Using CommonSpot to Maintain
Ohio University Web Sites

Table of Contents

• Other Page and Template Management Tools
  • Pending Actions

  • Content Expiration and Redirects

  • Renaming a Page

  • My Tasks

• Other View Modes Tools
  • Inspect Version History

  • Use Version History to Recover

• Other Knowledge Maps Tools
  • Subscription

  • What's New...

  • Page Finder

  • Keywords
    • Finding Subsite Pages by Their Keywords

    • Adding Personal Keywords

    • Finding Pages by Keyword or Text Searching

  • Contacts

  • My Notes

  • See-Also References

Other Page and Template Management Tools

These discussions of various tools leave many of the details as an "exercise for the reader." We hope that by the time you get to this, you will be comfortable in CommonSpot. If we are in error, please let us know!

Pending Actions

This is the same dialog box that you see whenever you log in to CommonSpot.

1. Click the "Page & Template Management" icon, and select "Pending Actions".

2. The "Pending Actions" dialog box will indicate whether or not you have any pending actions. If you do, click "Work in Progress" to view any pages that contain edited content that has not yet been submitted for publication.




Content Expiration

This creates a mechanism to notify you when it is time to review page content to see whether any updates are needed. You can also mark content as expired, so that it will not be visible to non-administrators. When content has expired, you can set CommonSpot to automatically redirect any non-administrator who attempts to access the page, taking that user to the proper URL of your choice.

Some of the people who try to access the expired page will do so by following a link from another CommonSpot page. For those people, you can speed their access to the proper URL by telling CommonSpot to update any other CommonSpot page that has a link leading to the expired page, changing the destination of that link. That method is discussed online under the title, "Referring Pages."

You would still also do the steps below, for the benefit of people who come to your expired page from another system, and to prevent any other pagemaster or content contributor from linking to your expired page.

1. Navigate to your page whose content you are concerned to keep up-to-date, or to mark as out-of-date.

2. Select "Author" mode.

3. Click the "Page & Template Management" icon, and select "Page Properties..." (at the top of the menu).

4. The (content) "Expiration" section is near the bottom of the Page Properties dialog window.

5. You can specify either no expiration or a specific date.

6. The action choices include notifying yourself, denying the general public access to the content, and re-directing users to another page. If you do redirect to a CommonSpot page, then please use the Page Gallery to make the link.

7. The (content) "Freshness Reminder" section is also near the bottom of the Page Properties dialog window. You can specify that you be reminded on a specific number of days elapsed time since revision, on a specific number of days before the expiration date, or simply on a specific date.




Renaming a Page

---

The bug in CommonSpot V 4.6.1, that caused the Rename Page... command to destroy your page irretrievably has now been fixed.

---


When you rename a page, it will not let you over-write an existing page. If you have a page that should replace an existing page (e.g., "new_index" should replace "index"), perhaps because you have re-built it using a different template, then you must first delete the existing page or rename it (e.g., to "old_index"), and then rename the new page in to replace it. There will unavoidably be a short period of time when anyone attempting to access the page will be told that it doesn't exist.

When you move or rename a CommonSpot page, any CommonSpot pages with links to that page will be updated to point to the page in its new location or new name, provided that those links were constructed with the Page Gallery or Page Finder dialogs. Therefore, if you are using the rename command to replace an existing page, we suggest that you first go to the old page, use the "Referring Pages" process, discussed elsewhere, to point all internal-to-CommonSpot links to the new page, and then do the rename process.

If you want to change the subsite or sub-subsite where the page is located, use the move option in the "Copy/Move Page..." process, discussed earlier.

1. Navigate to your page whose name you want to change.

2. Select "Author" or "Read" mode.

3. Click the "Page & Template Management" icon, and select "Rename Page...".

4. Specify the Name (which will have ".cfm" appended to become the last part of the URL), the Title (which is the internal-to-CommonSpot identifier), and the Title Bar Caption (which becomes the TITLE in the HEAD section of the generated HTML).

5. Click on the "OK" button.




My Tasks

The "My Tasks" feature is not currently enabled on Ohio University's CommonSpot system. If it is enabled in the future, you would start using it by clicking on the "Page & Template Management" icon to display the menu, and choosing "My Tasks" from the menu.

