2.  Unpack it and follow the instructions in the readme.txt file.  You will need a google maps api key, which requires a google account and a domain name.

 
3.  In this instance, adding map info to fishing reports was the desired output.  A fishing report class was in place, based upon the article class.  So after installing the extension, in admin interface, Setup->Classes->Content->Fishing report->Edit button.  At the bottom of this class content is an “Add attribute” button with a drop down field to the left.  Click the drop down, select “Gmaps Location” from the list, Click the “Add attribute” button.  Give it a name –google mapping and an identifier –google_maps–.

4.  Author a new Fishing Report, and notice there has been added a “google mapping” section with boxes to enter the Latitude and Longitude.  Entering values here will put a marker on the map for those coordinates.

Thanks to google, eZ, and blendinteractive, it really is this easy.

At least it was that easy on my localhost for testing.  It turned into a struggle when trying to get it up on my web hosting service.  

When I moved the files up to the web, something happened to the api key text, and I kept getting an error message from google saying they key was already in use and I needed to sign up for a new key for this domain.  Final fix was to use Zend IDE to ftp upload and edit the files, to be sure they were staying clean (no line breaks) even when being edited.

http://fishingnn.com/index.php/eng/MO/Truman/Truman-Reservoir/Avery-on-Truman-Lake is the first test.

 
Final note, google map does not load in firefox 3.0.4 on my test machine, it says no maps at that zoom level.  

Not sure if this is caused by a preference setting or what.  The map displays fine, scrolls and zooms in Safari and Opera.

Update, December 12, 2008.  The google map does not load in this wordpress post in any of the three browsers mentioned.  The map still works fine in the link.  Not sure if google, wp, temporary or permanent problem.

Correcting this, and understanding policies, is primarily a case of understanding nomenclature, and knowing where to find the dialog boxes.

Accounts - every access to an eZ site requires an account.  

Four user accounts are provided out of the box (OOTB) in a default eZ install.

An Anonymous Users account is provided to allow casual viewers “read” level access to site content via the “Anonymous” role.  

Guest accounts are included, and provide access identical to Anonymous Users, by virtue of using the same role.  

Editors and Administrator users are two more user groups defined in a default install.  These use the Editor role and Administrator role giving progressively greater access to the site.  

Roles - a policy or group of policies.

Policy - a defined level of access to the site contents

Each policy is defined by three parameters –

  –module

  –function 

  –limitation

The first two, module and function (of module) are tightly inter-related.

The third, limitation, can also be related to the first two, or have no relation to either of the first two. In the case where it is related, the class (article, blog, event, etc), section(any top level section), owner(any/self) and group(any/self) allow further restrictions. But limitations may also be totally unrelated to the first two, placing restrictions on complete section or subtrees.  Subtree and sections are important to a basic understanding of eZ Publish, and well documented. 

Module

What is a module?  From the eZ documentation..  

“A module offers an HTTP interface which can be used for web based interaction with eZ publish. For example, the content module provides an interface that makes it possible to use a web browser to manage actual content.” 

To view a list of modules, login to the eZ admin interface.  From there, go to the “User accounts” tab, click the “Roles and policies” link, the “edit” icon for the Administrator role, then the “New Policy” button which will present a drop down selector for modules.  Whew, there must be an easier way somewhere.  Maybe giving it away to soon, but near the bottom of this list of modules, notice a “websitetoolbar” module.

Function -

Possible functions depend upon what the developer put into the module.  The “content” module has many functions available. The “RSS” module none.  The interface while  creating policies is self restricting.  Only functions that are available for a given module are listed, and only after the module is chosen.

Limitation - means limitations on “Sections“, and “Subtrees“, site content in other words.

Limitations is where the site admin can get creative in restricting access to the site based upon login credentials.

  Sections - 

  In the admin interface, go to “Setup->Sections” for a listing, note the similarities between this list and the tabs at the top of the page in the initial install.  

