EduCommons tips

EduCommons tips

General tips

 * If a filename has an underscore, eduCommons will change the short name (i.e. URL) to a dash
 * Embed YouTube videos
 * Create a custom CSS or javascript
 * Open.Michigan images to match

RSS

 * list of RSS feeds: http://open.umich.edu/education/courses-resources/@@rss_feeds
 * individual high-level RSS feeds


 * http://open.umich.edu/education/courselist/rss (from the front-page)
 * http://open.umich.edu/education/rss (from the RSS feeds page - Courses in all departments)
 * http://open.umich.edu/education/courses-sequences/rss (from the RSS feeds page - the upper left RSS icon)

Breadcrumbs
To toggle view of the breadcrumbs for the entire site:


 * 1) go to ../@@manage-viewlets
 * 2) find leftskin.contenttop (viewlet manager)
 * 3) find plone.path_bar and toggle the hide/show link.

To turn breadcrumbs off for the front page:


 * 1) go to our homemade .js file (show_hide_effects.js -&gt; ../portal_skins/custom/manage_main)
 * 2) add the line: $("#portal-breadcrumbs").hide;

To move breadcrumbs or login information around on the pages (aka - move the leftskin.contenttop viewlet):


 * 1) go to main_template (../portal_skins/custom/manage_main)
 * 2) find and move the "portal-content-top" div to where you want it to appear

To adjust the display of the breadcrumbs:


 * 1) go to portal_view_customizations (../portal_view_customizations/registrations.html)
 * 2) click on the "Contents" tab
 * 3) find zope.interface.interface-plone.path_bar and delete it
 * 4) go back to the registrations tab
 * 5) find "plone.path_bar (Products.leftskin.browser.interfaces.IContentTop)" and click on it
 * 6) click on "customize" and make your adjustments
 * 7) save this and go look at the pages to make sure it took effect. sometimes I've had to delete the plone.path_bar instance in the contents tab, refresh a Plone page, then go do the customization.

Alternatively, one might be able to hide the breadcrumbs, personal-tools, or entire content-top through the CSS file: UMcustom.css at: ../portal_skins/custom/Umanage_main -- the viewlet strategy is the best, however.

Changes to educommons dev (out-dated)
See migration plan in GoogleDocs for full list: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dcswsnv_118f2djbdhf (publicly viewable; editable by only a few). This is our migration plan for customizing the default installation of educommons to the Open.Michigan style currently at http://michigan.educommons.net. It assumes very little prior knowledge of educommons. Although the Open.Michigan content and style files are stored behind password protected sites (e.g. E-T CTools site -&gt; Resources -&gt; educommons style and migration; our educommons installations), these instructions may be useful for others seeking to customize their educommons instances.

The list below is contained in the migration plan. These are direct links to the files we changed on our educommons test instance.


 * 1) adjust the HTML filtering - add, remove stripped tags
 * 2) View the custom CSS file(s)
 * 3) Customize searchbox (in header) on eduCommons dev
 * 4) Customize eduCommons footer on eduCommons dev
 * 5) Customize plone footer on eduCommons dev (Commented out for now - it's been combined with the educommons header)
 * 6) Customize "home" link in Top Tabs on eduCommons dev (this now points to https://open.umich.edu/education - the default setting for the URL (Expression) is string:${globals_view/navigationRootUrl})
 * 7) Customize the main template (used this to add the dScribe image/link below the leftnav)
 * 8) Customize "home" link in breadcrumb path (see plone.path_bar default Products.leftskin.browser.interfaces.IContentTop)
 * 9) second breadcrumb
 * 10) Customize the number of items displayed in the Thumbnail view of a folder (changed from the default of 12 to 50)
 * 11) Change the document actions for each page of the site (RSS, presentation, send to email, bookmarklets, etc.) - turn visibility on and off
 * 12) Added custom div around main content table (portal-columns) (with CSS centered content with fixed size)
 * 13) Moved globalnav to center instead of left align. This frees up a bit more space to the left between the logo and the left nav.
 * 14) Added div around header
 * 15) edit left nav