Other View Modes Tools

Inspect Version History

CommonSpot's Version History mechanism provides some of the capabilities that the VMS Front Door system achieved with its "version number" file system: you can see what the site content used to be, and restore it to an earlier state. Not all changes are recorded in the Version History, though, so some manual restoration may also be required. In particular, changes that take effect immediately, as discussed previously, including features that can be changed using the "Page Properties" dialogs, such as render options and page background color, are not recorded in the Version History. Only versions that had (yellow) work-in-progress icons and were approved for public visibility ("published") will be included in the version history. When the current version is the first and only version ever published, no list may be generated. All prior versions are in the database, but the length of time that prior versions are reported in the Version History list is limited. That limit can be set on a subsite-wide basis; the default currently in place for Ohio University's CommonSpot installation is 30 days. You can also change this value for a specific page using the "Document Information" dialog.

1. Navigate to the page whose prior versions you want to inspect.

2. Select "Author" mode.

3. Click the "View Modes" icon, and select "Version History" from the menu.

4. Observe the displayed information about the modification such as revision date and time, the identity of the author responsible for the page changes, and comments from the author. If the author did not provide any comments at the time when he or she submitted the change for publication, there won't be any visible here to help you identify the version you want!

5. If you click in two of the versions' check-boxes, and then click on the "visual differences" display, CommonSpot will help you to identifiy what the differences are.




Use Version History to Recover

As you will see in the steps below, CommonSpot provides a mechanism for you to restore prior content. At this time, such restoration to a prior version must be done manually, one element at a time: there is no method available that puts the entire page back to the way it was. Restoration includes only element states that were published; cosmetic changes that occur immediately, without having to be submitted for publication, are not available in the Version History, and so cannot be restored.

In prior versions of CommonSpot, the use of the Version History feature to recover previous content could not be relied upon to function as expected. Therefore, until we have accumulated more positive experience with the current version of CommonSpot, we urge you always to make a copy, using a different filename, of the current version of the page before you attempt to use Version History to recover a prior version of the page's content. This will preserve the current version only -- the version history is not copied along with the file, only the current version. If your efforts succeed, then do your housekeeping, and delete that saved copy of the page.

1. Click the "Page View" tab, and select "Edit" mode, if you are not already in it.

2. Click the "Page View" tab, and select "Version History" from the menu.

3. Click on the date and time (boldfaced) of the version you want to view, and then click on "Close."

4. Observe the prior version. For each element that is different, the gear-wheel tool icon will have changed to a "revert" icon. Examine each such element. If it is better than the current version, for whatever reason, you may choose to re-activate it by clicking on the "revert" icon , and choosing "Revert Content" from the resulting menu.

5. This will bring up a "Restore Version" dialog box. Click OK to confirm restoration. Doing so will put you back into the current version, but with that element now being "Work-in-Progress" that if published would restore the prior version of that element.

6. You can repeat steps 1 through 5 to revert other elements, one at a time, to prior versions, accumulating work-in-progress in the current version. You may choose to revert one element to a prior version from one date, and a different element to a prior version from a different date.

   If you want to restore the page to a state in which an element that currently exists was not present, then delete that element from the current version.

7. Once you have restored the content to the state you want, click on the yellow icon and submit the entire page for publication, which will install this as a newest version, available in the Version History. Be sure to include appropriate comments; usually it is helpful to include "reverting [element] to version of [date and time]".

8. After the change is published, click the "Page View" tab, and select "Version History" on the menu; observe that each version is listed with comments and the date and time that it was published, but that there is no identification for any version as to which other, prior version it was copied from, if any. This is one of the reasons why it is particularly wise to form the habit of providing comments when you submit a page for publication!

   In the example illustration below, the June 1, 2003 version was restored on August 20, 2003:

   

Other Knowledge Maps Tools

Subscription

1. While looking at the page you want to have the system monitor for changes, click the "Knowledge Maps" icon to display the menu, and then choose "Subscription...".

2. Choose whether to be notified of any changes to the current page by E-mail or by the CommonSpot "Pending Actions" dialog when you login to CommonSpot, or by both methods.

3. If you are done, click on the "OK" button.

4. If you already have subscriptions in place to other pages, you can manage those subscriptions by clicking on the "manage subscriptions" button.

5. In the resulting dialog box, for any page listed, click on the pencil icon to revise the notification method, and click on the "X" icon to discontinue notification of changes to that page.

6. Click on the "Close" button when finished.

7. Click on the "OK" button in the Subscriptions window.




What's New...

