Content Management

Once you have created some Models, managing content comes next; Interface makes it quick and easy. Before delving into content management, be sure you have a grasp on the tools and menus in Interface first by reading about The Basics.

Creating Content

Once you create a Model, a corresponding menu item appears in the Content menu in the left column. Clicking on this item displays the content list in the middle column.

When you’ve just created a new Model, the Content menu will be automatically created, but no actual content will exist yet; you can quickly get started adding new content. Use the + icon in the bottom toolbar to create a new piece of content. When creating (or editing) content, the right column becomes a form that has a corresponding field for each field (including some Associations) that was created during the design of that Model. Short String columns have a one line text field, Medium Text has a larger text field, Images have a file upload field, etc.

Once you have filled out the form with all required fields and to your satisfaction, hit the “Save” button and this piece of content will be created and the content list will be populated with the new entry. If you need to edit the content fields for any reason, click on the content item in the middle column and the previously-entered field values will be displayed in the form on the right. After making any edits, click “Save” and the content will be immediately updated. Easy, right?

Draft Content

All content has the ability to be either “published” or “draft.” While all content is “published” by default, setting it as “draft” will remove it from the front-end (shutting off all API results and template content calls), and it will appear in any Interface content lists as grayed out. Disabling is a temporary operation and can be reversed; it is a great alternative to deleting content. Use the cog toolbar menu to select items and set them as either “published” or “draft.”

Deleting Content

To permanently delete content, select the one item (or multiple items) you would like to delete in the middle Content list and use the “delete” link in the cog toolbar menu to complete the action.

Deleting content can not be undone, so setting content as a “draft” is recommended for temporarily removing a piece of content from appearing on your site, in case you would like to bring it back some day or have it for internal reference. (See the above section for more information about Draft content.) Again, there is NO way to get back deleted content, so proceed with caution.

Reorganizing Content

In the Content List toolbar is is the double-arrow “Reorganize” button. This will display the reorganization screen, where you can re-order the content as it appears throughout your website and the Content List.

Once ordered, this becomes the default sorting for any API feed or content tag call, though this can be overridden by specifying an “order_by” option in a template. See the User Manual sections on API or the content tag for more details on this. Though this screen shows the general ordering for this content item, each Association also has a distinct order that can be specified. See the “Associating Content” section below for more information on this.

If the content is part of a nested Model, the reorganization screen will appear in the form of a hierarchy, much like Pages. Reorganizing in this case will maintain and update the “parent” and “children” properties of the corresponding content. Any changes made will not be permanent until the “Save” button is clicked, so feel free to experiment.

Associating Content

If the Model for this content has any Belongs To Associations, these fields will show up inline with the rest of the form. Click in the field to get a pop-over box; Start typing in the search field and matching items automatically start appearing in the list. Select the item you need; it will be associated to the current content item once “Save” is pressed.

If no items match your copy, an option to create a new object to associate to this piece of content will appear. Clicking this link will launch a new window wherein you may create the new associated item and save it. Close that window once you are done; on the original screen you may now search for this new piece of content and associate it.

For any other Association besides Belongs To, a link will be created in the Association drop-down menu at the top right of the form in which you can manage all of the associated items. You will be presented with the option to create a new associated item, or search for existing content to associated. When creating a new item to associate from this menu, clicking save will automatically associate it to the given content object. When searching for existing content to associate, simply click the “add” link to associate it.

Associated content can also be ordered distinctly from the order. After viewing the Association, click the double-arrow Reorganize button in the bottom right toolbar. Reorganize icons will appear to the right of each item. Just drag and drop the content items into the order you want them to have when being pulled across the association. Click “Save” to keep any reordering changes you make.