Media usage and awkwardness

Author Message

Alan Sparkes

Friday 19 November 2004 1:34:15 pm

I just looked at the website news demo. I visit ezpub every now and then but just dont get the GUI. I create some news and want to add an image. Media seems like a logical place to find my media objects so why cant i insert them?

How do you add an image to an article - something so simple for an enterprise CMS? :)

I am considering ezPub for a major NGO site revamp but am scared by the backend useability. I would happily employ some consultants to do advise but I am often put off by the apparent difficulty of the relatively simple. I am familiar with just about every open source CMS going but have yet to really get to grips with ezpub as it seems so awkward.

Someone please tell me I am just coming from the wrong angle and need to read the manual (again).

I love the folder based OO approach but find ezpub a bit daunting.

alans

if you dont know where you are going you will probably end up somewhere....

Balazs Halasy

Sunday 21 November 2004 1:37:10 am

Good morning,

Which demo did you look at? I guess you looked at the old administration interface (pre 3.5), it might be a bit scary/confusing. We're currently working on a completely new GUI that hopefully will be much more intuitive and user friendly. I suggest you take a look at it (if you haven't done this already):

http://admindevel.ezpublish.no

Log in with admin/publish. This is a demo of the beta which was released a couple of weeks ago. The first release candidate of 3.5 is just around the corner, it will probably be released during Tuesday the 23rd of November.

Images:
Feel free to use the "Media" part for storing and organizing your images (just like in a filesystem with folders, etc.). When editing an article, scroll down to the "related objects" list, which should be near the bottom of the screen. Click on "Add existing" - it will allow you to browse for the images that you have placed at misc. locations within the tree structure. If you have no pre-uploaded images and wish to upload one while editing the article: click "Add new" - it will allow you to upload an image on-the-fly. The image will be placed at the selected location. In addition, it will also be related to the article that you're editing. Once you have an image as a related object: copy the XML code that was generated for that image and paste it inside the article's body field. If you wish to avoid the copy/pasting business I suggest you check out the Online Editor (WYSIWYG admin interface plugin for XML fields), which allows you to add images by just clicking around in the interface.

If you wish to learn about the basics: check out the "Building an eZ publish site" tutorial or buy the "Learning eZ publish 3" book. Asking questions in the forum is also a nice way to learn. eZ publish might seem a bit daunting/complex to begin with and the initial learning curve is a bit steep. However, let me assure you that it is a very pleasant (not to mention extremely flexible) system once you get to know the basics and understand the logic. The best way to learn it is spending time with it, hands on.. hands on... good luck!

Sincerely Yours

Balazs Halasy

Alan Sparkes

Sunday 21 November 2004 1:39:56 pm

Thanks for the supportive encouragement, really appreciated. I Had a look at the 3.5 dev and I can see the advances immediately. I was actually waiting for the 3.5 release before i downloaded and committed myself to serious evaluation.

One thing that does strike me is whether it is possible to alter the order of articles, abit like saying i published this one last but i want ti third in the list not first.

Will look forward to learning.......

alans

if you dont know where you are going you will probably end up somewhere....

Frederik Holljen

Sunday 21 November 2004 2:42:30 pm

Yep, in 3.5 look at the bottom of the sub-items window, there is a control named sorting. You can use this control to select how the sub-items will be sorted, not only in the administration interface but for the entire site. For complete control over the order, choose priority.

Balazs Halasy

Sunday 21 November 2004 3:17:24 pm

Hi again,

What you're probaly looking for is a multi-sort method that lets you sort your articles first by their publishing timestamps and then the possibility to override that with your own settings, correct? If so: this is possible to to with eZ publish, but you'll have to do it from the template that lists your articles. What you'll need to do is basically tell eZ publish that it should go ahead and sort your articles by their publish timestamps and then sort them by priority:

{let articles=fetch( content, list, hash( parent_node_id,     ID,
                                          class_filter_type,  include,
                                          class_filter_array, array( 'article' ),
                                          sort_by,            array(array( priority,  true() ),
                                                              array( published, false() ) ) ) )}

In the admin interface you'd set it up to use priority listing. Now, notice that all nodes published have their default priority set to 0 (zero). If you wish to override (place some news at the top (as permanent top story)) you'd simply set that article's priority to a negative value and thus it will pop up as first (before all other articles which have priority = 0 and are sorted by their timestamps).

Balazs

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