  ”Setup->Sections->New section” to define new sections.  The “Navigation part” in the drop down provides a list of the top level page tabs from the admin interface.  The “Content Structure” listed in this drop down, is the site contents as displayed in the Content Structure tab.  A newly created section is of no use when first created.  All that has been accomplished is the definition of a starting point for browsing when the “Assign” button is clicked.  An admin must click the “Assign” icon to the right of a newly minted section in the Sections list, which will open a browser view into the site structure for the chosen “Navigation part”.  This allows selection and assignment of a specific sub-level of content as a limitation to be used in the creation of policies.

  subtree - defined by the node structure of the site, used to restrict access for the OOTB “Editor” role to only content (node id=2) and media (node id=43).  Verify node id’s by clicking the “Content structure”, then “Media Library” tabs, and locating the node id in the details pane of each.  These subtrees are above the level of access that is available from the sections interface, because they are top level “Navigation part”s.  Presumably that is the justification for working in subtree, versus the navigation part.

To summarize, User Accounts->Roles and policies is the location for creating new roles.  If the desire in creating a new “Role” is to create a “Limitation” on some portion of site content, this “limitation” is created first, using Setup->Sections->New Section Then after this new section is created and appears in the list, click the “Assign” button to select a specific portion of the site to be included in that limitation.

Oh, and to allow editors access to the websitetoolbar –

In the admin interface, User accounts->Roles and policies->Editor Role click “Edit” icon->New Policy->Module dropdown and select “websitetoolbar”.  Then click the button to “Grant access to all functions”

Now login as an editor, and you should see the toolbar appear.  Easy when you understand it.  But a bear to try to figure out when you don’t know if you should be looking in ini files, templates, db settings, or any of the myriad other locations that make up an eZ install.

Footnote–

It would be less confusing if eZ would streamline the use of the words “accounts” and “users” in the default installed interface for managing users and accounts.  Using each word at most once, would convey more meaning.  

Accounts tab, presents a list of Users.  The listed users are Guests, Administrators, Editors, and Anonymous.  All simple one word descriptions, no repetition.

Compare this to the current wording.  A User Accounts tab which presents a list of Users.  The users listed are Guest accounts, Administrator users, Editors, and Anonymous Users. Overuse of the terms and varying capitalization of “accounts” and “users” in the interface makes it clunky.

—More info——————————————————————————  

Another take on the subject ..

A listing of default Roles listed in OOTB install, per user type, module-function-limitation

  –Administrator

      Policies - sitewide

      –all modules-all functions-No limitations

  –Editor 

    Policies - these policies are assigned to the 1/2 and 1/43 tree nodes, which is all published content and all media, within those nodes, no limitations

    –content-all functions-no limitations 

    –user-login-no limitations

    –ezdhtml-all functions - no limitations 

  –Anonymous

      Policies-Click Anonymous link to get a listing of the 5 policies

      –content-read-Section(Standard)

      –content-pdf-Section(Standard)

      –rss-feed-no limitations

      –user-login-SiteAccess(ezflow_site)

      –user-login-SiteAccess(eng)

******Administrator*Role*******************************

Module:

*

Function:

*

Function limitations

The function limitations of this policy cannot be edited. This is either because the function does not support limitations or because the function was assigned without limitations when the policy was created.

********************************************

Editor policies

There are two distinct “Editor” listings in the Assigned Roles panel for editor.  One Role is limited to 1/2, the other to 1/43.  The number 1 indicates site root, 2 is the Content node, 43 is the Media node.  Users, Setup, and Webshop are additional second level nodes that are not accessible from an editor login OOTB. 

The “Edit” button for 1/2, or 1/43 outputs..

****Editor*Role********************************

Policies

*************************************************

The very simple * -(all)- policy for modules and functions in the Administrator role, has been changed in the Editor role.  Editors are only allowed access to content, user, and ezdhtml modules.  The details of each policy are examined and refined by clicking the Edit links.  Drill down into the individual policies by clicking the edit links to the right of each policy.

Clicking the edit links reveals..

))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

Module:

content

Function:

*

Function limitations

The function limitations of this policy cannot be edited. This is either because the function does not support limitations or because the function was assigned without limitations when the policy was created.

