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From Home Page to Web Publishing
FAQs on moving your personal web site to 8.3
courtesy of Terry Whyte, Manager, Internet Services and Voice Services
Introduction
The introduction of the Web Publishing application in FirstClass 8.3 is a bittersweet moment for long-time fans of the Home Page folder functionality of older versions. On one hand, we are finally beginning to unleash the potential in this feature of Internet Services which has long been obscured by some serious user interface underbrush. On the other hand, the Home Page folder advocates - the very folks who've done the most work with the existing feature - are the ones who will have the most work to do to convert to the new way of doing things.
From a design philosophy point of view, we tried to take a "medical" approach to Home Page folders - first do no harm. So, out of the box, if a user has a working Home Page folder, it should act the same with an 8.3 IS running. The changes begin when the user begins using the Web Publishing application inside the 8.3 Client. If the user stamps his Home Page folder with a new "Appearance", the new templates and behaviors will begin to kick in.
This document largely comes from what we have learned so far in taking our veteran Home Page folder users (both internal and external) through the process of moving to the Web Publishing application. I'm using the FAQ style for the document, since so many of these nuggets came from users asking questions. I've divided the questions into 5 categories (Concepts, Something is Broken, How do I..., Tips & Tricks, Technical) to help you find the information you are interested in more quickly.
Concepts
Q: I go into the Web Publishing application and there is nothing in there. What am I supposed to do?
A: The Web Publishing application was designed so that first time users could get a web site going quickly, with early success and positive feedback. The idea is that a user creates a page using "New Web Page", then hits "View in Browser" to see their work so far. The cycle is repeated with more complex objects being added, until eventually they have a useful web site. A key concept is that instead of embedding navigation links in their documents, users have their web site's navigation created for them automatically, linking the pages together.
Q: What objects does "Appearance" apply to? Does setting an "Appearance" affect my whole web site?
A: "Appearance" applies to container objects: the Web Publishing folder itself, Blogs, Podcasts, Web Calendars, Web Folders, and Web Listing Folders. Individual pages such as a Welcome Page or Blog Entry inherit the "look" of the container they are in. Each container can have a different "Appearance" setting, and all containers default to the Loft-Sky appearance. Setting "Appearance" on your Web Publishing folder does not affect the entire web site, each container you add can have a different "Appearance".
Q: What is a Web Listing Folder for?
A: The Web Listing Folder is designed for places on your web site where you want to publish a list of files. It obeys the container layout when rendering, so you can customize the columns to reflect the objects you intend to put there. A Web Listing Folder would be a good place to put .PDF files you want visitors to download or by customizing the columns to add a Thumbnail, you can make a simple photo gallery.
Q: What is the "Edit Podcast Details" button for? How is the stuff in there different from what I put in when I create a "New Episode"?
A: If you think of a Podcast as an album and an Episode as a track on the album, then it becomes a bit clearer. The "Podcast Details" are about the entire collection of episodes, while the stuff on the Episode form is about this specific track. These things are used when the Podcast is subscribed to in iTunes to maintain the music metaphor that program uses. You generally "Edit Podcast Details" once at the beginning to reflect what this Podcast is for, but as you do "New Episode" you enter the data that reflect what this particular Episode is all about.
Q: How can I tell my friends the correct address for getting to my web site?
A: Open the Web Publishing application and press "View in Browser". This launches your preferred browser with the address of your web site in the browser's address bar. This is what you should give to your friends as your web site address.
Something is broken
Q: I've got a web site that looks OK in the Client, but when I "View in Browser" everything is Black, even though I've chosen an "Appearance", what is wrong?
A: IS is finding an old resource file. The colors corresponding to the user choices in the "Appearance" picker are read from the EN.REZ (or your_language.REZ) file. When IS cannot find the resource with the color in it it emits a 0 for color, which corresponds to black. Your site may have been set up as multilingual, but has a pre-8.3 .REZ file for some language, or the site may have had a custom .REZ (like an EN-US.REZ) which the installer would not replace.
Q: I hit "View in Browser" and my browser loads with the wrong domain for our Internet Services, how do I fix it?
A: Most sites have only one domain for their IS and would never see an issue like this. In some cases, where admins have set up multiple web domains or different IS clusters serving different protocols, the default configuration choice for "View in Browser" doesn't go to the right place. In order to configure this, the admin can add the correct domain to a Groups form that applies to the Web Publishing users who are having the problem. The domain can be added in Groups->your group name->Services->Default web domain
 Q: I create a Web Calendar, but when a visitor goes to that page, they get a login screen, can I prevent that?
