Web Services Blog

What are the display name, title, keyword and description?

Display name
This is the information used as a breadcrumb trail and in the left navigation. When adding the Display Name, consider how the name will affect the breadcrumb trail and navigation performance. A very long display name will cause text to wrap to multiple lines in the left navigation.

Title
This is the name that appears as the headline in your page and at the top of the Web browser window when viewing the published page. This is also the name that is recorded when someone bookmarks your page. The title plays an important role in Search Engine Optimization (SEO). The title should describe what your page is about, in just a few words. Spaces and upper case are acceptable. Avoid generic page titles such as “Welcome.”

Keyword
Keywords are also used by search engines to return accurate search request results.

Description
Descriptions are snippets of text, displayed below the links on search results pages, that provide details about the results.

Change page type

Page assets are associated with a set of configurations for each page type. The configuration set for the left navigation page type is different from the configuration set for the full page. To change the page type, the configuration set must be changed. Not all users in Cascade have a role that will allow them to change the configuration set of a page asset.

Contributors and Publishers:
Content managers who are in the Contributor or Publisher role do not have access to change the configuration set for the page assets they are building.

  • Copy the content from the current pageCreate a new page asset for the page type you desire
  • Paste the copied text into the content region of the new page asset
  • Enter the Display Name and Title
  • Enter a System Name
  • Submit
  • Delete the page asset you no longer need

Your site manager and the Office of Web Services can change the configuration set for you.

Managers:

  • Choose Edit and select the System tab
  • Choose the Configuration Set link
  • Navigate to the configuration set you are changing to and select it
  • Confirm that you have chosen the correct configuration set
  • Submit

Adjust spacing between paragraphs, sentences and headers

Paragraphs are double-spaced by default because that makes the text easier to read on a computer screen). Hitting the enter/return key between paragraphs will add a double-space, creating a new paragraph, but holding down the shift key when hitting enter/return will add a single space, creating a line break. Line breaks are often used to separate sentences that aren’t long enough to wrap, but are not ordered or unordered lists.

Ordered and unordered list items are single spaced by default so hitting the enter/return key after each list item is the correct way to format the list, as shown in this example.

  • orange
  • banana
  • lemon
  • strawberry

Hitting the shift key and the enter/return key in the list will indent the second line, but not give it a bullet.

  • orange
    banana
  • lemon
    strawberry

Headers are used to draw special attention to specific text by increasing or decreasing the default font size and, depending on the header style, make the text bold or italic. Headers are by default followed by a double space regardless of what type of text comes next. If you hold down the shift key and hit the enter/return key after a header, you will actually be adding a paragraph break AND a line break. You can however apply a style class named “title” to the header that will remove the paragraph break and add a line break. Applying the style does require a little editing of the html. Look for the header tags – in the example below the tags are <h4>and</h4>, and add to the opening tag – class=”title”.

Example:

<h4 class=”title>With the “title” class</h4>
Aenean ultricies Donec fames turpis eu tortor mi egestas. Mauris eleifend tristique et netus eget, Pellentesque senectus quam, tempor amet malesuada amet, leo. ante. quam Vestibulum habitant et morbi feugiat sit semper. ac sit est. vitae, ultricies placerat egestas vitae libero

Without the “title” class

Aenean ultricies Donec fames turpis eu tortor mi egestas. Mauris eleifend tristique et netus eget, Pellentesque senectus quam, tempor amet malesuada amet, leo. ante. quam Vestibulum habitant et morbi feugiat sit semper. ac sit est. vitae, ultricies placerat egestas vitae libero

Change the order of left navigation links

The left navigation is built from the folder/file structure is Cascade and is ordered alphabetically by default.

To rearrange the order of your indexed assets, select the parent folder from the asset tree. The asset information will be displayed in columns in a new window. Choose the “Order” column heading to show the order in which your assets are displayed in the left navigation. Move your pointer into the “white space” beside a folder/file until it becomes a small arrow. Click and drag the asset up or down into the desired position.

This only applies to assets that have indexing turned on.

Remember: Reordering your assets will not change how they are displayed in the asset tree. Assets are ordered alphabetically by default.

