How to Publish a Web Page

Conversant is a Content Management System. As such, it provides methods for managing your content, and for publishing it. The basic version of Conversant includes tools for publishing content (messages, mainly) to web pages.

All published content is Conversant is directly linked to the original message that it came from, which makes it very easy to update your web site: just edit the original message, the published pages are automatically updated.

All text-based content in Conversant starts out as a Discussion Group message. The goal of this document is to explain the steps needed to publish a message to a more traditional 'named' web page (rather than a numbered discussion group message).

Creating the Page

In the following steps, we're going to create a page named "practice.html". The suffix ".html" is optional, but makes many webmasters more comfortable.

1. Create a new message in the discussion group on your site, and submit it. The content of the message does not matter, it can contain any text you want.
2. After submitting the new message, you'll see the rendered version. At the bottom of the message is a small form that says Bind to URL, and includes a text field and a button labelled Bind. Type "practice.html" into the text field, and then click on Bind.
3. A new page is displayed, reporting that the Binding was successful.
4. You're done!

Editing Pages in the Structure Editor

You can change the look of this bound page by editing its properties in the structure editor, which is a page in the Admin section. You can change the template, stylesheets, navbars, page title, and many other attributes of this "Bound Page" (called that because it's a message that has been bound to a URL).

Here are the steps for getting to the structure editor.

1. Go to the /admin/ area of your site (of your zone, actually).
2. Click on Conversations in the left hand column
3. Select the conversation you're working in, and click on Go (or just click on its name, to the right).
4. Click on Files & Folders in the left hand column
5. The box all the way to the right lists the full structure of your site. Click on the link named "practice.html".
6. The page-editing form lists all of the editable properties of your page, including:
   • path
   • title
   • template
   • stylesheet
   • javascript
   • magic navbars
   • message number (to change the message that's bound to this page)

Creating a Page in a Subdirectory

Creating a page in a subdirectory requires the same steps as above. If the directory you specify doesn't alredy exist, you'll be asked if you want to create it (if not, you'll have to go back and change the path).

Editing a Bound Page

Anytime you edit a message (in the discussion group) which has been bound to a URL (as described above), the bound message will be edited also.

When viewing the url (like /practice.html), site administrators will see an Edit button at the bottom of the page. Clicking on that button will immediately open the form for editing the original message. Note that since a message can be bound to more than one URL, editing the original message will update all of the bound URL's for that message.

Congratulations! Now you know how to publish, manage, and edit a web site with Conversant, and you've begun to see the benefits of using a dynamic site and a content management system.