Everything authors do happens at /cms. It is a separate surface from the site it publishes, with
its own accounts — Cendia ships its own internal identity for the authoring surface only, kept
separate from a front-end site's users and never blended with them.
Draft and published are different things
Saving a draft and publishing are separate actions, and they always have been separate ideas.
Validation reflects that. A field marked required stops a page being published; it does not stop a draft being saved. An author part-way through writing is in a normal state, and a system that refuses to save it teaches people to draft somewhere else and paste at the end.
Status is what was committed
A status shown on a live list is the state of what has been saved, not what is currently typed into a form. Change a field and the list does not move until you save.
The exception is a control that is explicitly a one-click action — a "now" button, or Start on a job. Those mean what they say immediately.
Releases
A release is a named set of changes that go live together. It is a sparse overlay on what is published: every page you touch in a release is in it, everything you do not is read straight from the live site.
That mechanic is what gives you whole-site preview, links that stay correct between pages in the same release, and a rollback that puts back exactly what was there before.
The page tree is the URL structure
Moving a page moves its URL. There is no separate routing table to keep in step, which is the point — but it does mean a move is a real change to the site's addresses, and the CMS will offer to leave a redirect behind.
Redirects default to 301 (permanent). That is deliberate. A moved page has moved.
Folders organise; they do not render
A folder shapes the address of the things under it. /archive/2019-notes needs archive to exist,
but /archive itself is not a page and returns 404 if you visit it.
This is by design, not an unfinished feature. If you want /archive to show something, it needs to
be a page type that renders.
Discussions
Every page, block and media item has a discussion of its own. Under the header of an open item, on the right, is a discuss link; once somebody has said something it becomes a discussion (n) button showing how many threads there are. Either opens a sidebar beside the editor, and pressing it again (or the sidebar's ×) closes it. The sidebar stays open as you move from item to item and shows the discussion for whatever is on screen.
- A message you just type starts a new thread. To answer one, point at it and choose reply; the box says who you are replying to until you send or cancel.
- Anybody who can open an item can read and join its discussion, including people who cannot edit it.
- Files and pictures can be attached with the paperclip and picture buttons: PDF, Word, text, CSV and common image types, up to 10 MB each. They are kept apart from the media library.
- You can remove your own messages; an administrator can remove anybody's.
- New messages from other people appear within a few seconds while the sidebar is open.
A discussion belongs to the item, not to a language or a version, so it is still there after the draft it was about has been published. To find a conversation again later, use Reports › Discussions: search for a word, narrow by person, kind of item or date, and open the item with its discussion showing.
Your account
Your name in the top bar opens a menu of three pages that are about you. Everybody who can sign in has them, whatever their role.
- Profile. Your first and last name, phone and cell phone, and your photo. Choose a picture, drag it and zoom until your face is inside the circle, and save. The photo is shown beside your messages in discussions; people who have not added one keep the plain icon. Only colleagues who are signed in can see it.
- Change Password. For when you want a new password and do not know the one you have, because your browser has been filling it in. Choose Get a one-time code and copy the code. It is shown once. Your old password stops working at that moment, on every device. Sign out, sign in with your email address and the code, and you are asked to choose a new password before you get any further. If the code is not accepted, contact your administrator. No email is involved.
- Settings. The language the editor opens in when you sign in. Left on the site default, it opens in the installation's default language. You can still switch language while you work.
Media
Media is uploaded once and referenced. A picture used on six pages is one file, and replacing it replaces it everywhere.
That also means deleting media can leave a page pointing at something that has gone. Templates are written to cope with that, but the page will be missing an image until somebody picks a new one.