Ektron Developer's Guide: Building an Ektron Powered Website

Chapter 5. Understanding Content Management Fundamentals

• How do you log into the CMS and use the Workarea?

• How do you work with content in the Ektron Framework?

• How can you organize content and assets using folders and the library?

• How do you manage permission structures and create approval chains?

Learning a new framework can be very confusing. You need to figure out what is most central to the framework and what the overall stack looks like. This type of 30,000-ft. view can be difficult, which is why the book addresses these fundamentals.

In the Ektron Framework, the most important concept to grasp is that of content. Almost everything in the system is designed either as an extension of content, such as Calendar Events and PageBuilder pages, or as an organizational tool for content, such as collections and taxonomy. This densely knotted structure is, in many ways, a unique aspect of the Ektron Framework. In most content management systems and portals there is a concept of content, but content is not the basis for other things in those systems.

This chapter starts with the Workarea, which is a browser-based application installed into your site. The Workarea is where the vast majority of management of your site happens. This chapter covers how to log in to the system, and takes you on a tour to get a feel for navigation in the Workarea.

The next section covers how to create, work with, and display content. The interaction with content covered here will be expounded upon in later chapters ...