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This guide will help you get started editing and maintaining your AAMU webpages using our web content management system, SiteStudio (also known as LCMS). Before you start, you will need an AAMU faculty/staff email address, and you'll need to have that email ID authorized to log into SiteStudio. Both of these can be handled by Wallace Rutledge at extension 8278.
Note that at this time we are not giving students access to edit pages in SiteStudio.
Before you attempt to do anything in SiteStudio, you will need to ensure that you have updated versions of both Flash and Java installed. To check to see if you have Java, go to www.java.com and click on the big blue button that says Download Java; if you already have Java it will tell you, if not it will download it. To make sure you have Flash, go to www.adobe.com and click Get Flash Player. These are both free downloads.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Logging In
Log into SiteStudio by going to http://sitestudio.aamu.edu/lcms/ and entering your email user ID and password. Your email user ID will be FIRSTNAME.LASTNAME in ALL CAPS, and your password will be exactly the same as for your university email. Also, select SiteStudio as your "entry point". (See Figure 1 below).
Figure 1: SiteStudio log-in.
IMPORTANT NOTE: You may get a warning/error dialog box that pops up before you log in stating that your browser does not meet the minimum requirements. Don't worry about that, it's just a bug in SiteStudio. The latest versions of Internet Explorer and FireFox should work fine.
Chapter 2: Navigating to Your Content
Once you log in successfully, you should see a list of WorkGroups you are a member of. (Most users will only have access to one WorkGroup). Your WorkGroup should be the name of your department followed by WG. (See Figure 2 below).
Figure 2: Your WorkGroups. Note: your list might only include a single WorkGroup.
Click on your WorkGroup link. From the WorkGroup screen, you will see the WebView belonging to your WorkGroup; its name will be something like Your Department Public ASP WV. The "WV" stands for WebView and is where all your web content is stored (pages, images, etc). Click on the WV link. (See Figure 3 below).
Figure 3: Click on your WebView.
Chapter 3: Editing Your Existing Pages
Within the WebView you will see a list of all folders, pages, and other content you have access to. Beside each page is a list of actions you may perfom on that page. To edit an existing page, click the Edit link. (See Figure 4 below). This will bring up an editor window similar to Microsoft Word, but somewhat simplified. (See Figure 5 below).
Figure 4: Click the Edit link to edit a page.
IMPORTANT NOTE: If you see a dialog box after clicking edit that asks if you want to run this program, be sure to click Ok. The editor will not work if you click no.
Figure 5: Editing a page. Click SAVE to save your changes. Tip: save often, every few minutes, even if you aren't finished working yet!
When you are finished editing, click the SAVE button in the upper left. This will save your changes, but will NOT yet publish them to the actual website. To publish the changes, click the SUBMIT button after you've clicked SAVE (and then click SUBMIT a second time on the second screen that comes up). Please see Figure 6 below.
Figure 6: View mode. Click SUBMIT to publish changes you've made once you've saved the page. Changes won't show up on the "real" website until the edited page has been submitted/published!
Note that if you want to include new images and/or documents in your pages, you will need to upload them and publish them FIRST before you can put them on a webpage. See chapter four, and in particular be sure to read the "ultra important note" at the end of chapter four. For images, once the image is uploaded AND PUBLISHED, you may add it by editing the page and clicking the yellow landscape-looking button immediately to the right of the binoculars button on the page editor. To add a link to a PDF file or other document, once it is uploaded AND PUBLISHED, edit the page where the link to it will be located and click the chain-link button (immediately to the right of the weird dice-looking button) and create the link to it.
Chapter 4: Uploading Images and Documents
To upload an image or document, navigate to the WebView screen (see chapters 1 and 2 above). In the WebView, you will see folders labeled "docs" (or "documents") and "images". Click on the appropriate folder to open it. (See Figure 7).
Figure 7: From the WebView, click on docs or images.