))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

Module:

user

Function:

login

Function limitations

SiteAccess:

Any,ezflow_site,eng,ezflow_site_admin,iphone

))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

Module:

ezdhtml

Function:

*

Function limitations

The function limitations of this policy cannot be edited. This is either because the function does not support limitations or because the function was assigned without limitations when the policy was created.

))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

The “Edit” button output is identical for 1/2 and 1/43.  Setting these “subtree” limitations can only be performed after a Role is created, then assigned, to a User group.  In other words, create a role, create a group, only then may subtree or section limitations be applied.  This pattern is enforced in the user interface.  Subtree or Section limitations are assigned from the “User accounts->Roles and policies->Click Link for Role of interest” then look at the bottom of the page for “Assign with limitation button.

*****Anonymous*****************************

Name:

Anonymous

Policies [5]

*************************************************

Clicking the edit button, pulls up an identical listing to the above, with edit buttons for each.

Clicking the edit button for Content

)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

Module:

content

Function:

read

Function limitations - selected items in bold

Class: –drop down selection–

AnyArticleArticle (main-page)Article (sub-page)BannerBlogBlog postCommentCommon ini settingsDocumentation pageEventEvent calendarFeedback formFileFishing ReportFlashFlash recorderFolderForumForum replyForum topicForumsFrontpageGalleryGlobal layoutImageInfoboxLinkMulticalendarPollProductQuicktimeReal videoTemplate lookUserUser groupVideo/Flash PlayerWindows media

Section: –drop down–

AnyDesignMediaSetupStandardUsers

Owner: –drop down–

AnySelf

Group:

AnySelf

Nodes [0]

The node list is empty.

Subtrees [0]

The subtree list is empty.

)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

Module:

content

Function

pdf

same as above

)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

Module:

rss

Function:

feed

Function limitations

The function limitations of this policy cannot be edited. This is either because the function does not support limitations or because the function was assigned without limitations when the policy was created.

)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

Module:

user

Function:

login

Function limitations

SiteAccess: –all siteaccesses listing only one selected

ezflow_site

)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

Module:

user

Function:

login

Function limitations

SiteAccess:–all siteaccesses listing, only one selected

eng

)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

Much of the ez flow design and layouts is simple to comprehend by comparing the visual layout of pages, zones, and blocks accessed from the user interface, and referencing these views back to the layouts in the admin gui.

The “Global zone” in a default 4.0.1 install is different.  Accessed from the “site map” in the user interface, then referenced from the admin interface in the content structure, it does not seem to follow the rules.  

Viewed from the admin pages, Global zone appears to be a simple single page, single zone layout.  Yet when it is displayed to end users, they see a complex two zone page layout.  What gives?  An even bigger problem, trying to figure this out from the documentation.

A Theory.

Since templates are responsible for displaying the content in eZ Publish, the theory is that this functionality is part of the template system.  But how to test, where to start, or is it time to SToP (Study, Theorize, and/or Postulate) rather than keep digging into the available tools.  I tried SToP’ing, it didn’t work for me.

Keep digging.

Much more fun than studying.  Tried studying the docs, didn’t like it, didn’t make sense, not gonna do it if there is any other way.  A mere mortal may be able to understand templates, or ini files, or file structures, or templating language or css, but this mortal can’t grasp the sum from all the parts looking at documentation alone.  The eZ developers provide these pre-built examples, just have to learn enough to develop a system to take advantage of their examples. 

In the admin interface, turn on debugging from the setup tab.  In this case, turned on debugging for the  “eng” site.

Clear all caches, reload the page, and find that pagelayout.tpl is the top level template responsible for displaying the “Global Zone” page.  Specifically, for “eng” the /design/ezflow/templates/pagelayout.tpl is in charge.  

There are six other pagelayout.tpl files in the default installation, not including anything in /var.  Throw out iphone and admin, because both are specific siteaccesses, that leaves ezflow, ezwebin, standard, and base.

Some how, pagelayout and other templates override each other or fall back to defaults, using a mechanism well understood by eZ developers and well documented, somewhere.  In this case, test the fallback mechanisms by successively removing the pagelayout.tpl files until the page no longer loads.  A concrete example in other words.