A: Users coming in over the web are unauthenticated, so the
 setting is blocking them. Adding a line above the "All Users" one for "Unauthenticated Users" to the calendar permissions, set as......ought to fix it. This behavior is an oversight and we intend to fix this in a service pack so that Web Calendars work correctly by default.
How do I...?
Q: How do I set the order of items in my web site's navigation area.
A: The order of items in the navigation section of your web site matches their order in the Web Publishing application in the Client. To reorder them, drag them up and down within the tree pane (area on left) in the Client, and they will be reordered on your web site.
Q: How do I set which page loads first when a user enters a Web Folder?
A: The first item in your navigation area that is not a container or link will load first, so to get your Welcome page to load first, reorder it to the top of your navigation area.
Q: How do I leave pages I have "under construction" out of my web site until they are ready?
A: You can use the "Approve" command to do this. As "owner" of your Web Publishing area, you have the ability to Approve/Unapprove items, similar to what an administrator can do in a conference. Unapproved items inside Web Publishing will not be rendered in the navigation area and cannot be seen or opened by visitors to your site. To unapprove a page or container, highlight it in the tree (left) pane of the Client, and invoke the "Approve" command from either the "Collaborate" or "right-click" menu. Approve is a toggle, switching the item between approved (visible to web browser) and unapproved (invisible to web browser). Approved items appear normally in the Web Publishing application, while unapproved items are shown in italics.
Tips & Tricks
Q: I'd like to have a photo gallery on my web site, what's a good way to do this?
A: There are a couple of ways that work, you can kind of choose what your prefer based on how you'd like things to work. One way is to use a Web Listing Folder as a list of photos. To do this, use "New Web Page" to create a Web Listing Folder. Once the folder is created, add a "Thumbnail" column to the view by selecting the Listing Folder, then right-clicking on the column headings in the right hand pane. This pops a list of available column types - select "Thumbnail".
Now that you have a Web Listing Folder with thumbnails, just drag in your pictures and they will automatically get a thumbnail. When viewed in the browser, they look like the screen snap (above right). You can even add comments for your photos by entering them in the Subject field in the list. Adding additional Web Listing Folders within this first one (with thumbnails on of course) will let you build a large "tree" of photos.
Another approach that can be used to organize photos on your web site is use "New Web Page" to create "Blank Page"(s) and fill those with photos.You can use multiple pages to organize the photos within a "Web Folder" and you can use the features of the editor to layout and annotate your pictures. The 8.3 editor will automatically create thumbnails of these photos for you, which enlarge to full size when clicked. The editor even has a thumbnail size preference (Preferences->Content->Options) which allows you to set up the size you prefer when it does auto-thumbnailing.
 Q: I want to "hide" files in my web site so I can hand out direct URLs to private pages without having them be part of my web site, is there a way to do this?
A: Yes, by using a "Home Page" document. Somewhere on your web site, create a "Web Folder" object, let's call it "Hidden". Inside "Hidden" create a "Blank Page" and give it the name "Home Page". Since "Home Page" documents take over the loading of conferences they are in, entering "Hidden" will autoload "Home Page". Because the container templates for "Hidden" do not run, no automatic navigation links will be generated for the other objects inside "Hidden". So, place other files you don't want people to see inside the "Hidden" folder. Those objects can still be opened, but people need to know the URL to get to them.
Q: Can non-Web Publishing objects be published with the new application? How do they work?
A: Yes. When placed in a Web Folder, common objects like documents and messages look good and most other non-container objects will render like a web page, with their body data as the page body, but without their special form fields. Container objects which have not had an "Appearance" stamped will look similar to the way they do when you login over the web, and objects inside these containers will look that way too, since in Web Publishing it is the container which drives what template is used to render the object.
Q: Is there any support in Web Publishing for a "Links" area?
A: Bookmarks are one of the non-Web Publishing objects which will work when dragged into Web Publishing. Putting a Bookmark into your Web Folder will cause an entry in your navigation area that is a link to the external site. A simple links page can be put together by creating a Web Folder, adding a single "Blank Page" object where you put some instructions, then dragging in a bunch of FirstClass Bookmarks which you create in your Bookmarks application.
Technical
Q: I have some custom templates created for publishing items to the web with an older IS. Will these still work? What are the potential pitfalls of using these with 8.3? Can they be updated to work with Web Publishing?
