Your Plinkit Web site is made up of a variety of different types of items that have different characteristics and functions. In Getting Started with Plinkit we saw many of these content items or content types in action. We worked with pages, news items, events, organizations, and even one image. In this section we will review these content types and briefly introduce a few other key types, including folders, files, and Smart Folders.

Folders

Folders aren’t really content items in themselves. They are more properly understood as containers for grouping other content items. It may help to think of folders as real physical locations where other items are collected. (This may also help you distinguish them from Smart Folders, which are described later.) You can create folders anywhere in your site, including within other folders. See Adding a New Folder to Your Site for more information.

It is important to realize that the folder icons that appear in the navigation portlet do not necessarily have a one-to-one correspondence with your complete hierarchy of folders. This is because you can configure folders (and indeed any content item) to be excluded from navigation. Items that are excluded from navigation do not show up in the navigation portlet, even though they exist in your site’s actual storage architecture. The only way to get a truly accurate picture of your folder structure is to log in as an Editor and select the contents tab. For more information about using the contents tab to view and navigate through your site contents, see The Contents Tab.

By default, clicking a folder displays a stylized list of the titles and descriptions of the contents contained within the folder. You can change this default display to show a list of the folder’s contents in a format that looks more like a file directory instead, or you can assign a specific page from within the folder to be displayed by default when the folder is clicked (see Changing the Default Display Setting for a Folder for more information).

Pages

Pages are the most common content type in Plinkit sites and are similar to standard Web pages. Pages are displayed in the main content area of the Plinkit window. You can use Plinkit’s built-in editor to create and edit your pages without ever seeing the underlying HTML. You can also add images and external links to pages. See Adding a New Page to Your Site for more information.

News Items

As we saw in Getting Started with Plinkit, news items can look like standard pages, but they differ in that they contain “timely” material about recent events and developments and are configured to be active and visible for only a specific, limited period of time. News items can be accessed from the news portlet that appears on most Plinkit pages and from the News page. All news items should be stored in the News folder, which is located inside the News & Events folder. For more information, see Creating and Managing News Items.

Events

Events are special content items that allow you to post information about upcoming library events. Event announcements look like specialized versions of standard pages. Each event announcement includes a text description of an event as well as a table listing basic information, such as the date, time, and location of the event. The announcement also includes links that patrons can use to download the event to their own personal calendars. An event announcement may also contain an image.

The information contained in event announcements is displayed in several different locations and formats. Basic summary information about each event is listed on the Library Calendar (see The Library Calendar). The smaller calendar portlet highlights with a differently colored background and bold numbers any date for which an event is scheduled. Resting the mouse pointer over a highlighted date displays basic event information, while clicking a date displays summary information about all scheduled events for that date. Events are also listed by date and name in the upcoming events portlet. Patrons can open a detailed event announcement page for an event by clicking on the event listing in any of these locations.

Event items are most easily created by clicking the Add New Event link in the Library Calendar. Event items are stored in the Events folder, which is located within the News & Events folder. For more information, see Adding Events to the Library Calendar.

Community Organizations

Organizations are content items that display basic information about community organizations in your area. Like events, organization items basically look like somewhat specialized pages, but they are usually accessed through a special page—the Community Organizations search page. This search page opens by default when users click the Community Organizations link in the eShelf & Research area of the navigation portlet. Patrons can search for organizations by keyword or by organization title words. They can also view a complete list of community organizations by submitting a search with no search terms specified. Clicking on a particular organization name in the search results list opens a page that provides detailed information about the organization.

You can use feedback from your patrons to help you maintain and expand your community organizations database. Links on the search results page and the individual community organizations pages open a form that patrons can use to recommend additions to the community organizations database and to submit additional information or corrections about organizations that are already included. For more information about adding organizations to your Plinkit community organizations database, see Posting Information about Community Organizations.

Files

Files are merely documents that you upload to your site so that you can include them on other pages or make them available for download. For example, you may want to include on one of your site pages a downloadable PDF or Microsoft Word version of a library card application or your library newsletter. The PDF or Word document is called a file in Plinkit’s terminology. You can upload and store files anywhere on your site and include links to them from your Plinkit pages. The actual content of such files, however, is not displayed within Plinkit. Instead, links are displayed that allow users to download the files to their local computers. For more information about adding files to your site, see Uploading Files.

Images

Images are graphic files that you upload to your site and can then include on other Plinkit pages. Unlike Word and PDF files, however, images are displayed when you include them on Plinkit pages.

GIF and JPEG images are generally the best formats to use. These image files can be stored anywhere on your site, but we recommend storing each image in the same folder as the page on which you intend to use it. For more information, see Uploading Images.

You can also group and store images in the Digital Exhibits folder within the eShelf & Research area. Each folder—or exhibit—within the Digital Exhibits folder is designed to store and display a collection of related images that can be viewed simultaneously in thumbnail view or individually in several differently sized views. You do not have to resize images before uploading them for inclusion in digital exhibits. The Digital Exhibits feature will automatically resize images when they are displayed. You also do not need to resize images that you intend to use only in news items. For more information about digital exhibits, see Creating a Digital Photo Exhibit. For an example of adding an image to a news item, see Creating a News Item.

Smart Folders

Smart Folders aren’t really folders at all; they are really just predefined searches that can be initiated by clicking a link. When a Smart Folder icon is clicked, a search is launched and the results are listed in the main content area of the Plinkit window. See Using Smart Folders to Group Related Information for more information about Smart Folders and an example of how they can be used.