What is a "link"? A link - for the purposes of this wizard - can be the address of another website, a link to a document stored on your Prolearn site, or a link to video or some other multimedia resource on your site or on another site (e.g. YouTube).
I've just created a new category for which I don't need any subcategories. The wizard won't let me save any links to this category because it doesn't have a subcategory. What can I do? Sorry, but you must have at least one subcategory for each category. Just name the subcategory something like 'General' and use it. If you do not want the subcategory name to be listed in the output, name the subcategory 'No label'.
What is a "link type"? The links manager can handle three different "collections" of links: links to documents stored on the server (e.g. factsheets), links to videos stored anywhere, and links to other websites. With this page type, all links in the database (provided they have been activated for publication) are presented when the basic links page is used.
However, there will be instances where only a subset of the links are wanted to be displayed. For example, the links database might contain links to other internet sites and links to documents (e.g. factsheets) stored on the site, and links to YouTube-hosted videos. In this situation, you would set up a page type called "Links" and associate it with the categories you are using for this set of resources. You'd create a new category (or categories) to organise your documents and assign these to a page type called "Documents" (or whatever). You'd do the same for the video links.
These subsets of links within the database can then be easily identified and presented on different pages or sections of your website.
How do I prepare an entry for a YouTube video?
Click "Enter new video items"
Enter a title for the video(s)
Enter a description (if appropriate)
If you want to show a single clip or a set of clips you've found, enter the YouTube ID and a title of each clip into the "Custom YouTube playlist box. You must separate the ID and the title by an asterisk (*) and each set of ID*title must be separated by a semi colon. (e.g. hte82dsn*my title for the first one;8_hfadmls*my title for the second one;)
If you have already created a playlist (e.g. using from within your YouTube account), enter the playlist ID into the YouTube playlist ID.
Select category/subcategories and audiences as normal.
What are the fields in the editor? There are several fields in the editor - some of them are used for all three types of links, while others are specific to one or two link types.
Field Meaning Typical link type
Title
The contents of this field are displayed if the link type is a document or video link. This is a required field for all link types
All link types
Author(s)
The author(s) of the document or video being link to.
Document, video
Affiliation
Principally used to indicate the name of the company/organisation to which the author(s) belong.
Document
Source
The name of the journal or magazine or extension bulletin series the linked document comes from or is part of.
Document
Date
The date of publication of the document or video (if an actual day/month/year value exists or is appropriate).
Documents
Month/year
These dropdown options are for when it is more appropriate to record just the month and year (or just year) of a document's publication. Do not use these fields AND the date field (above). The date field information takes precedence over the month/year information in what is presented to the user
Documents
Link type
This field only appears when an item is being edited. The value present in this field is a "toggle switch"; click it to cycle through the link types should you wish to change the current item's link type
All link types
Category & subcategory
These fields are required by all link types and are used to group the links for easy presentation.
All link types
Class/User group(s)
Required by all link types, you must select at least one class/user group.
All link types
Publish
By default, this is set to "True". It is useful if you wish to "suspend" the client-side appearance of an item.
All link types.
How do I get a set of items to list in a particular order if either their dates are the same or they don't have dates at all?
Click on 'Order item listing within categories' from the main menu
Click on the category within which you wish to manage the listing order. The items within that category will appear along with a list order box.
Enter the order sequence you require and click 'Submit'.
What are the "output pages" and the "category/output page combos"? These menu items are used to set up different output pages for different categories created within the links manager.
You should ignore this menu item - its use depends on the WebMaster "hardcoding" elements of the targetted output page.
How do I delete a link item?
Find the link by clicking 'Edit an existing item' and then selecting the category within which the link is stored.
From the list of items that will appear, hover over the item you want to delete.
Click on the delete icon
The confirm icon
If the deletion is successful, the system will post a confirmation message at the top of the list.
At about the same time, the item will disappear from the list.
How do I select a file that will be available for downloading from a link item? If you are entering a general or document link, you have the opportunity to create a preformatted link to a document (i.e. a pdf file etc) residing on your site's computer or on another site's computer.
To create a link to a file on your site's computer - regardless of whether you are creating a new link item or editing an existing one, please follow these steps:
Click on the "reveal folders" icon
This will result in a list of files in the "Archives" folder being displayed in the (green) right hand panel of the page.
Each file will be associated with a radio button. Tick the button of the file you want associated with the link item you are working with.
Click on the [Transfer] link to copy the names of the file's name into your form.
