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Whereas before you had a program
running on your desktop,
and you were downloading and uploading HTML files,
the content management system, or CMS,
runs on the server and keeps all pages in a database.
This means you don't need a program
installed on your computer.
You can edit web pages anytime, anywhere.
Plus, I think that you'll find editing within the CMS
is a lot easier than in Dreamweaver.
There are some differences you should know about:
Pages created in the CMS are published by default
but when you're editing a page, you can change its status to draft.
Then, when you save the page, you can see exactly how it will look
and make additional edits, if necessary.
Meanwhile, the public still sees your last published version.
[Whizzy-whig], or what you see is what you get
is what we call a class of editors like Dreamweaver and Word
that are supposed to show you how your final web page will look
(but seldom do).
Instead, in the CMS we're using a plain-text filter called Textile
that takes in simple formatting and outputs HTML code.
It's easy to learn and there's a toolbar to help out.
After awhile, you probably won't use the toolbar at all
because it's faster to just type your text with the formatting already in it.
Textile saves you from having to know HTML
but sometimes we do need to use it in a page.
When you encounter HTML, take some time to try to understand what it does
but don't worry about it if you don't. In all cases, just leave it alone.
Similar to HTML tags are Radius tags.
They start with an R and a colon and they do things with the CMS
like looping over child pages,
or inserting content from other pages or other parts of the same page.
They can be used for inserting protected email addresses
or attached images. We'll show you all that later.
So, to review: The content management system is a program
that runs on the server, not on your computer
and that means you don't have to install it
and it's accessible from anywhere in the world that you have an Internet connection.
I think you'll find once you start using it
that it's simpler to use than many desktop HTML programs.
One of the things that the content management system gives us
is the ability to create drafts.
If you're working on a page and you don't want to make those changes visible,
you can save the page as a draft and then you can see exactly how it will look
but the general public still sees it as it was
when you last published it.
Then once you're ready to make your changes live,
you can save it as published and the public will see your changes.
Textile formatting is the way of adding headings
and lists and links and so forth.
It's not a "what you see is what you get" interface
like you might get with Dreamweaver or Microsoft Word.
Instead, it's just a simple system of formatting
that is then converted to HTML.
HTML is, of course, the language that
web browsers understand to build a web page.
You don't need to know all of the formatting.
If you forget, there's a toolbar to help you remember
but again, after awhile you'll probably get to where you don't need to use the toolbar.
As I mentioned, HTML is the language web browsers understand.
We'll use it for more complex situations
where Textile just won't do the job.
When you encounter it, don't feel like you need to learn it
and you don't need to necessarily understand what's going on,
but when you encounter it in your pages, just try to
understand what it's doing and work around it and move on.
You will eventually want to know about Radius tags.
Those are used for manipulating content in the content management system.
They do things like looping over child pages,
inserting content from that page or another page,
protecting email addresses, and inserting or linking to attachments.
You'll learn more about these later.
If you don't gain anything else from this presentation,
just understand that a content management system
keeps our web content organized and under control.