Content Settings

At the bottom of every node form (when adding or editing a node), you will see a set of tabs for content settings:

Some content types may not display all of the tabs represented above, depending on how the content type is configured.

Menu settings

This tab is described in more detail under Edit the Menus (Navigation).

URL path settings

If you do not feel comfortable with URL paths and aliases, leave this tab alone. All content types are set to automatically create friendly URLs for your pages. Once you are comfortable with aliases, however, you can use this tab to customize the path of a particular page where desired.

Revision information

This tab is described in more detail under Using Revisions.

Comment settings

If it is possible for a content type to have Comments enabled, then you will see the Comment settings tab on the node form. The choices are simply Open (meaning that users can leave comments) or Closed (meaning that users cannot leave comments).

If a node starts with comments open and users leave comments on the node, then closing comments later will not remove the existing comments. Doing so will only prevent future comments from being added.

Authoring information

This tab is where two pieces of metadata about a node are stored: who wrote it, and when it was created.

Authored by is the field that stores who created the node. This field references existing users on the site. If you want a particular node to appear to be authored by someone other than the person who actually entered the node, you can enter a different username into this field.

Because content is always tied to a particular user through the Authored by data, it is important that users not be deleted from your site. If you no longer want a user to access the site, the user should be blocked, not deleted. This way, you maintain a record of the user's activity on the site, and do not orphan content that is linked to that user.

Some nodes, such as Articles (news/blog), display the author and post date in the default LibrarySite configuration. This can be customized for individual libraries.

Authored on is the field that identifies the date and time that a node was created.

If you choose to edit this field, you will want to pay careful attention to the field help text. The date and time stamp must follow a very specific format in order to be understood.

Some content is displayed on the site in reverse chronological order from when the content was created (such as the Library news, which always displays most recent content first). While you will rarely manipulate this particular field, you may find it useful to adjust the date stamp on a node if content is ever created out of actual desired order, or long after it should have been created.

Publishing options

The publishing options tab offers three useful settings for your nodes:

Published - this is the single most important setting available in all of your content settings. If a node is Published, then the public can see the node. If this box is not checked, then the node is Unpublished, and it can only be viewed by users who are authenticated with content editing priviliges on the site. This enables you to work on content before making it available on your site, or to temporarily remove content from public access.
Promoted to front page - this setting is not used in the default LibrarySite configuration, but can be employed through customizations. Its function will be determined by specific library needs. In a default Drupal installation, this setting determines whether or not a piece of content shows in the generic River of News content stream that typically exists on the front page of a blog-style site.
Sticky at top of lists - this setting can be used to override default sort order anywhere where content is listed (examples: listings of news items, events or resources). While content is usually sorted by whatever makes sense for the type of content (news lists in reverse chronological order with newest items first, events list in order of events with the next upcoming event first, resources list alphabetically), any content that is marked Sticky will display at the top of the list regardless of creation time, date or alphabetization.