Working with documents and pages

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To work with documents and pages, use the Pages application.

The Pages application

Before you start working with documents and pages in Kentico, you may want to know that there is a difference between the two.

All the items in the content tree are in fact documents. However, there is a special type of documents called pages . This means that even files and documents that you upload to the content tree are documents.

Pages in Kentico

Pages are displayed as menu items (by default) and they display content — usually unstructured content in the form of editable regions, that you edit on the  Page  tab.

Documents in Kentico

Documents (also referred to as structured documents) contain structured and typed data that can be displayed on pages. You can edit document data on the Form tab.

A typical use for structured documents is when you need to display lists of items, such as news, products and others.

You can perform various document-related tasks from dedicated applications, namely:

  • Checked-out Items - manage checked-out documents.
  • My documents -view and edit documents that you created in one place.
  • Outdated documents - view documents based on how long they have been in the system.
  • Pages - work with the site’s documents in a hierarchical structure.
  • Pending documents -work with documents that are waiting for your approval.
  • Recent documents - view and edit documents that you recently modified.
  • Recycle bin - restore deleted documents or remove them from the system permanently.

What is a workflow?

Workflow is a sequence of steps that define the life cycle of documents. This ensures the quality of content and design by setting up a reviewing and approval process. In such a process, individual roles and users can work with documents in certain steps of their life cycle (such as Edit, Published, Archived, …).

An example of a simple workflow process is a website that publishes scientific articles. An author writes an article and sends it for approval to an editor. The editor makes corrections and submits the article to the head of the respective department. The head then publishes the document, thus making it publicly available to read on the website.

Learn how you can work with workflows.

Available view modes

When working with and previewing content in the Pages application, there are three view modes that you can make use of:

  • Edit - the default view mode in which you can editdocuments and pages. Usually on the Page tab or Form tab.

  • Preview - displays the latest version of the document or page. This means that it displays even documents and pages that are not yet published.

  • Listing - shows a list of all documents and pages under the currently selected document or page. Use this to perform multiple (batch) document operations, such as deleting multiple documents at once.

    Available view modes

You can also view documents directly on the Live site. Use the the application list to access Live site.

The following points summarize the difference between Live site and the Preview view mode:

  • Live site and Preview display the same content when a document is published and no further changes have been made to it since it was published.
  • The Preview mode does not use caching, so it may display published changes that are not visible on Live site yet due to caching.
  • If a document does not use workflow and its Publish from property is set to a future date and time, then Live site does not display any content, while the Preview mode displays the content that will be published after the specified date and time.
  • If a document uses workflow and has not yet reached the Published step, then Live site doesn’t display any content, while the Preview mode displays the content created in the current workflow step.
  • If a document uses workflow, is already in the Published workflow step and its workflow cycle has been restarted (i.e. it was switched from the Published/Archived workflow step back to the Edit step and is going through the workflow cycle again), then Live site displays the last published version, while the Preview mode displays content from the current workflow step.

Document status icons

Document status icons indicate the current state of the document. You can see document status icons next to documents in the content tree.

In the following table, you can see what each of the document status icons indicates.

Icon

Description

This icon indicates that the document is currently published on the live site by means of configuration of the Publish from and Publish to properties on the document’s Form tab. If the document is under workflow, it also needs to be in the Published workflow step for this icon to appear next to it.

This icon indicates that the document is not published on the live site.

When a document is not under a workflow, the icon indicates that the Publish to property is set to a past date and time.

Under a workflow, the icon indicates that the document has not yet been published, i.e. that it has no previously published version.

This icon appears next to documents that are scheduled to be published in the future.

Without workflow, this happens when the Publish from value on their Form tab is set to a future date and time.

Under workflow, the same applies, while a document must not have a previously published version (if it has a previously published version, the  icon is displayed instead).

These two icons appear next to documents under workflow that already have a published version and another version is scheduled to be published. This happens when the new version already is in the Published workflow step and the Publish from value on its Form tab is scheduled to some future date and time. In other words, no other work is to be done on document and the system is only waiting for the Publish from value on the Formtab before it publishes the document.

This icon appears next to documents under workflow that already have a published version and a new version of the document is being created, but is not published yet. In other words, the icon is displayed next to documents that already have a previously published version, and are in any workflow step before the Published step.

This icon appears next to documents that are archived. Archived documents are no longer visible on the live site, but are still present in the content tree and can be restored when needed. You can archive a document by clicking the Archive button on the Properties -> Workflow tab.

This icon indicates that the document is currently checked-out. That means that it is being edited by another user. You can’t edit a document while it is checked out, you have to wait until the user finishes editing and checks the document back in. See Content locking for more details.

This icon appears next to documents that are not available in the currently edited culture.

This icon appears next to documents that have been submitted to a Translation service and are waiting for the translation to be completed.

This icon is displayed next to linked documents. Linked documents only represent a link pointing to another document in the content tree. See the Creating linked documents topic for more details.

This icon appears next to documents that have a redirection configured in Properties -> Navigation -> URL redirection.

This icon is displayed next to documents (of any type) that contain a wireframe definition. It is not added to dedicated wireframing documents of the CMS.Wireframe type, which can already be identified by their main document type icon. See the Wireframing chapter to learn more.

Displayed next to documents that are currently being A/B tested.