8.1. Editing Site-wide Settings

As with any other folder, you can edit the top-level or "home" folder of your UofL Plone site. your site's home folder has several extra configuration settings In addition to the items you might expect for a regular folder.

Edit You Site's Home Folder

Follow these steps to start editing the home folder:

• First, make sure you're logged-in.
  
• Go to the home page or default index page of your site, and click-on the [contents] tab.
• Looking at the contents listing of your site, click-on the [edit] tab.

You should now see a page full of options. The items you can change include:

• Title
• Right-column sidebar Add-In (content Portlet)
• Enforce HTTPS
• Site Logo (not currently used)
• Site Skin
• Color Scheme
• Portlets
• Global Site Links

In a UofL site, the first few options are the same for every folder. The rest can let you set what items display on your pages site-wide and change the look and feel of your whole site. Lets examine these home folder options in brief detail.

Set the Site's Title

Think of your site's home folder as any regular folder, where you can set the Title that is displayed, except the home folder sets the site-wide navigation and display title. For example, to change the title of a site from "Workshop" to "Plone CMS Workshops at U of L", all you would have to do is change what's typed in the Title field, and scroll to the bottom of the page and hit the Save button.

Select a Template and (optional) color scheme

As we covered in the manual's introduction, you can change the way a Plone CMS site looks by simply applying a different skin. The University of Louisville's Plone implementation has two default themes, one for Left Navigation, and another for Top Navigation. 

Selecting a Theme/Skin
A theme is also known as a skin. If you're school, department, or organization has it's own skin, you can select it from the Site Skin drop-down menu. Your particular instance may have more or fewer skins available to it beyond the default U of L Top Navigation and Left Navigation skins.

 

Selecting a Color Scheme
Some of the U of L skins will allow you to choose what color scheme you want to apply to your skin. You can use the Color Scheme drop-down menu to apply one of these color schemes to your site.

You can have a custom skin or color scheme built for you if you need one.

Managing Portlets

There are a number of portlets available to you. In the context of a default U of L skin, portlets are special chunks of information that display in the right hand column of your site. A portlet may contain news items, special announcements, events, or even a custom piece of text you create. The most common portlets are:

• Latest News
• Calendar
• Upcoming Events
• Content Portlet

 To turn on a portlet, simply click on it in the list of portlets. To rearrange the portlets, click on the item you want to move, and use the movement arrow buttons on the control bar just below the portlets selection box.

Global Site Links

Global Site Links are extra navigational elements that some U of L themes employ. Use these to highlight specific pieces of content that you feel are important. They provide another method to access content beyond the "regular" navigation, but outside of the regular navigation space.

The UofL Top Navigation skin places the  items you specify in Global Site Links at the top-right corner of the screen, just below the search box. The UofL Left Navigation theme places the global site links at the top of the left column, just above the navigation.

To place a  global site link, click on the browse button. This will display a pop-up window. From the list of items displayed in the pop-up browser, find the item you want to have lited, and click on the "insert" link, then close the window. The item you selected will appear in the list of Global Site Links.

Save Your Changes!

Remember to save your changes! Simply click on the save button at them bottom of the edit page to commit all the custom changes to your site.

Next: Theme Customizations in CSS Previous: U of L Site Administration