{"id":1190,"date":"2025-10-05T19:43:18","date_gmt":"2025-10-05T17:43:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/darrigan.net\/blog\/?p=1190"},"modified":"2025-10-06T21:58:22","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T19:58:22","slug":"manage-site-pages-in-collectiveaccess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/darrigan.net\/blog\/manage-site-pages-in-collectiveaccess\/","title":{"rendered":"Manage \u00ab\u00a0site pages\u00a0\u00bb in CollectiveAccess"},"content":{"rendered":"

In CollectiveAccess<\/a> (CA) code, Providence<\/em> can manage \u00ab\u00a0site pages\u00a0\u00bb in the Pawtucket2<\/em> part but are not well known by users. This is a concrete example of how to use them and (optional) customize the top menu bar with a drop-down list.<\/p>\n

This tutorial is tested for CollectiveAccess<\/a> 2.0.9 but may work with earlier and later versions.<\/p>\n

Suppose you want to add some site pages such as \u00ab\u00a0Contribute\u00a0\u00bb, \u00ab\u00a0Terms of use\u00a0\u00bb, \u00ab\u00a0Contact\u00a0\u00bb, \u00ab\u00a0About\u00a0\u00bb, etc., in the public site (Pawtucket2<\/em>). You can manage these pages apart from content relating to the collection base itself. In Providence<\/em>, it’s possible to manage \u00ab\u00a0site pages\u00a0\u00bb that allow you to edit the content of these pages directly in Providence<\/em> (instead of editing them \u00ab\u00a0by hand\u00a0\u00bb).<\/p>\n

This functionality is documented in this old user guide<\/a> (actual user guide<\/a> of CA is not yet completed).<\/p>\n

Template files<\/h2>\n

\u00ab\u00a0Template files\u00a0\u00bb (.tmpl) are already present in default install in the Pawtucket2<\/em> directory \/themes\/<your_theme>\/templates<\/span> and you don’t have to create one, excepting if you want a custom template.<\/p>\n

The existing template files are: about.tmpl<\/span> and staffpage.tmpl<\/span>.<\/p>\n

Remark: about.tmpl<\/span> is not<\/strong> to be confused with the \u00ab\u00a0About\u00a0\u00bb default page… which is edited by hand in \/themes\/<your_theme>\/views\/About\/Index.php<\/span>. To avoid confusion, I suggest to rename the file about.tmpl<\/span> by simple_page.tmpl<\/span> (for example). Every time you change or add a template file, you’ll need to relaunch the caUtils<\/span> script to update templates (see after).<\/p>\n