Rename ezflow/templates/pagelayout.tpl to xpagelayout.tpl, clear the caches, clear the debug settings, and reload the page to see what displays.  

Something akin to a default 3.xx version install of eZ, which uses the ezwebin extension by default.  Verify the the pagelayout.tpl from the ezwebin extension is indeed the first fallback by setting up debug, clearing the caches, and reloading the page. 

Rename the pagelayout.tpl in the ezwebin extension directory to xpagelayout.tpl, take off debug, clear caches, and reload the page.

The page is now being rendered using the /design/base/templates/pagelayout.tpl.  Rename this pagelayout file, clear the caches, reload the page.

The page is now rendered using /design/standard/templates/pagelayout.tpl.  At the very top of that pagelayout file is the text {* DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE! Use an override template instead. *}.  And this file is the end of the line, rename it, the page fails to load.

The line counts in the files, standard - 82 lines, base - 170 lines, ezwebin - 300 lines, ezflow - 320 lines.  Basically each overrides the previous and adds a little more to it.  The overrides do not have to keep adding more “stuff”.  They may just as easily simplify the layout.  The iphone pagelayout.tpl for instance, is 76 lines.

Hopefully, this debugging experience explains a little more or a better how to begin using the power of eZ Publish.  EZ will never be perfect, or the cms for everyone, but it is a whole lot more suited to a whole lot more tasks  than most recognize.  It is way too high on overhead when it comes to trying to explain the system in writing.  Notice that .ini files were never mentioned in this post!  No template language dissertations.  Much easier to grasp one subject at a time, with real examples, before going on to the next.  By digging into the differences in the pagelayout.tpl files, the methods for adding what appears to be a second zone to a single page layout will be revealed - another day.

Successively rename the files back to pagelayout.tpl, clear the caches, and reload the page to get back to the default view of the global zone page, with a better understanding of what is taking place, and how to discover what is taking place.

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=fishing+%2B+walleye+%2B+MO&ie=UTF-8&output=rss

This above when entered as a single line in a feed reader, creates a google news feed based upon the search “fishing + walleye + MO”. The three pieces of text surrounding the + signs in other words.

Plugging that feed into this excellent  article by Paul Wilson , eZ quickly provides something that looks like this:

rss feed

But clicking any of these links to read the full article, the raw html formatting is included as per below.  Ugleee.

default rss description

In Admin interface, set debug to show templates, and find that the template that is responsible for outputting this content is design/standard/templates/content/datatype/view/eztext.tpl.

In other words, eztext.tpl is the template that must be overridden to change the displayed output.  Lots of documentation and discussion about overrides and ini files and all kinds of confusing stuff.  Instead of reading all that, while logged in to the user interface, with template debug turned on, notice at the very bottom of the page, a list of templates, and an icon to click that will start the override process.

templates with override button

Easiest to make a copy of the current template to use as the basis for the override, call it ezrsstext.tpl.  Magically, this copy appears in an edit window.

edit ezrsstext.tpl

Somewhere the first time through the docs, I seem to remember that “wash” did to something to clean up the html formatting.  So I took “wash” out along with the (xhtml) which I assumed was a parameter being passed to wash.  If dealing with user input, bypassing wash likely would cause security considerations.  The entire contents of ezrsstext.tpl is {$attribute.content|nl2br}.  And it actually works.  Had it not, it was just an override used in this one new place on the site, the rest of the site is not affected.  Instead of pulling the full .content, it is possible to just pull the .link, or the .description attributes from the feed depending upon what looks best in the display. Gotta love object oriented code.  The full .content displays like this–

Rss-details

Reviewing the Content Structure, in admin, the feeds are dumped into folders, that feed frontpage items, like this –

Admin - Content Structure

Testing locally on my mac, I had to turn off the firewall for the feeds to download.  With the firewall on, I did not get any error messages or any feeds downloaded.  With the firewall temporarily off, switching into the folder where ezpublish is located and running runcronjobs.php from the command line gives a nice running report of feeds as they are downloaded.

sh-3.2# pwd

/Library/WebServer/Documents/pub401

sh-3.2# php runcronjobs.php

runcronjobs

This AM, mostly by chance (a recent forum post on ez site that I happened to read), found the link to absolutely complete api documentation. Apparently this is now much easier to find. But just in case it gets lost again. eZ API via Doxygen. A high level run through or drill right down into the code of interest, in its latest incarnation.

