Focusing Attention on the Action Form
For 'Action Editions' (or any other multi-field form), the best practice is generally to remove all but the primary navigation and links so the user is focused on completing and submitting the form. The primary navigation for most sites is top and bottom navigation while the secondary navigation is generally contained in the page column(s).
A typical Plone site consists of three columns of content: left, middle (content area) and right plus top and bottom navigation. These left and right columns - or 'slots' - can contain one or more content boxes or 'portlets' such as a navigation tree, calendar, news listings, etc. Slots and portlets are Plone elements (not eCampaigning Tool). Modifying the Plone slots and portlets is a normal Plone operation that can be used with any Plone content.
If you wish to leave the slots and portlets as they are you don't need to read any further. If you wish to add or remove specific portlets to the slots, you should consult the Plone documentation.
Removing Portlets from Plone Slots
| Concept: | Plone (and Zope on which Plone is built) operates on a principle of acquisition. this means if you have a URL like mysite.org/actnow/actions/editions, then making a change to a slot, portlet (or other element) at the level of 'actnow' then it will only affect everything to the right of it but not to the left of it. So mysite.org will be unaffected (since it is to the left) as will mysite.org/news/ (since it isn't in the same hierarchy). |
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Based with the knowledge of acquisition, to remove the portlets from the action slots:
- Identify the level at which you wish to apply the change. If you structure your actions as /mysite.org/actnow/actions/editions/ then you can change it in one place for all 'Action Editions': at the /actions/ level.
- Go to the Zope Management Interface (ZMI) for the level you want to make the change at. For the example above this would be mysite.org/actnow/actions/manage (putting /manage at after the URL level you wish to change)
- Select the 'properties' tab from the top row of the right frame
- Go to the field under 'To add a new property...' and:
- To remove the right column (slot) enter 'right_slots' as the name, select 'lines' as the type and press 'Add'
- To remove the left column (slot) enter 'left_slots' as the name, select 'lines' as the type and press 'Add'
- One or both of these fields should now be listed but be empty. If you test your 'Action Editions' now, the left, right or both columns (slots) should have disappeared.
Changing the Default View
The default 'view' of an 'Action Edition' (the view you get when you have a URL with '/' after the 'Action Edition' path) currently shows the Overview Page: the number of actions completed and information about the configuration of the 'Action Edition'.
You may wish to make the 'Action Page' the default view. To do this:
- Go to the Plone site ZMI and navigate to:
- /portal_types/Action Edition
- Press the 'Actions' tab at the top of the right frame
- Go to the 'View' action and change the 'URL (Expression)' value from 'string:${object_url}/eaction_edition_view' to 'string:${object_url}/takeaction'
- Save
- Done (now test it works)
| Note: | the issue with this is that you now will have trouble navigating to the action edition setting itself. This is in the Issue Tracker to resolve. |
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