How the content management system automates laying out of pages
Want to add pictures, links, file downloads... Need to style text and reshape your page. The content content management system will do all that... and more.
The easy-to-use wysiwyg page editor integrated into Worcester-based Accentika Internet's Accent-on-Business content management system lets you control layout of your web pages -- without needing to understand anything about web pages! By using a toolbar similar to that found in word processors, pictures can be imported and positioned on the page, files presented for download, links added and text styled.
To add text, just type in the box. You do not need to select any fonts/styles/sizes/colours or other attributes (in fact you should not select unless you have good reason) because fonts/colours etc will automatically be applied by the content management system, according to your site corporate style, to create the page that your visitors will see.
Our designers suggest you restrict yourself to applying the occasional 'bold' or 'italic' text, or Heading 2, 3 or 4 (under the Paragraph dropdowns), or list styling. These will be translated into your site colours/faces etc by the system. But, whenever you apply new styles, you should check the effect in the visitor section of your site.
Your content management system integrates the latest style sheet web technology for simple, fast-to-load pages that should look the same in all the major browsers, on Windows, Apple Mac and Linux platforms. So we would advise you aim to keep your pages as simple as possible -- though you have the facility to generate highly complex web pages.
For more help on what the individual icons mean, click on the ? icon.
Adding a picture/graphic
Position your cursor in the text where you want to add your graphic and click on the 'Tree' symbol in the tool bar.
This will bring up the following dialogue box that enables you to preview and select pictures you have uploaded to your library.
To select an image, click on the image list dropdown to see all images in your library. Select an image and the preview will be displayed. Once you have selected your image, the Image URL will be filled in automatically by the system. You then should add an image description and title. These fields are required by web standards and help visitors who are are not able to see the graphics. You can adjust any of the other fields -- though, as with text styling -- your site will apply certain defaults automatically so you can usually leave them as is.
You can adjust the size of the image, but this will not adjust the file size -- a big image will still have a big file size even though you have made it smaller. However, a forthcoming release of Accent-on-Business will include this capability to resample/resize files so that pictures of any size can be used.
Then click on Insert.
Adding a link
Procedure for adding a link is similar -- except first you need to obtain your link. If it is to an internal page on your site, select the page from the link dropdown...
Hold down the dropdown to select the page to which you want to link. This will automatically generate the correct link in box below. Copy the link ready to use. Now highlight the text you want to make into a link. You need to select some text before the link icon becomes active.
Click the link icon and you will see the following dialogue box...
Simply paste your link into the Link URL, give it a title and Insert. Please note: the Link list dropdown is only for linking to a file for download, and will only show if you have uploaded files to the file library.
If this is an external link (to another site) then copy it from your browser. For example, to make this link Worcester-based web design company, link to the Accentika Internet site, you would highlight the text Worcester-based
web design company, click on the link icon and paste in the address of the external site http://www.accentikainternet.co.uk/. As this is an external site, you need to include the
http:// part of the URL.
The default behaviour when a visitor clicks on your link is that the page you link to will replace the page you are linking from. But you can select other options, such as Open in new
window.
Adding a file for download
The content management system procedure for adding a file for download by visitors to your web site is a combination of the add an image and add a link procedure. Your file must
be in the file libary before you start.
First select the text you want to use as the link for the file download. Then click on the link icon (the 'chain') to see the link dialogue (shown above). This time select the file to be downloaded from the Link list. This dropdown will only show if you have files available. Selecting the file will automatically copy the correct link into the Link URL. So all you need to do is provide a Title, and Insert.
When visitors click on the link their browsers will handle the download. Please note that some browsers/firewalls will prevent the download of certain types of files (eg .exe) on security grounds.