Controlling When and How Items Are Displayed

In Plinkit, there are several factors that affect when and how a content item is displayed. We have already seen, for instance, that:

§         An item’s publishing state determines which users can view the item.

§         Content items can be configured so they do not appear in the navigation portlet, even if they are in the “published” state.

§         Effective dates and expirations dates can be assigned to content items to specify a specific period of time during which and item will be available.

§         Folders can be configured so that a specific content page, rather than the default summary of the folder’s content, is displayed when the folder is clicked.

The following sections provide brief instruction on how to adjust each of these factors.

Changing the Publishing State of a Page or Folder

Although you may see other publishing states in the state drop-down menu, there are only two publishing states with which you need to be concerned:

§         Items in the public draft state can be viewed only by users who are logged in and who have been assigned an Editor or Staff user role. The titles of items in public draft state appear in green in the navigation portlet and contents tab.

§         Items in the published state can be viewed by all users, whether they are logged in or not.

By default, content items are always created in the public draft state. To publish a content item, simply click the public draft status indicator on the green menu bar and select publish from the drop-down menu. Here’s an example:

In some cases, you may want to change a published item’s state back to the public draft state. You should only do this in situations where you want to remove a page from view only temporarily. If you want to remove the page permanently (that is, if you are confident you will not have a use for the page again in the future), you can simply delete the page (see Deleting Pages for an example).

To change an item’s publishing state from “published” back to “public draft,” simply click the published status indicator on the green menu bar and select retract from the drop-down menu (see Hiding Pages for an example).

Excluding Items from the Navigation Portlet

The Exclude from navigation property is an important setting for items such as images that you want to incorporate into other pages on your site but do not want users to navigate to and view in a standalone manner.

This property is controlled by a check box option on the properties tab. By default, the check box is empty when a new content item is created. In other words, new items are, by default, configured to appear in the navigation portlet.

To change the default setting so that a content item will not appear in the navigation portlet:

1.       Login in to Plinkit.

2.       Navigate to the item you want to exclude from the navigation portlet.

3.       Click the properties tab.

4.       Select the Exclude from navigation check box.

5.       Click save.

Changing the Effective and Expiration Dates of News Items

Some items on your Plinkit site, such as news items and event announcements, will contain time-sensitive information. You can set and effective date and expiration date for these items to control when these items will be visible.

The content type for which you are most likely to need to set and expiration date (and perhaps adjust the effective date) is the news item.

To set or change the effective and expiration dates for a content item:

1.       Log in to Plinkit.

2.       Navigate to the content item.

3.       Click the properties tab.

4.       Scroll down to the Effective Date and Expiration Date section and notice the settings.

5.       If desired, change the effective date, which is the date on which the item should become available on the public site.

6.       If you do not want the item to be visible indefinitely, select an expiration date.

7.        Click save.

For other illustrated examples, see Changing the Effective Date for Your Director’s Message and Controlling When News Items Are Active.

Changing the Default Display Setting for a Folder

By default, when a new folder is created it is configured so that a stylized list of the titles and descriptions folder’s contents is displayed when the folder is clicked. Here’s an example of how this standard display looks:

You can change this default display to one of several predefined display formats, or you can assign a specific page from within the folder to be displayed by default when the folder is clicked. We recommend assigning a such an “introductory” or “landing” page to each of your folders. (The Who We Are page that is displayed when you click the About Us tab in your default Plinkit site is an example of such an introductory page.)

To assign a page to be displayed when a folder is clicked:

1.       Log in to Plinkit.

2.       Navigate to the folder.

3.       Click the display menu and choose select a content item as default view.

A Select default page form appears, listing all of folder items that are available for use as the default page.

4.       Select the item you want to use and click save.

The selected page now becomes the default view. Notice that the page no longer appears in the navigation portlet as a separate item under the folder.