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.

As you begin creating content, you'll find links can be added throughout your Stacks site as a way for people navigate around and to access content. While these areas will give you a lot of options and flexibility for navigation points, you also don't want to present too many options. Try to keep the navigation as simple as possible with as few clicks as possible for users to access information. 

Menus

Your Stacks site has two menu areas for users/patrons to use for navigating around your site, both of which will remain visible and accessible no matter the page or content the user goes to within your site. 

• The top menu is typically found at the very top of the page
  • This menu typically contains the Log In/Log Out links, language selection, My Account links, and a few other options
• The main menu is typically be found near the primary search bar in your header
  • This menu is typically used for main navigation to other pages and content you create for your site

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 function as a "drop-down" style.

Considerations

• Use the space wisely, try to keep the parent menu items to a maximum of 5-7 items
  • Depending on the header space, more than this may not fit, forcing the menu to collapse into the hamburger style menu where the users will need to click the icon that appears in the top right in order to see the menu items
• If using child links to display the menu as a drop-down, also try to limit the number of sub-menu items that will be displayed so users aren't overwhelmed with large lists
• The main navigation menu is best for links to pages or content that people expect to find at any time and should be easy to find consistently

Navigating from content added to your site

Some features, like callouts or sliders as example, are pieces of content you can create and add to your homepage (or any landing page) as a way to attract users to specific content they may want to access. 

Links can be added to these items, so when a user clicks one of the callout blocks or slide, they can be directed to other pages or content on your site. Unlike the menu, these items typically rely on images to attract the users attention to the content.  

Considerations

• 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. 

Which feature types to use

Stacks has a number of different core 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. 

Below is a very high-level description of how some of Stacks' core features can be used. Just note that additional examples and use cases for how to use this content can most certainly be made, so use this as an initial guide for helping you determine what content you might need to use.

• Bookings
  • If you have rooms/spaces available for people to reserve, this feature can be used list the spaces available and for booking the spaces
• Callouts
  • Are great visual elements that can contain up to 4 blocks per callout and are placed on landing pages. Each block within a callout can display its own title, image, description, and additional links. This could be a good navigation point to content that can be discovered, versus something that should always be accessible in the main navigation menu
• Collections
  • Allow you to add your own repository of content to Stacks. These could be large lists of content that include descriptions, links, and more. Collection items can be manually created or bulk uploaded
• Custom blocks
  • Custom blocks are probably the most versatile feature because they allow you to add virtually any content that you want to display on a landing page, including text, images, embedded videos, links, and more
• Database listings
  • This feature allows you to add a list of databases to your site. Content users could see here can include the database's logo, description, and links to the database
• Directory listings
  • If you want to display a staff directory, this is the most commonly used feature. This list can display images, name, contact details, and even hours someone works
• Easyforms
  • This feature allows you to build custom forms for interacting with your users. Whether it be a simple "Contact Us" type form, or more elaborate and detailed forms for gathering information from your users
• Events
  • The events feature is used to advertise upcoming events your organization runs or hosts. Events can be viewed by your users in either a list or calendar view, and you can enable registrations for events where space may be limited
• Feeds
  • Feeds allow you to pull in content from other sources to be displayed on your site. This could include news feeds or feeds from other sources
• Index pages
  • Index pages allow you to create your own pages that index content that users may need/want to access. These are great for creating lists similar to those that can be seen with the database or directory listings
• Landing pages
  • Landing pages are dynamic pages that can be configured to display different columns of content like callouts, custom blocks, or sliders as example. Your homepage is an example of a landing page, and there are no limits on how many you can create
• Locations
  • Whether you have just one location or multiple branches, this feature can be used to display the location, contact information, and hours of operation for your location(s)
• News articles
  • The news article feature allows you to add your own news to the site. Articles here can be as simple or detailed as you want
• Pages
  • The pages feature allows you to add a custom page to you site to display almost any kind of content; however, unlike landing pages these cannot be sectioned or have content like callouts or sliders added to them
• Research guides
  • Research guides are a great way to provide guided navigation to content users may want/need to see. Each research guide will have its own set of tabs, within each tab will be specific content for the user to read and interact with
• Reserves
  • Reserves are typically used by academic libraries to inform users of books and other resources that may be applicable for different courses offered
• Resource flows
  • This feature is a rotating carousel of books or other resources that you may want to highlight. This could be to highlight "Top Reads" or to advertise new books or resources that are now available
• Sliders
  • Sliders are another visual element used by many organizations. While these can contain descriptions, the images are the star of the show here. Sliders can be display as a large, banner style slide that displays 1 image at a time, or as a mini slider that can display 3 or 4 images at a time. Sliders can also be configured to auto-play to rotate between images or manual navigation between images

Pre-built Stacks pages

There are a number of pre-built Stacks pages that are already built and just waiting for you to start adding content. Various settings allow to you control how content will initially be displayed on these pages as well.   

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 are available with varying degrees of access for creating and editing content, if you don't need to provide full access to all users. Refer to the Creating User Accounts article for more information on adding other users and the role permission definitions. 

Filter vocabularies

Filter vocabularies are custom-built lists of values that your users/patrons can use to filter or group the content they are looking at. Once created and added to content, these filter options are quite often seen on some of the pre-built pages referenced above.

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 pages, giving them the option to filter the events. 

Note! There are no default values in these lists, they will need to be created first in order to select the appropriate value(s) on the content being created. 

It is not a requirement to create these lists in advance. Doing so before you start creating content can save you time and will eliminate the need to jump back and forth between creating new list values while 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.