The about.tmpl<\/span> template is:<\/p>\n

<div class=\"row\">\r\n\t<div class=\"col-sm-12\">\r\n\t\t<H1>{{{title}}}<\/H1>\r\n\t\t<h2>{{{subtitle}}}<\/h2>\r\n\t\t{{{bodytext}}}\r\n\t\t<div><em>Viewed {{{page_view_count}}} times <\/em><\/div>\r\n\t<\/div>\r\n<\/div><\/pre>\n
It defines 3 fields in this site page: title<\/span> (of the page), subtitle<\/span> (if needed) and the bodytext<\/span> of the page, that can accept \u00ab\u00a0rich text\u00a0\u00bb format.<\/p>\n
The field page_view_count<\/span> will be replaced automatically by Pawtucket2<\/em>, but you can remove this line if don’t want to display counting if visitors.<\/p>\n
First thing to do is executing the caUtils<\/span> script to scan existing templates:<\/p>\n
    \n
  • Open a terminal windows and go to the Pawtucket2<\/strong><\/em> directory \/support\/bin<\/span><\/li>\n
  • Execute:
    \nphp -f caUtils scan-site-page-templates<\/span>
    \nor:
    \nsudo .\/caUtils scan-site-page-templates<\/span><\/li>\n
  • This will give you:<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
    CollectiveAccess 2.0 (204\/GIT) Utilities
    \n<\/span>(c) 2013-2019 Whirl-i-Gig
    \n<\/span>Scanning templates for tags
    \n<\/span>Added 2 templates; updated 0 templates<\/span><\/p>\n
    This command parses the Pawtucket2<\/em> templates<\/span> directory and add them in the database.<\/p>\n
    Create \u00ab\u00a0site pages\u00a0\u00bb<\/h2>\n
    At this point, you can go to Providence<\/em><\/strong> MANAGE > Content Management interface:<\/p>\n
    \"\"<\/p>\n
    Choose the desired template page (here simple_page<\/span>) and click \u00ab\u00a0+\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
    \"\"<\/p>\n
    Here you can name the site page, like \u00ab\u00a0Terms of Use\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
    In the \u00ab\u00a0URL path\u00a0\u00bb field, why I choose something like \u00ab\u00a0\/About\/terms-of-use\u00a0\u00bb? Because I would like a menu \u00ab\u00a0About\u00a0\u00bb with drop-down list toward site pages, like for the \u00ab\u00a0Browse\u00a0\u00bb menu.
    \nSo you can create other pages like \u00ab\u00a0Contribute\u00a0\u00bb, \u00ab\u00a0About the collection\u00a0\u00bb (where you can move the content of the actual \u00ab\u00a0About\u00a0\u00bb page). And so on. Do not forget to set the Access<\/em> to \u00ab\u00a0accessible to public\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
    The tutorial could end here if you just want to create site pages. But what I would like is for all of these pages to be grouped into an \u00ab\u00a0About\u00a0\u00bb drop-down menu in the top navigation bar.<\/p>\n
    Make a drop-down menu<\/h2>\n
    In Pawtucket2<\/em>, go to directory \/themes\/<your_theme>\/views\/pageFormat<\/span> and create a new file named aboutMenu.php<\/span> containing this:<\/p>\n
    <li class=\"dropdown active\" style=\"position:relative;\">\r\n   <a href=\"#\" class=\"dropdown-toggle mainhead top\" data-toggle=\"dropdown\">About<\/a>\r\n   <ul class=\"dropdown-menu\">\r\n      <li><a href=\"https:\/\/complete-url-to-your.site\/index.php\/About\/Index\">About<\/a><\/li>\r\n      <li><a href=\"https:\/\/complete-url-to-your.site\/index.php\/About\/terms-of-use\">Terms of Use<\/a><\/li>\r\n      <li><a href=\"https:\/\/complete-url-to-your.site\/index.php\/About\/contribute\">Contribute<\/a><\/li>\r\n      <li><a href=\"https:\/\/complete-url-to-your.site\/index.php\/About\/contact\">Contact<\/a><\/li>\r\n   <\/ul>\t\r\n<\/li>\r\n<\/span><\/pre>\n
    Each <li>…<\/li><\/span> line will add a new list item in the drop-down menu, so you can give a custom link pointing to where-you-want with the title you want, in the order you want. In this example, the \u00ab\u00a0About\u00a0\u00bb link points to the default \u00ab\u00a0About\u00a0\u00bb page; other links point to \u00ab\u00a0site pages\u00a0\u00bb created with the Content Management interface. Adapt this part as you like.<\/p>\n
    In the same directory \/themes\/<your_theme>\/views\/pageFormat<\/span> , edit the pageHeader.php<\/span> file. You have to insert the call of aboutMenu.php<\/span> somewhere to make it appear in the navigation bar.
    \nSearch the following part and add the line #3:<\/p>\n
    <ul class=\"nav navbar-nav navbar-right menuItems\" role=\"list\" aria-label=\"<?= _t(\"Primary Navigation\"); ?>\">\r\n   <li <?= ($this->request->getController() == \"About\") ? 'class=\"active\"' : ''; ?>><?= caNavLink($this->request, _t(\"About\"), \"\", \"\", \"About\", \"Index\"); ?><\/li>\r\n   <?= $this->render(\"pageFormat\/aboutMenu.php\"); ?>\r\n   <?= $this->render(\"pageFormat\/browseMenu.php\"); ?> \r\n   <li <?= (($this->request->getController() == \"Search\") && ($this->request->getAction() == \"advanced\")) ? 'class=\"active\"' : ''; ?>><?= caNavLink($this->request, _t(\"Advanced Search\"), \"\", \"\", \"Search\", \"advanced\/objects\"); ?><\/li>\r\n   <li <?= ($this->request->getController() == \"Gallery\") ? 'class=\"active\"' : ''; ?>><?= caNavLink($this->request, _t(\"Gallery\"), \"\", \"\", \"Gallery\", \"Index\"); ?><\/li>\r\n   <li <?= ($this->request->getController() == \"Collections\") ? 'class=\"active\"' : ''; ?>><?= caNavLink($this->request, _t(\"Collections\"), \"\", \"\", \"Collections\", \"index\"); ?><\/li> \r\n   <li <?= ($this->request->getController() == \"Contact\") ? 'class=\"active\"' : ''; ?>><?= caNavLink($this->request, _t(\"Contact\"), \"\", \"\", \"Contact\", \"Form\"); ?><\/li>\r\n<\/ul><\/span><\/span><\/pre>\n
    If you decide to remove \u00ab\u00a0Contact\u00a0\u00bb and \u00ab\u00a0About\u00a0\u00bb default pages because you created new ones into \u00ab\u00a0site pages\u00a0\u00bb, you can remove the lines #2 and #8. You can also move the aboutMenu.php<\/span> after the Collections<\/span> button.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
    In CollectiveAccess (CA) code, Providence can manage \u00ab\u00a0site pages\u00a0\u00bb in the Pawtucket2 part but are not well known by users. This is a concrete example of how to use them and (optional) customize the top menu bar with a drop-down list.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[39],"tags":[121,122,46],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/darrigan.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1190"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/darrigan.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/darrigan.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darrigan.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darrigan.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1190"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/darrigan.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1214,"href":"https:\/\/darrigan.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1190\/revisions\/1214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/darrigan.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darrigan.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darrigan.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}