Content organization

Overview

Silva is designed for large scale web sites and provides an easy way to organize content. The contents of a Silva website are organized in the contents screen. This is the first screen you see when you log into the Silva management area. (Fig. 1.)

Fig. 1 Content is organized in the contents screen

The basic Silva building blocks are containers which are very similar to folders on your computer. In Silva these are called Publications and Folders. The major differences between the two are: Folders are transparent, meaning you can see through them to their contents, while Publications are opaque. Think of Folders as plastic envelopes, and Publications as hard cover binders.

	Folder: the presentation of the information within a publication is structured with folders. They determine the visual hierarchy that a Visitor sees. Folders on the top level define sections of a publication, sub-folders define chapters, etc.
	Publication: these containers function as the major organizing blocks of a Silva site. They have a threshold of view, showing only the contents of the current publication. This keeps the overview screens in large sites manageable. Publications have configuration settings that determine which core and pluggable objects will be available. For complex publications, sub-publications can be nested.

Structuring a site

Structuring a site involves dividing the content into units, probably in a hierarchy. Depending on the size of the site, these units might be folders or sub-publications. A Folder is comparable to a chapter in a book, while a sub-publication would function as a section.

A Silva Publication can hold a number of Folders and each Folder can contain more Publications, Folders, and Documents.

For example the works of Shakespeare could be placed in a Publication. Another Publication could hold the works of Tolstoy and another the works of Voltaire etc. (Fig. 2.)

Fig. 2. Silva Publications holding folders and documents

Folders within the Shakespeare publication could hold his plays, his sonnets and his poems. Each play could be in its own Folder inside the Play Folder. (Fig. 3.) Perhaps a document within the poem folder could hold one of Shakespeare’s poems, etc.

Fig. 3. Silva folders containing documents

Managing a Table of Contents

The order of Publications and Folders are organized in the contents screen. This determines the structure of the Table of Contents that can be inserted in pages. The index document is always listed first and cannot be moved (the index doesn’t show up in the Table of Contents as it is assumed to contain the TOC). The order of items can be changed by using the shift up/down arrows located under the shift column. (Fig. 1.)

The order of items can also be changed by using the move button. One or more items can be selected and moved by choosing a position in the select list and clicking the move button (alt-m). They will then be moved to the chosen position. (Fig. 1.)

At the bottom of the listing on the contents screen separated by a horizontal line come Assets. An Asset is content that does not appear in the Table of Contents, such as images and files. If there are no Assets in the contents screen, this section does not appear.

Hiding a Document from the Table of Contents

To hide a document from the Table of Contents, click on the document’s properties tab, scroll down and check the “hide from tables of content” box.