Creating Content

The Content Dashboard

The content dashboard at Administration > Content lists all of your site's content items, often referred to as nodes.

This page serves as the main interface for content editors to navigate and create or edit content:

You can create content by clicking the Add content button and selecting which type of content you want to create.

Node edit forms 

All standard content creation pages - also called node edit forms, have the same layout: 

  • on the left hand side you'll usually find content related fields (title, body, image(s), tags/keywords/categories, …)
  • on the right side you'll find collapsible field sets with metadata fields (author, creation date, path, and so on)

Note: 

Site builders sometimes modify or extend forms such as these. As a result, you may come across node edit forms that look very different from the default one discussed here.

Activity 1 

  • Create content of the type Basic Page
  • You only need to fill in the Title and Body fields for now. Leave all the other fields as they are.
  • Be sure to scroll down and click Save
Hide hints
show hints

Activity 2 

  • Create content of the type Article.
  • Set a value for Title and Body, and upload an image.
  • Leave all the other fields as they are.
  • Be sure to scroll down and click 'Save'.
Hide hints
show hints

Activity 3 

  • Open your new Basic Page in one browser tab, and your new Article in a second browser tab.
  • Switching between both tabs, compare both pages. Do they look different? Do they offer the same functionality to visitors?
Hide hints
show hints

Activity 4 

This task is similar to the last one, but this time you'll compare the node edit forms of articles and basic pages. 

  • Edit your new basic page in one browser tab.
  • Edit your new article in a second browser tab.
  • Compare both edit pages. What is different?
Hide hints
show hints

Activity 5 

In a third browser tab, open up the home page. 

Of the two content items you created, one shows up on the home page and one doesn't. 

→ Compare both node edit forms in your other two browser tabs and try to find a difference in settings that could explain this.

This setting is part of the metadata settings on the right side of node edit forms.

On node edit forms, the Promotion options → Promoted to front page setting will cause this node to be shown on the home page. 

Note: 

Site builders can choose ignore to ignore this setting on content items, and use their own logic to decide which content gets shown on the home page.

Hide hints
show hints

Summary 

  • The main Content Dashboard is located at Administration > Content.
  • Node edit forms have a similar layout, but site builders can override that layout:
    • left hand side: mostly content related fields
    • right hand side: mostly metadata related fields