Content Management
A primary reason for using SharePoint
publishing is to make use of content management. The whole point of
content management—Web Content Management to be precise—is to allow
content owners to create and edit content without needing IT, or
worrying about how their content impacts site design.
SharePoint publishing abstracts content
management from user interface design and web site development by
providing rich features for content orchestration, allowing content
owners to do what they do best—worry about just content. Even though
the end result is a web page consisting of content merged with HTML,
JavaScript, and perhaps Silverlight, the content owners should never
have to worry about these UI concepts. SharePoint performs the heavy
lifting in providing content abstraction from presentation. At the
core, SharePoint consists of lists, libraries, content types, and site
columns (fields), and it is these core elements that provide the base
content management capabilities. Of course, the assertions made in the
preceding paragraph predicate good content model design. A page that
consists of one page body field of HTML type is not good design,
because content owners have only one place to insert their page
content, and this model assumes the content marked up with HTML. A
better model consists of pages and page templates with a variety of
fields for more granular control of the content.
Site Columns
The publishing
infrastructure introduces some additional site column types,
specifically for the purpose of publishing content.
SharePoint includes all site column types as
part of the installation of the product. Although there is nothing
stopping site owners from using them in any situation, Table 3 lists those site column types specific for use in publishing situations. Worth noting is that the site column types in Table 3 appear when creating new site column instances, but not all types listed appear when creating list columns.
Note SharePoint defines the publishing site column types in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\15\TEMPLATE\XML\FLDTYPES_Publishing.xml. This file includes some non–user creatable site column types, not listed in Table 3, but required for publishing.
Table 3. Site Columns for Publishing
| Full HTML content with formatting and constraints for publishing |
This column type provides a richer text editing experience by using
the Rich Text Editor. You use this column type to enable users to apply
styles, apply table formatting, and work with reusable content. The
column type stores HTML, and the editor provides these authoring and
styling capabilities. This column type also helps you control or limit
the options users have when creating new content by placing content
field controls within SharePoint page layouts. Users may apply content
and formatting constraints to the column to ensure that new content
appears according to pre-established styles and themes. |
| Image with formatting and constraints for publishing |
This column type stores links to images defined in the item
properties. Each column displays a thumbnail preview in list views, and
users may apply optional formatting. Use this column type to provide
users with an easier way to add images rather than having to manually
input the URL of the image or web reference. Control over images can be
set when placing content field controls within SharePoint page layouts. |
| Hyperlink with formatting and constraints for publishing |
This column type stores hyperlinks and displays the hyperlink names
defined in the item properties. Use the column type to provide a
browsing interface that allows users to browse to an object to link to
instead of typing a URL. Link formatting and other options can be set
when placing content field controls within SharePoint page layouts. |
| Summary links data |
This column type enables users to create bulleted content without
the need for a dedicated list to populate the data. Use this column
type on publishing pages to present grouped links that use a set of
shared styles. Summary links include a title, description, image, and
URL. Summary links control and behavior can be set when placing a
Summary Links field in SharePoint page layouts. |
| Rich media data for publishing |
This column type enables users to add video to a publishing page.
Using this column type, you may link to a media file (audio or video)
the same way you link to an image. You can insert this column type in a
page layout to show the specified videos on pages using that layout. |
Enabling the site and web publishing features,
SharePoint creates a number of new site column instances. These site
columns facilitate content management as suggested columns for typical
content.
Content Types
Similar to how I covered site columns,so I shall not burden you with details about them, except to detail
those content types available when activating the publishing features.
Content types represent an entity in a SharePoint site collection or
subsite and consist of a number of site columns. Content types are the
schema of list items, where each contained field defines the columns of
a list item row in a list or document library. In similar vein, page
content types define the schema of a publishing page, where each field
represents a content placeholder for a page instance, where each page
instance is in fact a list item in a special document library—called
Pages.
Having either activated the publishing features
in your site collection or created a publishing site, follow these
steps to access the publishing site content types:
- Click the gear icon.
- Select the Site settings menu item.
- Click the link for site content types under the Web Designer Galleries heading.
- Scroll down to Page Layout Content Types and Publishing Content Types (Figure 4).
The publishing content types include content
types that represent base publishing objects, such as master pages,
page layouts, and HTML page types. The page layout content types define
specific page metadata types from which page instances are created. To
illustrate these two sets of content types, I shall provide an example.
Imagine you have created a publishing site for
a product company. The web site contains various page instances, each
with details about a product that is part of the company’s product
line. On each product page, the company wishes to include a high-res
image of the product, a brief description, and date the product went
into production. One approach to representing products in the
publishing site is to create a new content type, called Product, which
inherits from the page content type because products display as pages.
The page content type includes site columns for the image, production
date, and description. You would then associate this product content
type with the pages libraries in the publishing site to allow content
owners to create page instances based on this new product content type.
As you read further in this section, I shall explain how page layouts
and master pages control the presentation of content by mapping content
types. To continue my example, each page layout infers how SharePoint
should render page content with HTML markup. Master pages define the
general look and feel of the site, also including HTML markup, and
define the common areas included on all pages in the site. Just like
the page instances, page layouts and master pages also consist of
properties, which SharePoint defines with the publishing content types.
If the page layout content types
represent the metadata types for our page instances, why does
SharePoint provide content types for the base publishing types? Master
pages and page layouts live in the Master Page Gallery in your
publishing site collection. The Master Page Gallery is a special
document library that contains the master page and page layout files.
Similar to other document libraries, and the documents contained in
them, master pages and page layouts in the Master Page Gallery may have
metadata associated with them. For example, the base page content type
includes site columns to define start and end publishing date/time
values for time-restricted content.
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