.  In our example site we want to make a form to use on our pages that include the following fields: title, description, tags, and a word processor, for editing the main content.

Okay, now let's make a form. To do so:

1. Click on "Components" in the left navigation
2. Under "Modules" select "Forms"
3. Once in the Form interface, click "Create new form"
4. Enter the name "Wiki Page Form" (Ignore the format and security policy fields for now, we will visit those later).
5. To add fields to your form simply click on the desired field from the "Available Fields" to the left, and drag them into the appropriate location on your form. It's that simple! 
6. In this case, we're going to add the title, description, tags, and word processor fields to your form.
7. Once you've dragged all fields in place, click "Create form."

C. Create a new Template

So we've got a site now, but you may be asking yourself "Don't I need HTML or something for my pages?" The answer is yes, but don't worry, you don't have to write any of it yourself, if you don't want to! eCrowds provides you with two different types of templates -- 'Visual', for those less tech-savvy individuals  who would rather lay their template out visually, and 'Custom', for those more technically involved individuals who'd like to get more involved behind-the-scenes with their template construction.

To create a Custom template:

1. Click on "Presentation" in the left navigation
2. Under "Modules" select "Templates"
3. Once in the Templates interface , click "Create new Template"
4. Enter the name "Wiki Template" and click on the "Import content from URL" link.
5. A text field appears where you can enter the URL of an existing website to use as your template.  Enter the the url "http://www.mollio.org/typeD.html" A message window will alert you that you are about to replace the text in the Content field, since we don't have anything in the content field, click "OK."
6. Right now we could use this template as our homepage, but if we were to add any additional pages they would all be exactly the same.
7. Let's allow eCrowds to insert dynamic content by adding regions into our template.  Find the tag "<ul id="nav"> and delete everything until the corresponding </ul> tag.  This is the region where we'll want the navigation bar at the top of the screen.  To add this new region either type %%top navigation%% in place of the deleted content, or simply place your cursor at the location, enter the region name into the "Insert Region Name" field just below the content field, and click "Go".
8. Repeat the previous step by adding the following fields:
   1. Delete content between <div id="breadcrumb> and </div> and replace with: %%breadcrumbs%%
   2. Delete content between between <div class="featurebox"> and </div> and replace with: %%feature box%%
   3. Insert: %%main content%% just after <div id="content"> (Don't delete anything)
   4. Delete content between <div id="footer"> and </div> and replace with %%footer%% (See example below)
   
9. Click the "Reload Regions" link, and you will see the new regions appear.  Click the "Add new assignment" link for the main content region and select "Requesting Object" from the first drop down list and then select "Content" from the second drop down list.  This will put the text from a page's content (defined in the form we just made) to appear in the correct place in the template.

To create a Visual template:

To do so:

1. Click on "Presentation" in the left navigation
2. Under "Modules" select "Templates"
3. Once in the Templates interface , click "Create new Template"
4. Enter "Example Template" for the name, and select the layout by clicking the "change" link to view all of the default layout options.
5. Add assignments to the different regions of the template (these "regions" are determined based on your layout selection above, but will include a header, footer, and main region by default)
6. You can also drag and drop these assignments and their respective orders by clicking the "...." at the top of each item and dragging it to where it should be.
7. Click "Appearance Options" to associate the appropriate colors and font family with the desired elements of the template and to add any custom CSS desired.
8. Click "Create Template" to submit.

You will see a message, "Template was successfully created" once your new template has been submitted.

D. Create a new Content Type

Since creating complex templates can take some time to complete, with eCrowds you are able to use the same template for many different types of pages.  For example, to keep a common look and feel on your site you may want a consistent header, footer, and top navigation bar for your pages, but other regions will change depending on whether or not the viewer is looking at a wiki page, or a feedback page, or a profile page.  To accomplish this, we will use content types.  Content Types integrate three types of elements a page, form, and template.  Since we have all three already set up, let's get started with making a content type for our wiki page.

1. Click on "Presentation" in the left navigation
2. Under "Modules" select "Content Types"
3. Once in the Content Types interface, click "Create new Content Type"
4. In the name field enter "Wiki Page"
5. Select "Pages" from the type drop down list
6. Select "Wiki Page Form" (the form you made in step B) in the form drop down list
7. Click the "Add new template" link, if there are no other templates other than the "Wiki Template" that we just created then it will appear in the drop down box, if not choose it from the list.
8. Now you should see all the regions from the "Wiki Template" with the assignments being "inherit" meaning they are the same as the assignment in the template.  Under the main content field change the first drop down box to "Requesting Object" and choose "Discussion" from the second drop down box.
9. Click "Create content type" 

E. Create a new Page

After creating our Content Type, we're now ready to add our first page to our site!

1. Click on "Content" in the left navigation
2. Under "Modules" select "Pages"
3. Once in the Page interface, click "Create new page"
4. Choose "Wiki Page" from the Content Type drop down box.
5. Enter "Feedback" into the Title field.
6. Enter "feedback, comments, user input" into the Tags field.
7. Enter "General user feedback..." into the Description field.
8. Enter "Please give use some feedback on our new website!" into the Word Processor field.
9. The page created will automatically be associated with the site you're currently editing in eCrowds
10. Click the "Create page" button.

F. Integrate assets into Files

In addition to the basic structural elements we've already set up, you may want to add additional styling elements and files to aesthetically enhance your page.  For example, a profile page may have a picture of an employee, such as <img src="/employee_picture.jpg">.  These assets can be easily managed by eCrowds.

 Some sites have many assets and some only need a few, but it's important to import all of them into your eCrowds account.

1. Click on "Content" in the left navigation
2. Under "Modules" select "Files"
3. Once in the File interface, click "Create new file"
4. Attach a file by clicking the "Browse" link
5. The file uploaded will automatically be associated with the site you're currently editing in eCrowds.
6. Click "Create File"
7. If you want to view the file after submission, click the "View" link towards the top-right of your screen.

Now you can browse to the URL www.example.ecrowds.com and you should see  your new homepage!

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