When something is evolving this rapidly, it is nice to have someplace to go, besides outdated docs and besides having to read the whole code base.

To create a new content class using eZ, it is simplest to start with a copy of an existing class. In this case, creating a “Fishing Report” class from the “Article” class.

Go to Setup->Classes->Content-> Make a copy of the “Article” content class by clicking the copy icon. It saves as “Copy of Article”.

Select that new class, and make all edits on it.

Leave all existing in place - add:

• a textline attribute titled body of water, short description - bow
• a date attrribute to store the date fished, called Date Fished
• a time attribute to store start time, called start time
• a time attribute to store quit time, called quit time

The reporter goes to the folder for state and body of water, logs in, in the drop down selects “Fishing Report” fills in the information.

Editor goes to that new fishing report, puts it in desired location in the site structure and publishes it.

Voila.

Fishing report

This week, I found some nice articles regarding eZ publish on sitepoint.com. And oh so much more interesting, matched up the look and url structure of sitepoint, to a default eZ publish 3.9 install. Wonder which CMS provides the foundation for sitepoint?

Also noticed how quickly and cleanly pertinent content jumps out at you on sitepoint. It is simple to get around the sitepoint site, despite a tremendous range of topics and a huge amount of content. Sitepoint is a very convincing argument for using eZ, and a good place to get some ideas for managing large amounts of data and streams.

From the first article found in a Google search, the Harry Fuecks 2002 article, it is easy to get into all the content regarding eZ publish on the entire sitepoint site.

But since I made a list for myself with a few comments, I may as well post it here for posterity.

• Harry Fuecks 2002
  http://www.sitepoint.com/article/phps-killer-app-parts-1-3/
  Nice historical reference, the entire framework has morphed substantially since that time.
• Bård Farstad has three nice articles on sitepoint, circa late 2004 early 2005. These are regarding version 3.x, and seem pertinent on 4.x, at least in the admin interface (the admin “siteaccess”).

  ---

  • November 2004 Using the admin interface, particularly the design tab.
    http://www.sitepoint.com/article/build-intranet-ez-publish/
  • January 2005 - Templating tips
    http://www.sitepoint.com/article/table-less-css-ez-publish/
  • April 2005. Setting up a catalog, does not actually get into payment processing as the header would lead one to expect.
    http://www.sitepoint.com/article/ecommerce-website-ez-publish/

  ---

• May 2006. Rebuilding an existing site using eZ. David Lewis
  Covers planning, coding, moving to a new ez site, performance scaling.
  http://www.sitepoint.com/article/rebuilding-vogue-com-au/2/
• December 2004 Martin Bauer, more thoughts on re-building a site. Defining the information architecture is the most difficult part of an ez publish installation.
  http://www.sitepoint.com/article/rebuilding-gradlink-ezpublish/
• August 2003, Rob Purser, another nice historical perspective. eZ 4.x makes it dead simple to make the simplified site he desires. Enlightening is that building a new siteaccess with new set of templates is explained in it’s very simplest form. So simple even I can understand it.
  http://www.sitepoint.com/article/ez-publish-3-1-take-spin/1/

The Sitepoint site is an inspiration, and a revelation. Sitepoint.com almost effortlessly keeps the information you want out in front of you. The material outlined above was practically thrust upon me from the moment I first arrived on sitepoint.

If single web pages are 1 dimensional and linked websites 2 dimensional sources of information. The clever design and layout of sitepoint.com is approaching a 3D information architecture. Sure you can make up your own individualized facebook, or your corporate QEDWiki to achieve practically the same thing. But that 3D information is only for your personal or corporate use. Sitepoint brings 3D information to a much broader group, developers in general. That surely is the future of publishing, 3D information. But as Martin Bauer points out, defining that information architecture for a given group is the artful part of an eZ installation.

