Containers - Arranging, Renaming, Moving Pages...
Like conventional computer file system directories, contents of Plone portals are organized in containers known as folders.
Adding New Items
When you are visiting a folder with edit privileges, the document-actions bar includes an Add new...menu, consisting of the content types that can be added to the folder. Most of the time you'll be adding a Page. Sometimes you'll add a Folder, sometimes a File for PDF or MS Word documents, occasionally a Link, and you may eventually have use for some of the other content types.
When you select a content type to add, you'll wind up in a dialog for identifying the item. For Fileobjects there'll be a browse field for selecting an item from your local computer, etc.
Choosing How a Folder Is presented
Display is another document-actions tab specific to folders. With it you select how the folder will be presented when visitors land in it, rather than in one of its contained items:
- Summary for a title/description listing
- Tabular for a similar listing in a table
- Thumbnail for pictures/icons
- Standard which i think is much like Summary
- Select a content item as default view... to present the user with a contained item, e.g. an overview or background info about the folder's contents. The selected item will still show up in the folder's Contents listing, but not in the navigation box for the folder.
Contents Listing and Operations
When visiting a folder (as opposed to a page within a folder) and logged in with editing privileges, the first item in the document-actions tab bar will be a Contents tab. (Folders are distinguished from other content types by a folderish icon that appears in navigation views, if you're logged in with editing privileges.) Visit the Contents tab to adjust the folder's contents. The Contents tab consists of folder listing which includes an entry for each item in the folder.
When the number of items in the folder is large enough to be more than a screenful (more than 20 or so), the listing is divided into batches, with next/previous and index links in the listing frame to get to subsequent and previous items in the batch. There is also a Show all items link at the bottom of the listing frame, to inhibit batching and show all items - useful for reordering across batches.
- Item titles in red signify items that are in an unpublished state.
- Each entry starts with a selection box, so you can apply the operations at the bottom of the listing to bunches of items at once
- Each entry ends with four dots in a square: '::', the item's drag-handle. This is for reordering the objects.
- To reorder the items in the folder: the listing for each item includes four dots in a square: '::', which is the item's drag-handle. To move the time, use the mouse to "grab" the item's drag-handle and drag that entry to the desired position. See Reordering Nuances below for some important details.
- Each item in the listing starts with a selection box, and the bottom of the listing has operations, most of which apply to the selected items:
- Copy includes the selected items in a cut buffer, for subsequent inclusion in the current or other folders using the Paste operation.
- Cut is just like Copy, except that the original items will be deleted if/when the cut item is pasted.
- Rename brings you to a dialog where you can change the title and short name (the last part of the URL/link) of the selected objects. The short names are restricted to characters valid in URLs.
- Paste appears when there is something in the Copy/Cut buffer, and will include whatever items that you last copied or cut in the current folder. (I believe that Paste doesn't apply specifically to currently selected items - the pasted items are added at the bottom of the listing.) Be aware that some content types do not cooperate with cut and paste, but most do.
- Change State enables you to change the publication state of batches of items in the folder at the same time. See Page Drafts and Versions for info about publication state.
Reordering Nuances
- The drag-and-drop reordering mechanism is occasionally sometimes finicky. To verify that it worked after moving something, click the Contents tab to refresh the view of the folder. Often it will work after such a refresh, if it didn't work before - and i have not noticed the problem since the most recent rebuild.
- When folders have more than 20 items, the presentation is batched into collections of 20. Previous/next and index links are included in the listing from for moving between batches, but the batching can be a serious obstacle for drag-and-drop reordering. If you need to move items across batches, use the Show all items link at the bottom of the listing frame to inhibit batching and enable reordering across the entire collection.
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