Background
Nearly all content in this site is stored in an SQL database rather than in static HTML pages. So there is no "page" per se - when a page is requested the system sends text and markup pulled from the database and rendered in a stream that is interpreted as a page by the browser. Editing tools on the site enable logged-in users to make changes to content without knowing HTML.
Synopsis
Each page has four content areas, the Top Pane plus three lower areas: Left Pane, Content Pane and Right Pane. If you have page editing rights you will see a control at the top that lets you drop "Modules" into the page and change their location, visibility and permission sets.
If you have Module edit rights for a page - and if you are logged in - you will see a little triangle in the upper left corner of the editable modules. Hovering your cursor over this triangle will open a drop-down menu which has choices specific to the module type (image, text-html, feedback, events, etc.).
Edit Text: The menu is a little quirky when you hover the cursor - if you see text in a box outlined in red you can make changes there also, then click the floppy disk icon to save. Otherwise, the Text Editor window should open - this is the preferred method.
Rich Text vs. Text vs. Html editing modes
For modules that have text-html editing capability, selecting the option "Edit Text" opens a built-in text editor that has two modes: a Rich Text editor (Word type) and a Basic Text Box. In the Basic Text Box you can choose between Text and Html.
The Rich Text Editor will be the most familiar to non-geeks, while website owners will probably favor the flexibility of the Html modes.
Rich Text Editor: Areas of text can be selected and formatted in bold, italic, color, etc. Selecting font sizes is not recommended because different browsers react differently to different font tags. So your readers may see something different from what you see on your screen. CSS rules are implemented elsewhere in the site to control basic styles.
Basic Text Box: The difference between the Text and Html options is that the Text mode will produce paragraph spacing as you see it on your screen. However, within the Text mode you can still use regular Html tags. So if you combine heading and paragraph tags with white space while in Text mode you will see extra wide spacing between paragraphs. Html is more flexible - you may want to write it with your accustomed text editor and then paste it into the box. If you save your work and then reopen the box, you will see the white spacing has been removed, so except for small edits you should copy and paste from your own text editor. If the spacing is suddenly too wide you are probably back in text mode; you can remove this simply by re-checking the html radio button. I haven't figured out what the difference is between Html and Raw Html.
Preview Changes: Click the "Preview" link at the bottom to see your changes before they are applied.
Saving Changes
You must click the "Update" link at the bottom of the module or page for your changes to take effect. Click "Cancel" to exit without saving changes.
Important
If you're copying and pasting make sure you exclude the "body" tag and the "html" tag. Otherwise strange page effects will occur because these tags should only appear once in a page and they are already embedded at a more basic level.
Page Caching
Page caching is used to speed page loading; it eliminates calls to the database when information on the page has not changed. The cache is updated as soon as a post-back to update the page has occurred. However, your browser may also be caching the page, so if the page does not change after you update it, you may be able to see the change by pressing "control" on your keyboard when you hit "refresh".
Testing Areas On This Site
Any user who has editing rights can practice module editing in the "Test" pages under the Home menu tab. These pages were recently removed from the main menu in order to avoid clutter, but if you want to practice the webmaster will make them visible to you. This allows for experimentation without affecting existing pages.
Architecture and Help
This site is built using DotNetNuke, which is open source programming on top of a Microsoft .Net platform. Each module has a menu choice called "Online Help" which will open a specific help page on the DotNetNuke site in a new window. (The menu choice called simply "Help" is inactive and will show just a blank page.)
Technical
This website's DTD is set to XHTML 1.0 Transitional to accommodate its CSS skins while permitting deprecated (but not obsolete) HTML elements.