Creating a New Site
To create a new site:
- Log into the full editor (by clicking the "Full Editor" link at the bottom of any page on java.cs.vt.edu).
- In the "Folders" tree, select the folder where you want the new site's folder to go. In the case of proposals, this will usually be the
/chci/proposals/ folder or your home folder (/users/your-id/).
- Choose "Add to..." from the "File" menu
- Choose "Sites" from the first list, then choose "Basic Web Site" and click "Create". A new folder called "Untitled Basic Web Site" will appear.
- Select the folder and choose "Rename" from the File menu to give the site a new name.
- Choose "Edit Permissions..." (with the new folder selected) and set up the read and write permissions if appropriate. At a minimum, you will generally want to choose something other than "Readable by anybody". (More info on the security page.)
Your new site is now set up. The folder will initially contain 5 objects:
- An
index.html page, which will be the default page for the site (though that can be changed on the "Folder Options" tab). By default, the title displayed in the web browser for any object is the same as the object's name, though in the case of text objects that can be changed by opening the text object and choosing "Set Page Title..." under the "Page" menu.
- It has proven useful to use this page for a (cvs-style) log of changes that people make. Version histories of objects are maintained, but it is often nice to be able to see short, higher-level explanations of what people have been working on.
- A
Sidebar page, which will be embedded on the side of each page in the site. This is a useful place to put table of contents links.
- A
Search object, which is embedded in the sidebar to provide search capabilities. Search capabilities are currently minimal and less-than-entirely robust. (Significant enhancements are on the drawing board.)
- A
Current Users object, which is also embedded in the sidebar. This will show a list of who is currently logged onto the system, from either the full editor or the web editor.
- A
Page Template object, which includes various formatting options that are applied to all pages in the site. Sidebars, headers, footers, colors, and page title prefixes are among the options.
New objects can be added to the site by choose "Add to..." from the File menu in the Full Editor. In addition to text objects, BRIDGE includes whiteboards, calendars, spreadsheets, charting tools, and a growing set of other objects, all of which have interactive UIs and are web-renderable. In the spirit of wikis, new text objects can also be added from either the full editor or the web editor by simply including the page name in asterisks, e.g. *my new page.html*. Files can be uploaded by dragging them into the folder in the Full Editor.
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