Web Services Blog

Create a reference asset

Suppose you have an asset in Cascade you want to display in the left navigation of more than one site. You can copy the asset over and over again into each of the folders for the site, but you don’t want to duplicate an asset multiple times. What do you do? Create a reference asset! A reference asset is a special asset in Cascade that represents an existing asset in another location. This means a single asset can appear to exist in multiple locations.  The asset will appear in the left navigation as if it had been copied to multiple folder but in actuality, it just links to the original asset.

To create the reference:

  1. Select the page you want to create a Reference for from the asset tree.
  2. Go to the Advanced menu and choose Reference. The Reference window is displayed.
  3. Enter a system name for the reference. The system name should be different from any other asset in the same folder as the reference asset. The display name of the asset being referenced will be retained. You may change it after the reference has been created.
  4. Navigate to the folder where the reference will be displayed. Submit the asset.
  5. The Reference is now created!

Notice the reference asset in the asset tree. Select the reference asset and the referenced page will be displayed.

Create a link to an email address (mailto: link)

The WYSIWYG editor does not have a built-in mailto: option but you can still easily create a link to an email address.

  1. Highlight what you want to become a link (preferably the person’s name or their full e-mail address spelled out).
  2. Choose the Insert/Edit link button from the WYSIWYG toolbar.
  3. Choose the External Link tab.
  4. In the Link field enter mailto: followed by the e-mail address (mailto:web_services-l@clemson.edu).
  5. Add a title to describe the link (Email Web Services).
  6. Choose the Insert button.
  7. Choose Submit.

Create a link to a specific area on a Web page

Anchor links are used to navigate from a specific area to another specific area within a single Web page, or from a specific area on one Web page to a specific area on a different Web page. They are a good way to provide easy navigation through pages that have multiple sections of content.

  1. To create an anchor, click in the specific area the link will point to. Choose the “anchor” button  in the WYSIWYG editor.
  2. In the pop-up window, name the anchor. The anchor becomes part of the URL so, like the System Name, it should be unique and Web friendly.
  3. Choose “insert” to set the anchor. Create as many anchors as you need.
  4. Make sure the page you are linking to has been submitted in Cascade.
  5. Select the text that will become the link.
  6. Choose the Insert/Edit link button on the WYSIWYG toolbar.
  7. Choose the Internal tab and select the page from Cascade that has the anchors in it. Type in the name of the anchor in the anchor field.
  8. Submit your page and publish.