This feature works only to list pages whose authors chose "Inform User Community" when they submitted the change or whole page for publication. Most Ohio University CommonSpot subsite pagemasters and content contributors are not in the habit of checking that box in the publication dialog, so this feature is presently of very limited value here.

1. The "What's New..." tool in the Knowledge Maps group examines all pages that are in the subsite of the page you are looking at when you select the tool, so first navigate to a page in the subsite you want to explore.

2. Click the "Knowledge Maps" icon to display the menu, and then click "What's New...".

3. Select the criteria to define what you mean by "new."

4. Click on the little orange triangle to drop down the list of new or revised pages or new or revised uploaded documents meeting the criteria you have selected.

5. Explore the new items. Click on the "OK" button when you are done.




Page Finder

The Page Finder dialog permits you to find pages based on a wide range of criteria, including information about the pages that is internal to CommonSpot.

1. Click the "Knowledge Maps" icon to display the menu, and then click "Page Finder".

2. In the Page Finder dialog box, you will be able to select the criteria that should identify the pages you are interested in, and then click on "OK."

3. In the resulting Page Gallery of CommonSpot pages that meet your criteria, you will be able to link to each page.

4. The button at the bottom, marked "Filter Options" will bring you back to the Page Finder criteria dialog box (step 2).




Keywords

CommonSpot maintains two internal databases of keywords that apply to each page: those provided by the page's author through the Page Properties dialog, which are visible to all logged-in CommonSpot users and are included in the META tags of the generated page, and those provided by other individual CommonSpot users, which are visible to themselves only, while using CommonSpot.




Finding Subsite Pages by Their Keywords

The following procedure can be used to find pages according to the keywords that have been assigned to them within CommonSpot:

1. Click the "Knowledge Maps" icon, and then select "Keyword View...".

2. Select whether you want to look for pages according to the author-assigned keywords, your own keywords, or both.

3. You will see a list of keywords, each followed by a small, orange, downward-pointing triangle. Click on the triange to see a linked list of all pages in the current subsite that have that keyword listed. Each page will be followed by "(A)" if the keyword was provided by the author, and by "(P)" if you provided the keyword personally.

4. Click on the link for any page you want to examine.

5. Click on the "Close" button when you are done.




Adding Personal Keywords

The following procedure can be used to add personal keywords for the page currently being displayed:

1. Click the "Knowledge Maps" icon, and then select "My Keywords...".

2. Observe whether you have already provided keywords, so as to avoid duplication.

3. Click in the box and type an applicable keyword, or multiple keywords, with a comma between each pair. Consider whether or not to choose keywords that are already provided by the author (the Keyword View... dialog will let you see those).

   You may also choose keywords from the list provided when you click on the "Select keywords..." button.

4. Click on the "OK" button when done adding keywords.




Finding Pages by Keyword or Text Searching

Do not use the "Search..." option from the "Knowledge Maps" menu, because it requires a server feature that we have not enabled at Ohio University. Instead, go to the Front Door or any page constructed on the official_pages1 template, and use the search feature in the upper-right corner.

If you need more control of your search, use the existing custom search capabilities.




Contacts

The contact information will be available in "Read" mode to anyone who has the Knowledge Maps icon and menu available (any page whose subsite general security or specific page security permits the CommonSpot Interface; by default this applies for the "authenticated" category, those who have used their OAK login ID and password in this session). It is not routinely available to the anonymous audience category.

1. Click on the "View Modes" shortcut icon to display the menu and select "Author" mode.

2. Click on the "Knowledge Maps" icon to display the menu, and choose "Contacts" from the menu.

3. Click on "Click here to add a new contact"

4. If necessary, click on the plus [+] sign to expand the list.

5. Click on one person to highlight that individual.

6. Click in the "Responsibility Description" box and type a brief description of the selected individual's role.

7. Click on the "add and close" button at the bottom.




My Notes

Click on the "Knowledge Maps" icon to display the menu, and choose "My Notes" from the menu.

These notes are visible to you alone, and can be seen and revised when in "Read" mode or when in "Author" mode.




See-Also References

The "Knowledge Maps" includes a "See-Also References" tool. Because the information is internal to CommonSpot, you should generally instead choose to make an explicit, visible (text or graphic) link to whatever you might be tempted to list as a See-Also Reference.

Dick Piccard revised this file (http://www.ohiou.edu/pagemasters/commonspot/pageadv/tools.html) on October 8, 2008.

Please E-Mail comments or suggestions to"webteam@ohio.edu".