Is 4D, the fourth dimension of information processing, the fourth degree of humans interfacing with data in the world around them, the ability to automatically include your real time location a la cell phone into an artfully laid out, sitepoint style, display? If so, eZ publish is ready for that.

Put the code below where you want the cloud to appear.

<?php wp_tag_cloud(’smallest=8&largest=36&’); ?>

Thanks to hackwordpress.com

From a base 4.0.1 install using eZ Flow..

Remove the Live video top level menu item.

In the admin interface..

Click the Folder for “Live Video”->Advanced->hide/unhide, it is a toggle.

Refresh the user view and note that Live Video has vanished from the website.

Now add a new top level menu item.
**Important, when creating new objects, the type is always important, know your types**

In the admin interface, click the highest level folder in the structure pane->Create here->Frontpage

new frontpage item

Fill in the details and send to publish.  This front page item got named “Fishing”.  Just for fun, use the 3 zones (layout 2).  This completely replaces any existing layout details.  It is up to admin to put something in these zones so visitors have something to view.

Left Zone, Add Block, then Add Item, select the existing Conference Blog, which is a Blog type.

Send for publishing and review the site.

You should see the “Conference Blog” appear in the upper left pane, but the right and bottom panes are still empty.

Create a new content item, of type event, to have something to put in the Right zone.

Login to the user interface of eZ Flow.

Create new content of type “Event Calendar” by selecting it from the drop down menu and clicking the + icon.  This calendar page is created, and available from the Fishing top level menu or site map, but not yet on a pane anywhere.  

Add this new content to the Front page Fishing object.

Flip back over to admin interface.  

Click on Right Zone, notice no objects are currently in this zone.  

Add block, Add Item, notice a list of top level items.  The Event Calendar was created as a subitem of Fishing, so drill into it by clicking the Fishing text.  The name of the Event Calendar type appears, click the box next to it and click select.  Click Send for publishing.

Put a tag cloud in the bottom zone.

Still in the layout for the Fishing frontpage, go to bottom zone in the layouts view.  Name the block TC, for Block Type: select Tag Cloud.  A good reference to all the block types available is in block.ini.append for the siteaccess.  Send for publishing and go to the Fishing page on the site.

Visitor should see something in each of the panes.

How to add more and better content to each view?

First create the content paying attention to the type you choose and where you create it, then follow along with the examples in the demo combined with the short set of instructions above.

EXAMPLE, create new content, add new content to the new Fishing front page layout.

Create a new poll in the user interface, select “Poll” in the drop down and click the + icon.

Something similar to the below.

Fishing Poll

To make this Poll content appear in the “Left zone” in a new block in the Fishing layout..

Go to the Fishing front page layout, the left zone, add a block.

For block type select “Poll” from drop down, then “Choose source” and find the newly created poll in the content structure, select it, and send for publishing.

Add Poll to Zone

Final should look something like this.  3 panes, with two blocks in the upper left pane.

Fishing Front Page

Tag clouds are a great user interface enhancement for data that does not neatly fit in a tree structure.  Like for fishing reports regarding the Mississippi river for instance.

In a very likely scenario, for a fishing reports tree view, the user would most likely be forced to start at a particular state of interest, and jump state to state to state to glean all info for Mississippi river.  

In a tag cloud, users can see every Mississippi river report with one click on a tag.

a.  login to the admin interface (../ezflow_site_admin/)

b.  Design tab.

i.  ”Look and feel”, click that text

ii.  Click the “Edit” button for the ez-flow site

iii.  Edit <eZ Flow> [Template look], change the settings to suit, upload your logo. “Send for publishing” when finished.

