Considerations Before Creating Content

When starting with Stacks, your site will initially include a default homepage and a few other pre-built pages, but you are essentially working from a blank slate at the beginning. Before diving into creating content, there are a few items worth considering to ensure you work as efficiently as possible. 

Some of these considerations include:

• How users will navigating your site
• Which Feature Types to Use
  • Pre-built Stacks pages
• Who will be creating this content
• Filter Vocabularies
• Site Labels

How users will navigate your site

Put yourself in your users/patrons shoes for a moment and think about how they will be navigating your site to find information. This can help you determine what core features you will use to create content, where within your site this information should reside, and what you'll need to add to navigation menus.

Links can be added in various areas throughout your Stacks site for people to click and navigate to other areas of your site or to access content. These links are typically added as a menu link or through some form of content that you have added to a page on your site. 

Menus

Your Stacks site has two menu areas as options for users/patrons to navigate to content on your site. 

The top menu - is typically found at the very top of the page; whereas, the main menu - is typically be found near the primary search bar in your header. The exact location of these menus will vary depending on the Theme or Header Layout selected. 

Either menu can be used independently or in conjunction with each other and can be configured to display links in a single-level row, or you can have Parent - Child links to display them in a "drop-down" format.

Content links

Features like callouts or sliders are just a couple of examples of core features that can be used to add content to your homepage and other landing pages. These provide an alternate way to navigate to content or other areas on your Stacks site by clicking the callout block or slide. Content added to these features can include both text and images that can be linked for users to click on. 

Consider

Ultimately, how you want your users/patrons to navigate your site is up to you; but, a general rule of thumb that is good to follow is:

• Either menu option will be visible across all Stacks pages; these are best for links to pages or content that people expect to find at any time and should be easy to find consistently
• Use links within features, like callouts or sliders, for content that is meant to be discovered. This might highlight things like events, promotions, new content, etc. 

Specific instructions on how to add links to menus and through different feature types is discussed in more detail on their respective user guide articles. 

Which feature types to use

Stacks has a number of different feature types that can be used to present content to your user/patrons. Knowing which feature to use can sometimes be difficult because 2 or 3 different features may be suitable for the content you want to display; really it boils down to what is best for you. 

The Stacks Site Examples article provides links to various sites that highlight different ways of building your Stacks site and the various features you could use. 

Keep in mind that in some instances you also don't have to "re-invent the wheel." There are a number of pre-built Stacks pages that are waiting for you to start adding content to. For example, Custom Blocks are a very versatile feature type that can be used for almost anything. While you can create lists within a custom block, if the list is of databases or a staff directory, consider that we have pages pre-built to display this information already.

Links to these pages can be added to your menu or through other feature types as discussed above. The table below lists the features that have a pre-built page, as well as the path that should be added to URL or link field for navigating to it, and a short description of the page.

Who will be creating this content

When it comes to content creation and management, keep in mind that the Administrator role has full access to your Stacks site, including system configuration settings that other users may not need access to. 

Other staff user roles may also be suitable for individuals that will be focused on creating and maintaining the content on your site. Refer to the Creating User Accounts article for more information on adding other users and the role permission definitions. 

Filter vocabularies

Some Stacks feature types include filter vocabulary fields which are custom-built lists of values that can your users/patrons can use to filter or group the content they are looking at. 

For example, when creating new events, you can use the Event Category, Event Topic, and/or Event Type filter vocabulary fields as a way to organize your events and make them easily filterable by your users/patrons.

Users/patrons will see these filter vocabulary options on the left side of the screen when viewing either the event calendar or list page, giving them the option to filter the events. This can be very beneficial if you advertise a large number of events on your Stacks site.

Its important to note that there are no default values in these lists and that they will need to be created in order to use. but it is not a requirement to create these lists in advance. 

With that being said, building these lists before you start creating the content that uses them can save you time as it will eliminate the need for you to jump back and forth to create/add new list values when you are in the process of creating the content that use them. 

Filter Vocabularies can be found with the following core features:

• Bookings Management (Rooms - Category, Type)
• Database Listings (Category)
• Directory Listings (Department, Type)
• Events (Event Category, Event Topic, Event Type)
• News Articles (News Article Topic, News Article Type)
• Research Guides (Type, Subject)
• Reserves (Course Term, Reserves Course)
• Index Pages (Index Entries - Category)
• RSS Feeds (Tags)
• Collections (up to 12 customizable labels/lists)

To add, edit, or delete filter vocabulary list values

1. From the Dashboard, click the System Configuration tile
2. Click the Filter Vocabularies tile
3. Click the feature type from the menu tabs on the left
4. Click the List Links button from the on the right to view existing list values
   1. To Add values
      1. Click the Add term button to begin adding new values to the list
      2. Click Save to clear the field to add a new term; OR
      3. Click Save and go to list when finished adding values
   2. To Edit values
      1. Click the Edit button on the row with the value to edit, then update the Name as needed
      2. Click Save
   3. To Delete values
      1. Click the drop-down arrow beside Edit, then click Delete

Site labels

Almost everything in Stacks can be renamed to ensure your site is using the terminology that your users/patrons would expect to see, this can include field names, labels, and even the placeholder text seen in search boxes. 

For example, directory listings have two filter vocabulary fields, Department and Type. Maybe "Type" is too generic of a term; you can re-name this field to a value of your choice that would be more recognizable for your users/patrons.

Like the filter vocabularies, changing site labels is not required in advance; however, knowing that you can make changes and how to make them can be very beneficial. 

To update site labels

1. From the Dashboard, click the System Configuration tile
2. Click the Site Labels tile
3. Click the Stacks area from the menu tabs on the left
   1. Click the options on the right side of the screen to expand the sections and see the labels
4. Click on a label and change the name as needed
5. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Submit to save your changes 

Important! Only the Administrator role has access to modify the site labels.