Create a page that auto builds the left navigation

The Left Column page type includes a column of links on the left side of the page. The links in the column are created dynamically from the indexed folder and page assets that are created within your site. The text for the links in the left navigation column comes from the text you enter into the Display Name field when you create a new Left Column page.

The Left Column – 1st level, Left Column – 2nd level and Left Column – 3rd level page types all look exactly the same. The only difference in the three is how the links are displayed in the left navigation column.

Left Column – 1st level: The left navigation displays all indexed assets that are in your site’s parent folder.

Left Column – 2nd level: The left navigation displays all indexed assets that are in folders within your site’s parent folder.

Left Column – 3rd level – The left navigation displays all indexed assets that are in folders within folders within your site’s parent folder.

Add inline PHP to your pages

Say you want the following code in the content area of your page:

id = 300;

echo $app-id;

for($i=1; $i<=10; $i++){
echo "$i
";
}
?>

However, after you submit, the WYSIWYG converts the code to this:

<?php
echo "this is just a test";

$app->id = 300;

echo $app-id;

for($i=1; $i<=10; $i++){
echo "$i
";
}

?>

To prevent this, we will add // at end.

<?php
// id = 300;

echo $app-id;

for($i=1; $i<=10; $i++){
echo "$i
";
}
// -->
?>

This is very similar to the old way of tags, but the current version of the wysiwyg editor doesnt always support it correctly.

Name an asset in Cascade

Each asset must be assigned a unique System Name in order to be saved into Cascade. Think of the System Name like you think of the file names when you go to Save (or Save As) a Word document. The System Name is what Cascade displays in the asset tree. It also becomes part of the url and is factored into search engine optimization.

Important things to remember when naming an asset:

  • The System Name is applied by choosing the System tab when creating an asset.
  • The System Name should be Web friendly. A Web friendly System Name is one that:
    • is all lower case
    • is one word or more than one word separated by a hyphen –
    • has no spaces
    • contains no special characters (!@!#$%^&*)

Every folder containing pages that will be included in the left navigation must have a page named index. The index page is, by default, the home page.

Change an ordered list from numeric to alpha

When you create an ordered list on your Web page, the default style is numeric like this:

  1. list item 1
  2. list item 2
  3. list item 3

Sometimes however you want your list to be ordered alphabetically instead of numerically. Apply an alpha style to your ordered list like this:

< ol style=”list-style: lower-alpha;” >

a. list item a

b. list item b

c. list item c

</ol>

For more information, see Style Guide/Lists.

New brand templates introduce new page creation features

Creating a page in Cascade now is pretty much the same as before except for a couple of things. There is no longer an Author field. The Author is now called the Owner. The Owner information is now controlled by an Owner include file that is automatically applied to every page you create. If the Owner changes, you only have to edit one file instead of having to change the Author on every page in your site.

Cool, huh?

So what else is different in the page creation process? Two fields, Keywords and Descriptions, have been added so page rankings by search engines like Google and Bing are higher.

Pages are smarter too. How? Well in the old page creation process, there was a checkbox on the System tab that you selected if you wanted your page to be indexed – meaning it showed up in the left navigation. But if the page’s parent folder was set to NOT index, then the page could not be indexed. Now, with Smart Folders and Smart Pages, you have the flexibility to not index the folder asset and still choose to index a page within the folder. One thing to know about this feature though – all folders in your site must be Smart folders and all pages must be Smart pages. How can you tell? Well when you create a new Clemson Brand 2009 folder or page, it is automatically a Smart folder or Smart page.

What does the new page creation wizard look like?

  • Display Name – Like the folder asset, the page asset’s Display Name is listed in the left navigation.
  • Title – Underlined heading at the top of the page. Browser window title.
  • Keywords – Used by search engines. Keywords are short descriptions of the page content.
  • Description – Used by search engines. Descriptions are longer descriptions of the page content that are displayed in the results of a Web search.
  • Include in Left Navigation – Page’s Display Name listed in the left navigation even if it lives in a folder that is not indexed.

New page creation wizard

Just like before, once you fill in all the fields you go into the content region and add your content. Don’t forget to go to the System tab and give your page a Web-friendly name and then Submit your page into Cascade.