Within the appropriate folder, click on Import from the Folder Actions list in the upper right. (See Figure 8). This will bring up a file upload screen. IMPORTANT: If you see a window that asks if you want to run this program, click Ok. The file upload will not work if you click no. On this screen click the Add Files button; this will bring up a dialog box that will let you select files on your computer to be uploaded. See Figure 9 below.
Figure 8: Click "Import" in the upper right. This will bring up the file upload screen.
Figure 9: Upload files from your computer to SiteStudio. Tip: you can upload multiple files at once with control-click or shift-click, but don't forget to publish EACH file you upload!
After you select the file(s) to be uploaded, click Ok in the dialog window, then click the Next button in the lower right of the file upload screen, and then click Finish on the next screen.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Images and documents, once uploaded, must be published before they can be used on a webpage. Click the Submit or Publish link beside the newly uploaded image or document to publish it. (See Figure 10 below). The correct order is, upload the image or document; publish it; edit the page on which the image or document will appear and add the published image or document; then publish that page. If you do these steps out of order the page may not work correctly.
Figure 10: Submit or Publish the image or document once uploaded.
IMPORTANT NOTE: At this time, Microsoft Office documents (e.g. Word docs, Excel spreadsheets, etc) do not work reliably with SiteStudio. It is recommended that all such documents be converted to PDF or some other web-friendly format before uploading.
ULTRA IMPORTANT NOTE: Remember, the correct order is, upload the image or document; publish it; edit the page on which the image or document will appear; add the published image or document to the page; then publish that page. If you do these steps out of order the page may not work correctly. This is so important it is repeated twice in these instructions.
Chapter 5: Creating New Pages
To create a completely new page, first go to your WebView. (See chapters 1 and 2 if necessary to review how to do this). From your WebView, click New Document in the upper right. (See Figure 11).
Figure 11: Click "New Document" in your WebView to create a new webpage.
You will see a screen asking you for a page name and other information (Figure 11). Your page name is the filename of the page: it should be in all lowercase, with NO spaces or special characters (except that underscores are allowed). If you set the page name to index or default (exactly like that, noting again that it must be lowercase), then this page will be the homepage for this workgroup. Otherwise the name should be something short and descriptive (e.g. links), one word if possible, and using underscores instead of spaces if the page name must be more than one word (e.g. lab_hours).
Figure 12: Enter a page name, lowercase and NO SPACES or other special characters. Then click NEXT.
The page name is the only info you need to enter into this screen. Click Next once you have done so. The next screen (Figure 13) will ask you to choose a layout. Your WorkGroup should already have several layouts available: two generic AAMU layouts (basic or two-column), and at least one department-specific layout (usually named something like your_department_basic_il). Choose your department-specific basic layout and then click Finish and Edit.
Figure 13: Choose your department-specific layout and click the "Finish & Edit" button.
You may then edit the page as normal (see chapter 3).
Chapter 6: The Navigation Tree
The "Navigation Tree" is the list of links on the left side of every page. There is a special built-in tool in SiteStudio to make changes to these links.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Not all users have access to edit the navigation tree. If you do not, your WorkGroup Manager will have to handle this step.
First, go up to your WORKGROUP screen. This is the screen we passed through on the way to the WebView in chapter 2. Beside the link to your WebView is a link that says Navigation. Click this. (see Figure 14 below). If you don't see it, you probably don't have access to change the navigation tree.
Figure 14: Click "Navigation" from the WorkGroup screen.
The navigation tree tool is fairly self-explanatory (Figure 15). Note the three buttons in the lower left. "Add" will add a link below the currently selected link. "Remove" deletes the currently selected link. "Reorder" brings up a screen that lets you change the order of link by dragging and dropping.
After you finish adding or changing a link, click "Save" in the lower right. When you are done editing the navigation tree altogether, click "Done".
Figure 15: The Navigation Tree editing tool.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Please, please, please do not leave the navigation tree tool open when you leave your desk (e.g. overnight). Only one person can have the navigation tree tool open at a time, so if you have it open it will lock out other users--and they WILL be able to see who is locking them out. Please click "Done" once you are done editing the navigation.
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