A: We've tried very hard not to break older web sites "out of the box", but depending on admin setup and what a user does, it is possible to break your previously functioning web pages, especially those which used custom templates. The first pitfall is that the install script for our web UIs (.templates folder) does not preserve customized templates, so the admin must manually move those back into the appropriate place. For your custom page to work, the template needs to be in .templates, the object has to have the right formID, and the place where the object resides in FirstClass must be rendering through the .templates folder. Such a page works just fine with 8.3 until the user "blesses" the Home Page folder to be a new style Web Publishing application folder - this blessing happens by creating a Web Publishing
folder, or by applying an appearance to your existing Home Page folder. Once you "bless" the Web Pub folder, IS wants to load templates for rendering it from a Plugin template set - if there is no custom template in that plugin set, it will render with the closest approximation IS can come up with. Going forward, most non-login template modifications should be converted to the new plugin method - this makes them simpler to create and they will not be overwritten by our installers. Documentation on how to do this will be available soon in "FirstClass Webmasters->FAQs" on FCOL.
Q: How do the special files (index.shtml, Home Page, etc.) work in the new Web Publishing application.
A: In order to maintain backward compatibility with existing Home Page folders, the new IS honors the convention that items named "Home Page" (or index.htm, etc..) will be loaded first. If the object in question is an HTML page, it loads without a template and looks exactly as it did before, regardless of the type of container it is in. Since the "Home Page" document renders with a template, it's appearance is affected by the container it is in. If it's in a folder which has not been "blessed" by having an "Appearance" applied (like an old-style Home Page or something created with the "File->New->New Folder" command) it will render using the template from .templates and will work as it did before. If it is in a Web Publishing folder, the template will come from the Web Publishing
plugin folder and it will pick up the "trappings" of the new Web Publishing look. However, a "Home Page" document living in a Web Publishing folder still takes control, so while it is wrapped in the appearance of the Web Pub plugins, it loads first and doesn't include the navigation list of items in this container. This provides the feature of data hiding that experienced Web Publishers like, since you can tuck away pages in a folder "protected" by a "Home Page" document and they will not automatically get navigation created for them.
Q: Can I use Web Publishing objects on my main web site?
A: In this initial release of Web Publishing we have focussed on personal web publishing as opposed to site web publishing. However, with a few limitations, it is possible for the site administrator to use Web Publishing objects on their main web site. The primary limitation is that the "View in Browser" button will not work on your main web site, you'll have to navigate to objects by entering URLs yourself. The way to put a Web Publishing object on your main site is to make an alias to the object and put that alias in the main web site folder. The user who "owns" the object maintains it using the Web Publishing application, and any reference to ~username disappears from the URLs, making the object appear to be an official part of the web site.
Q: Can plugins (like RSS) be used against other FC objects?
A: This is a bit complex option to set up, this can still be a handy thing for an administrator who wants to render an existing FirstClass object with a plugin template set. An example of this would be publishing an existing FirstClass conference on your web site, but offering an RSS feed of it. You'll need to put your own link to the RSS feed on your site, but an RSS feed can be generated for any FirstClass container object (folder, conference, etc.) which is visible on the web, by adding the following template override parameter to the URL:
/?Plugin=RSS&Leaves
For example, if the URL to the news conference on your web site was http://www.my_site.com/News , then the URL to the RSS feed for that conference would be http://www.my_site.com/News/?Plugin=RSS&Leaves . A standard conference listing does not contain any
richer detail than the Subject, and for performance reasons the RSS templates will not open a message to peek inside, so the feed will be a bit sparse. To get richer summaries, you'll need to add a Preview column to the conference. This feature was new in 8.1 and allows the first paragraph or so of a message to display in the list view; the RSS templates will use this information if present. Rather than discuss activating a Preview column here, I will refer you to Julie Oke's excellent article on the subject, located on FCOL in:
Conferences > Peer to Peer Support > FirstClass Admins > Admin Series New & Old > What's New for 8.1 > Custom Columns
The section of the document you are interested in is called "Adding a preview column".
Q: I want to differentiate my users' personal sites from out official web site, but the Web Publishing application gets the logo and footer from the .siteprefs file. How can I do this differentiation without modifying the plugin templates?
A: There is another way to do this that is easier than modifying templates. Just give users a new site for doing their personal web publishing. It will have it's own .siteprefs form on which you can remove the logo, put in a footer that disclaims the content, etc. In fact, you can even get a domain name that reflects that these are personal web sites. It is administratively a bit of extra work, but it keeps you from needing to modify templates which you'll need to maintain every time we release new stuff.
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