Silva Authoring Workspace

This guide gives details:

• about the screens available to authors
• on versioned and dynamic content
• about non versioned content - assets

Fig.1  Authoring workspace.

Author workspace

The Author workspace has various screens that allows you to edit items such as documents or images, change its metadata, and submit or approve/publish it. The type of content determines which screens are available. For instance images don't have to be approved or published, so they don't have a Publish screen.

Each screen shows a view of an item. The Properties Screen shows the metadata of say the document as opposed to the metadata of a folder.

• Editor screen: all editing operations occur here, such as text manipulation, image insertion, or file upload.
• Preview screen: in this screen a preview is displayed. If the content is versioned, the latest version of the object is shown. If the content is a File, a link is provided (for testing), while an External Source displays the rendered dynamic content. For documentation see the container PreviewScreen.
• Properties screen: properties of the current item can be adjusted, such as the subject and intended audience. For documentation see the Properties Screen
  
• Access screen: user rights and access restrictions for the current object can be managed (only accessible for Chief Editors). For documentation see the  Access Screen.
• Publish screen:  request approval for or publish the content object.

Types of Content 

There are three types of Silva content:

• versioned content
• dynamic content
• assets (images, files, and external data).
  

Versioned content

• Document: the basic unit of information in Silva, a document can – much like word processor documents – contain text, lists, tables, headers, subheads, images, etc. Documents can have two (accessible) versions, one online for the public, and another in preparation (editable or approved).
  • index document: these special documents are automatically created in every Publication and Folder, however they can also be manually created and deleted. They function as the standard index.html of a normal web server, where a browser request for http://.../silva/foldername displays the index. Otherwise they behave as normal documents. Frequently index documents contain some introduction or summary about the folder contents. They often contain a Table of Contents (see Editor screen) element. It is also possible to add an Automatic Table of Contents as the index.
• Ghost: these are special documents which function as a placeholder for a document in another location (like an alias, symbolic link, shortcut, etc.). Unlike a hyperlink, which takes the Visitor to another location, a ghost keeps the Visitor in the current publication, and presents the content of the ghosted item. A ghost inherits properties from its location (e.g. layout and stylesheets).
• Link: this item contains a hyperlink (URL) to any location on the web (including the Silva site itself). When a visitor looks at a link it automatically redirects the browser to the indicated site. The link will also appear in table of contents and other navigation, just like a normal document would.
• Custom object: developers can create new content types which can be plugged into Silva. They can be turned on and off per publication (same as Silva core objects).

Dynamic content

• Indexer: Indexes can be created that function like an index in the back of a book. References must first be marked by placing index codes in text (these codes will also export to print formats). Indexers cascade downwards, indexing all index items in the current and underlying folders and publications (note that it only indexes documents that are published).
• Automatic Table of Contents: An automatic table of contents is a content object that just presents a table of contents, nothing else. The same can be accomplished by adding a document and adding a Table of Contents (TOC) element to it, but this is a quicker way.

Assets

Assets are not versioned, but can be either included in documents or linked to via hyperlinks.

• Image: web graphics (gif, jpg, png) can be uploaded and inserted in Silva documents.
• File: any digital file can be uploaded as Silva content. For instance large files such as pdf docs or mpegs can be placed in a site. File objects have metadata as well.
• Source: sometimes content can be retrieved from other sources, such as another server or a database. If this is enabled by the sysadmin, these assets will appear.