SpryPanel Documentation -> 2.1. Understanding SpryPanel Content
SpryPanel Documentation | 2.1. Understanding SpryPanel Content
Content
and content management are the areas where SpryPanel excels, since it
is after all a content management system. There are three basic
categories of content in a standard SpryPanel installation (additional
content categories can be added through the use of plugins - but please
refer the the plug-in's documentation to find out how to use them). The
three types are:
1. Standard content - used for single occurrences of content on a page.
2. List content - used for repeated content formatting.
3. Global content - used for content that is the same across the whole site.
2. List content - used for repeated content formatting.
3. Global content - used for content that is the same across the whole site.
List content is used where you do require a list of items that are similar. For example you might have a page which contains news items. You need a title, a date and information about the news on each occurrence of the list content. The figure opposite shows an example of a page which uses both standard and list content on the same page, which you can do with no problems in SpryPanel.
Global content is used when you wish to use the same piece of content on all pages of your web-site (hence the name global) - note you don't have to use it on all page if you don't want to... You would normally want to use this for something like a site's name or a catch phrase.
Once you know what type of content you want SpryPanel to control on your page you need to think about how the content is made up, and split it into elements. Taking the above example of a news page, you have three content elements; title, date and information. These can all be edited independently in SpryPanel, and can be included into your design where ever you want.
SpryPanel controlled content is included on your site through a very short and simple PHP variable. Don't worry if you don't know anything about PHP, you don't need to, SpryPanel's 'server side file' page will tell you all you need to know about how to include the content on your web-page in this manner. All that happens is that where ever you wish to put the SpryPanel controlled content on your site, you print out the PHP variable that corresponds to the content you wish to print out. This is how SpryPanel remains design independent, because you can put the content where ever you like on your page. Chapter three of this documentation has detailed information about how to integrate SpryPanel controlled content with your web-site.
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