Advanced topics

This chapter deals with further aspects, which are interesting for working with FirstSpirit.

The following topics are elucidated:

• Assignment of permissions FirstSpirit: Which permissions and roles does FirstSpirit provide? How can they be assigned or withdrawn? etc.
• Generation: Creating and delivering content in FirstSpirit is based on the “pre-generation” principle. Wherever possible, the content is not first produced on the live system at the time of the user query (live rendering), but is instead already on the FirstSpirit server (i.e. in a less time-sensitive offline mode) for what is called “Generation”.
• Server-side release: In addition to release via a workflow, all objects in FirstSpirit can be released server-side via the Access API. To do so, there are methods of defining the different release settings for an object. In this way, the specific release can be used to release additional objects dependent on the current object, such as the complete parent chain and child elements of the object to be released.
• Media galleries: Pictures can be displayed in a gallery view. This chapter describes the steps which are necessary for creating a media gallery.
• Exif data: This page describes how to store Exif data in the Media Store.
• External synchronization: The “External synchronization” of FirstSpirit allows you to export substructures from FirstSpirit (templates, store subtrees, etc.) to a file system structure with a folder hierarchy – in a format that is “legible to humans” and “can be interpreted by IDEs”. There (that is, outside of FirstSpirit), the exported files can be edited and then resynchronized with FirstSpirit. This enables the user to synchronize changes in the file system with changes in the FirstSpirit project using a process that is largely automatic.
• Content Highlighting and EasyEdit: Contents which are maintained in SiteArchitect or in ContentCreator can be highlighted. Thus, the editor will find easier and faster contents he is looking for. This chapter describes how to adopt page, section and table templates to use these functions.
• Remote access: FirstSpirit allows to access contents of another project from one project. This chapter lists amongst others the input components which can be configured for remote access.
• Document groups: Several independent pages can be grouped together to one unit by means of the “Document groups”. The hierarchical structure, which is defined in the Site Store for these pages, will be negated. This chapter shows possible applications and concrete application examples.
• Tracking changes: FirstSpirit provides an option for tracking changes via the FirstSpirit Access API. Access to the revision metadata is possible via certain API functions.