Plone Site Description

Let's have a look at different parts of a Plone website. The following is a screenshot of the ordinary Plone site with explanations of what each area stands for:

1 - Logotype of the company

2 - Site actions

• site map - an overview of the available content on this site;
• accessibility - lets you change the default settings of the the web site;
• contact - contact information form for a visitor to fill in if he wants to contact the site administration;
• site setup - configuration area for Plone and add-on Products.

3 - Search engine

helps visitors to find necessary information on the site.

4 - Navigation Tabs

Number of tabs can be different, it can be changed through Zope Management Interface (to see your site in Zope interface add /manage to the site url). Another way is to use Plone Tabs product.

5 - Personal Bar

• includes five tems in Plone 2.1.x and Plone 2.5.x:
  
• Limited to only two items in Plone 3.0.x:
  

6 - Task Bar

a toolbar for a site member.

The tabs in a Task Bar are almost the same in all Plone versions, but there is properties tab in Plone 2.x, while there is rules tab in Plone 3.0.x.

Plone 2.x

Plone 3.0.x

Task Bar tabs:

• contents - shows listed content items on your site, including items size, modified date, state. With arrows 'up' and 'down' you may change the position of the item in the list. After selecting documents you may copy, cut or delete them.
  
  

• view - allows you view the document;
• edit - edit document's title, shortname, description and content;
• properties - the collection of information that is used to categorize an object, assign effective dates and expiration dates, language, and keywords;
• rules - includes a bunch of triggers and actions for doing things automatically to content objects, and is very easy to extend;
• sharing - share the rights for both entire folders and single items;
• translate into - appears when LinguaPlone is installed into the site. To know more about realization of this product - click here;
• actions - for the current content item:
  
  • cut - cuts an item to make it available for pasting. When you cut an item, the Paste option becomes available;
  • copy - copies an item to make it available for pasting. When you copy an item, the Paste option becomes available;
  • delete - removes an item;
  • rename - change the name of the file and the title of the item.
  
  
• display - different ways of displaying the content - display view;
• add new.../add item - different content types can be added to Plone site;
• state - item's status determines who can see it:
  
  • private - item can only be viewed by its owner and by the site manager;
  • published - items are available to the general user base and anonymous visitors;
  • submit - to make an item published, it has to be reviewed by one of the site's reviewers. You can request that an item be reviewed by submitting it for review.

7, 8 - Left portlets

9, 10 - Right portlets

There were links to portlet management added to both right and left side in Plone 3.0.x right under the existing portlets, which made it easier to manage portlets without need to switch to ZMI:

11 - Content area