One Example, Five Different Versions

There are five ways to create content in the AMNH CMS. They are:

1. Structured Text
2. Plain Text
3. HTML
4. The WYSIWYG editor, Epoz
5. Uploading your documents into the CMS

Just so you know, this document was created using Structured Text.

I am going to create an example document using each of the above methods. In each example I will show how to create simple text paragraphs, include images, hyperlinks, and tables.

One thing to keep in mind when creating documents is that you cannot always easily switch between the above five methods, and certainly can't mix them within a single document (except, perhaps, the last three methods, which use HTML). For example, if you create a document using structured text, changing to plain text will not give you the same document. Similarly, if you were to switch from structured text to HTML, you would have to do a lot of editting, including adding HTML tags, to get a proper looking document.

The basic interface you get when you first use the CMS to edit a document allows you to immediately choose between four of the above five methods of creating content: the choices are located at the bottom of the box labelled Body text in the edit tab. The fifth method, using the WYSIWYG editor, Epoz, can be selected in your CMS Preferences when you have logged into your account. More on this later.

Available Content Formats

Structured Text

I've written a somewhat more detailed tutorial on how to create documents using structured text, so there is a bit of overlap with this document.

Structured text is both versatile and simple. Within the environment of the CMS, it allows you to do almost everything you could do if you used HTML, but is much easier to learn and use. Here is the ''code'' for the structured text example:

    This is a heading

       This is a paragraph.

       This is a paragraph.

    Here is a table

      |-----------------------|
      | Heading 1|  Heading 2 |
      |=======================|
      |  Cell 1  |   Cell 2   |
      |-----------------------|
      |       Cell 3          |
      |-----------------------|
      |  Cell 4  |   Cell 5   |
      |-----------------------|

    Here is a "link":http://www.amnh.org

    Here is an image:

    "Alex":img:photos/roomtogrow1

Here is the resulting page. The important thing to remember when using structured text is that indentation is important - see the tutorial for more examples. (Note: after writing this, I found out that it is possible to mix structured text and HTML if Structured Text is chosen as the Format for your document. Structured text is ultimately converted into HTML: the conversion just leaves any include HTML tags intact. See the tutorial for more info.)

Plain Text

You can't do much with just plain text: no images and no links. However, what you see as you type is more-or-less what you get: as long as you are just interested in simple text with no fancy formatting. If all you want in your web page is a few paragraphs about your research, or an abstract, or perhaps you're writing an item for the News page or Calendar, plain text is just fine.

Ok, here's the ''code'':

    Here is a heading

      Here is a paragraph

      Here is another paragraph

   Here is a table

      |-----------------------|
      | Heading 1|  Heading 2 |
      |=======================|
      |  Cell 1  |   Cell 2   |
      |-----------------------|
      |       Cell 3          |
      |-----------------------|
      |  Cell 4  |   Cell 5   |
      |-----------------------|

    I'd put a link here, but they don't work in plain text

    No images either.

Here is the resulting page. Not pretty. The CMS tries to do some formatting of even plain text, so the spacing in the table is ruined. Again, there are some things for which plain-text is just fine.

HTML

HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is the language of the WWW. Your browser does not understand structured text, but the CMS converts the structured text formatting in to HTML. Formatting in HTML is done by ''markup tags'': if you want change the formatting of a bit of text, whether to have it as a paragraph, a link, or a numbered list, you surround the text with an appropriate HTML tag. Here's the HTML for the current example:

    <H1>This is a Heading</H1>
    <P> This is a paragraph.

    <P> This is another paragraph.

    <P> Here is a table:

    <TABLE BORDER=1>
      <THEAD>
          <TH> Heading 1 </TH>
          <TH> Heading 2 </TH>
      </THEAD>
      <TBODY>
          <TR>
             <TD>
                Cell 1
             </TD>
             <TD>
                Cell 2
             </TD>
          </TR>
          <TR>
              <TD COLSPAN=2>
                Cell 3
              </TD>
          </TR>
          <TR>
              <TD>
                 Cell 4
              </TD>
              <TD>
                 Cell 5
              </TD>
          </TR>
      </TBODY>
    </TABLE>

    <P> Here is a <A HREF="http://www.amnh.org">link</A>.

    <P> Here is an image:
    <IMG SRC="photos/roomtogrow1">

Here is the resulting page.

To those of you who are not used to HTML or writing computer programs, this is probably pretty daunting; to those of you who do write HTML or computer programs, this looks pretty straight-forward. If you were going to write your own web pages from scratch, not using the CMS, you would probably need to know a few dozen ''tags'' and their qualifiers (qualifiers are things like the BORDER=1 and COLSPAN=2 in the above table definition). However, the CMS does a lot for you, which means that you really only need to know maybe a dozen of these tags and their qualifiers to make web pages using HTML: you could learn more HTML tags and put them into the CMS, but things integrate into the CMS better when they are kept simple.

Using HTML to create your web page in this way is probably the most complex of the available methods. However, you can do things using HTML tags that you cannot do in Plain Text, and which might be awkward to do in a WYSIWYG editor.

If you have existing web pages which you want to integrate into the CMS, you will need to use HTML at some point. You will have to be sure that HTML is selected as the document format when you're editting it, otherwise you'll just see a jumbled mess of HTML tags, instead of the properly rendered view.

The WYSYWIG Editor, Epoz

Epoz is a simple ''What You See Is What You Get'' editor which works with the CMS. It is basically a dumbed-down version of Netscape Composer - you can create web pages in the CMS and edit them, but it has a few drawbacks.

Epoz is an HTML editor, which means that it is creating HTML as you type, but you don't see the HTML tags, nor do you need to know HTML to use it. To use Epoz as your editor of choice, you need to go into My Preferences in the blue bar just below the AMNH banner, which should appear after you've logged-in to the CMS. Click on the selector for Content Editor and choose Epoz; don't forget to click Save at the bottom of the page. Note that this will cause Epoz to be used as your content editor of choice for all documents in the CMS: if you have created a document using structured text, then choose Epoz to create an HTML document, if you then go to edit your structured text document it will appear in Epoz. Since Epoz is not a structured text editor, it will appear garbled: you will have to go into My Preferences again and select None as your Content Editor (this is OK to do and won't affect your other documents).

There is no ''code'' to type when using Epoz, so the resulting page is more of a short tutorial on how to use Epoz.