When you create a new article, you need to put it into a category. You can imagine that like putting an article into a folder to group them by themes.
An article can be part of multiple categories but it has only one Main category. When you create an article, the first category you select will be the Main category. After saving the article for the first time, you will have the possibility to put the article in more categories and also change the main category to another. These changes are done with the little icons in the list of categories of the article.
The format is the way you want to type in the content of the article. You can provide directly HTML content. This is complex, but it provides a lot of flexibility. You can also provide the content in an alternative syntax, the so called Wiki syntax. The Wiki syntax is a simplified but powerfull way to provide the content of your articles. It is recommended to always use the Wiki syntax if you do not have special needs.
The description and then each page of an article can have its own format. That way you can for example use the Wiki syntax for everything but one page where you need to include some complex HTML code.
The status of an article defines for example if the article can be seen by the visitors on the website. Depending on your rights you can set the article as:
Note: Even if you are administrator you cannot put an article on-line without at least one page. It means that you must save first the article with the In edition status, add a page, and then you can put it online.
The status of the comments defines if the ressource should accept comments by the visitors on the website or not. Depending on your rights you can set this status to:
This should be self explanatory. The title of the article will be displayed on all the pages. But with a special title you can order the articles within a category.
You may want to have a specific order in which you want your articles to be displayed on the website. For example you have the three articles with the titles Taxonomy overview, The mammals and The fishes in one category Taxonomy. If you want to have them displayed in this order on the website, just give them the following titles: 1. Taxonomy overview, 2. The mammals and 3. The fishes.
The numbers X. at the start, will be used to order the articles in the category. You can then configure your category to display or not the number at the start.
The description of the article is used to describe the article when listed in a category or in the search page. The is also the description which is used in the RSS feed. The description is written in the format you have selected. A good description should give the reader interest to read further. If you are using the Wiki syntax for the format of the description it is easy to put emphasis on the keywords.
The description is also used in the search engine, the words of the description have more importance for the score than the words in the pages of the article.
The keywords are a list of comma delimited words. For example you can put: Monotremata, Tachyglossidae, Kollikodontidae, Platanistoidae, river dolphins. The keywords can be composed of 2 words like river dolphins.
The keywords are of course used in the internal search engine, but also in the article page to give more details about the page for the global search engines like Google.
The path of the article is a critical information. As it will be part of the information shown in the address bar of the web browser of your visitors. It must be short, easy to remember and type in. For example if your article is in the category About with the category path being /about/ and you create an article with the path presentation, your visitors will access it through the web address http://yourwebsite.com/about/presentation.
In the case of an article with multiple pages, each pages are accessible with the path plus the number of the page. For example for the page 3 of the article you can access it at the web address http://yourwebsite.com/about/presentation3.
You will see that by default when you type the title the path is updated. It will most likely be too long but it is a good start to then get the right one. Keep a maximum of 3 words separated with the hyphen or minus sign (-). For example you can put:
Think also that those words are like the most important keywords for the search engines.
The publication date is the date and time at which the article start to be available on the website. If you give a date and time in the future, you can publish an article while you are away.
The expiration date is the date and time at which the article stop to be available on the website. You can use this date to create for example a page for a limited time for a special event. It is recommended not to abuse of it, as visitors through search engines like not to fall on pages that are not here anymore.
When editing a page within an article, you can change its position with respect to the other pages. For example if the page is in position 4, you can then put it in position 2. The other pages will see their position changed to reflect the move of the page from position 4 to 2.
When creating a new page, the default choice is to put the page at the end of the article.
Each page of an article, even if the article contains only one page, must have a title. You can consider pages as chapters of the article, so each chapter need a title.
The page content is the main purpose of your article. Depending of your choice you can use HTML or the Wiki syntax to enter the content. Do not forget to read carefully what you are writing being visualizing the content before saving it. The quality of your writing will make visitors coming again for the information, but also for the pleasure to read a well written text.
Your does not need to be boring, you can insert images and create links to references on the web.