Collage Tips and Tricks

Copy/Paste Text from Word Documents

2007-07-23T21:00:30Z

Never copy text directly from a Word Document and then paste it into a Serena Collage page. There are hidden tags embedded in Word that conflict with the Serena style sheets and cause web pages to load as blank. You can save your Word document as plain text under the File menu (choose "Save As..." and make sure you change the format to Text Only). This will strip out your formatting, and give you a clean document whose content you can copy and then paste into Serena. On a PC: It may be even easier to use Notepad (make sure not to use Wordpad). Open the Notepad application on your PC and paste the text from Word into your Notepad document. This will strip out all formatting and give you a clean document for copying/pasting. On a Mac: You can use the TextEdit application (or even SimpleText), but as with Word, make sure you "Save As..." a plain text document. First, go to the Format menu and choose the "Make Plain Text" command. Then go to File>>Save As... and change the format to Text Only (the file must have the suffix .txt). After you've pasted your text from Notepad (or TextEdit) into Serena Collage, you should have "clean" HTML. If for some reason you still see some formatting in the text, select that portion of the text and then click the "Clear Formatting" link at the bottom right-hand corner of your Serena Collage Edit window. This will ensure that your Serena page does not have any stray HTML tags.

Making changes to Home Page

2007-02-14T15:39:03Z

If you're authorized and need to apply changes to the home page there are additional steps required to have your changes pushed on the next Deploy that are dependant on your home page change: If you are making changes to anything that touches the Home Page you will need to manipulate the Intruder Bank - Home.site structure and approve the Intruder Bank - Home.site changes, the next step you will need to take is on the home page here you need to apply a non intrusive alteration the page, save and approve your changes. Applying changes to the home page does cause a majority of all files to be redeployed that takes about 40 minutes for deployment.

colorScheme for stand-alone sites

2007-02-02T15:18:57Z

Many sections of the college web site are outside of the primary site file "Main.site" -- which means that the pages within those stand-alone sites don't automatically adopt the correct color scheme (they have the default green color). The color scheme for pages that are part of the Main.site are derived from the section they flow from, so that pages in "Academics" have an overall light blue color for the breadcrumbs bar, and pages in "Admissions" have an overall fuschia color for the breadcrumbs bar. To fix this for stand-alone sites the page at the top of the new site file (for example, the Webmaster.site) must have its colorScheme property changed. In addition, the page must be a Primary Page (found under "Metadata"). Here are the steps:

Switch to Content -> Deploy Folders view
Select "Properties" from the triangular drop-down menu for the file (in this case it's /WebSite/Administrative_offices/webmaster/index.xml )
Check out the file using the button at the top of the properties window
Change the colorScheme at the bottom of the page to the appropriate hexidecimal value (see the list below).

Check the file in, and the pages that are below that index.xml file in the site tree will have the the new color scheme. Available color schemes:

About Columbia: F26531 Admissions: EC008C Academics: c4d2dF Student Life: dbca21 News: 95a9cc Events: 8db881 Giving to Columbia: 9a5107 Administrative Offices: 6a747c

Please note: Only use the appropriate color scheme for your section of the web site.

Protect your PHP

2007-01-22T22:21:48Z

Embedded PHP can be stripped from the source of a file if you edit the file using the graphical mode ("Edit") instead of the source view ("Source"). When you add PHP script to the source view of a page for the first time wrap it in tags like this: Formatting may still get messed up, but your code will remain intact. Code on multiple lines may be re-flowed so that it's all on one line, which means that comments within the PHP should use /* this notation style */ /* of comments */ instead of // this notation style // which will break your PHP // when these four lines are pushed // into one line.

Get rid of old bold or italics - Clear Formatting

2007-01-22T22:20:20Z

Clear Formatting is a link located on the bottom right-hand corner of the editing screen. The Clear Formatting link is especially useful in removing Styles from your body copy.

Page Names

2007-01-22T21:12:11Z

Use alphanumeric characters when naming a page. Avoid punctuation like commas, apostrophes, etc. Punctuation or foreign characters like "?" or "&" will cause the CMS to malfunction. Bad stuff includes characters like � * # & @, etc.

Right column "arrow" bullets

2007-01-22T21:09:06Z

When you add text to the right-hand column you can format it using an unordered list to display a list with arrow bullets. Select the text you want to format, Then click on the List button. Select Unordered from the dropdown list.

Thumbnail images

2007-01-22T21:08:20Z

To see thumbnails of images, you can click on the icon within the image browser window. You may need to scroll to the right to see this icon.

Approving changes

2007-01-22T21:05:48Z

Don't forget to approve your changes - that goes for new pages, edited pages, new graphics, and changes to site structures. Site structures can seem hidden; you'll have to switch to "Deploy" view, then navigate to Website -> Site Files -> site structures, and then approve the changes to your site.

Add your page to the site structure.

2007-01-22T21:04:20Z

Each web page may only be added to the site structure once. When a new page is created, it has not yet been placed within the Site Structure, so no navigation will be displayed -- add each new page to your site structure and don't forget to approve your changes!

Log out!

2007-01-22T21:02:45Z

Logout when you are finished so that the license you are using is freed for other users. We have a limited number of "seats" for Collage, and your seat will be occupied until you log out. There is a link in the upper-right-hand corner of the Collage screen called "Logout" that will do the trick!

Browser Basics

2007-01-19T23:10:01Z

Compatible web browsers Mac users: please use Firefox 1.5 (Firefox 2.0 has problems as of Jan. 2007). Windows users: Firefox 1.5 or Internet Explorer 5.5 or 6 Popup blockers (Internet Explorer, Google Popup Blocker, Yahoo, etc.) need to be disabled in order to use Collage. If Collage is unresponsive even after the ActiveX script has been installed, you may need to update your Java software. To download the most current Java, go to http://www.java.com/en/download/index.jsp.

Testing server

2007-01-19T23:07:01Z

The staging (temporary testing) server is temp.colum.edu. Assets are pushed from the CMS to the staging server every 20-40 minutes. Assets are then pushed from the staging server to the live server every 20-40 minutes. There is also a Collage guest login for sites that have not been "approved" yet -- please contact the CMS administrator for username and password details.

Web Designers mailing list

2007-01-19T23:04:38Z

Visit http://www.colum.edu/web_development/ to find out how to sign up for the Web Designers mailing list. This list will send email updates as changes are made to the CMS or to the Columbia College site