2.  Change the background graphic.

../extension/ezflow/design/ezflow/images/page-bg.jpg

Notice that ezflow - the layout, is an extension to ezpublish.  From there go into the design folder which has layouts for “standard”, “admin”, “iphone” and “ezflow”. The ezflow folder holds most of the layout info for the standard ezflow view.  Including the page-bg.jpg.  Overwrite this file, with a file of the same name, to get the background you want.  Be sure to check your file size!  Try to keep it at or below the original, unless you are designing for fat pipes only.

3.  Change the site icon.

../design/standard/images/favicon.ico

upload your own favicon.ico file overwriting the existing file.

The change may not be immediately apparent due to caching.  Give it some time, or clear all your caches.

That will do it for now in the admin interface.  Log out, and go back to your site.  This time login as admin, but do not check the box to go the admin interface.  That allows edits in place on the site content.

1.  Change the front page news article.  Note that in the toolbar, you can download the entire article (open document format with open office, sweet), edit it, then replace, or you can edit in place.  Edit in place works better for me on my mac.

2.  Still editing direct on the site, change the movie using an .flv file from your local machine.  Load the movie screen, but do not start it running.  You will notice an edit icon in the top bar.  click, edit description, content, etc, note that a large flv file may exceed your max upload file size or execution time in php.ini.  Send for publishing when you like it.

Next question, what is the origin of the top menu items, and how to change them?

Jump back into the admin gui (../ezflow_site_admin/) by checking the box when prompted.

On the very first screen that loads, you see “Home” in the content structure on the left pane, then scroll down and notice that the “Sub items” of  this Home content correspond to the top level menu items.  Also notice that they are of certain “Types” Like Frontpage, Forum and Blog.  And finally note the edit icon to the far right.

1.  Edit “Conference” by clicking on the edit icon. You will likely be prompted to choose a language, just continue on thru and be greeted with a complete layout and structure of the “Conference” content.

2.  The content of the “Conference” sub-item/menu-item is laid out in detail.  Leave this admin gui window open and size it to fit the right half of your screen if you can.  Open another browser window on to the same site, ordinary user view, click on the “Conference” menu item, size this new browser window to fit on the left half of your screen.

eZ user and admin side by side

Examine generated content on the left, how it was generated on the right. There are lots of templates and blocks and sections and tweaking going on behind the scenes, but this gives you the high level overview of what it happening on your site.  Study this until you get it, because this is key to understanding the methodology.

3.  Try to always remember to “Discard draft” when you are just viewing, it saves you from dealing with a nasty little reminder that you are already editing the next time you come back to edit this page.  Or Send for Publishing if you like what you’ve done.

4.  Just for fun, create a new Sub item of Home, called New Gallery, make it of type Gallery, and Send this for publishing.  Reload the user version of the site, and notice a new main menu item called New Gallery.  Login as admin to edit content (don’t check the admin box). Drop down the type selector, select “Image” then click the + icon.  **Important** You need to tell ez.no what type of object you are creating, before you click to add an object.  Every object is of a certain pre-defined type.  You can define new types, but you can’t create an object without a type.  Get in the habit of noticing the type you are creating, before you click the plus sign!  Fill out the details and upload your image, respecting the size and execution time limits of your web hosting service if so restricted.

5.  Now when you click on this “New Gallery” menu item, your newly created image object pops in at the top.  Repeat for a couple more new image objects and voila, you’ve created a slideshow.

Probably the next thing you will want to do is plan the layout of your actual working site, and test how folder, subfolder, and objects within them can be made to interact.

A closing tip that can help you rapidly adjust the site and content.  From the admin gui (../ezflow_site_admin/) go to the “setup” tab.  Then sections->Standard and at the bottom will be a complete listing of all the objects that make up your site.  These can all be pulled up for editing from here.

Stay tuned for more as I get into banners, roles, time based publishing and archiving, and products.

MORE INFO..
Configuration settings, much more complete instructions.

ezpublish demo login is “editor” and “1234″ without the quotes.
ezpublish admin demo for same site login as “admin” and “1234″

This demo does not include the ez Flow extension with the fancy multimedia, and is based upon a slightly older version of ezPublish, but it gives a good idea of how the developers layout a complete site in the admin interface.

ez.no latest developments article, from July 2008, Peter Keung