Basic Editing

This page covers editing on a Standard Content Page. Other page types, including directory pages and news stories, have slightly different fields and are covered in their respective help pages. The same principles apply.

In order to edit a page in Cascade, you must first select the page, then click "Edit" in the upper right portion of the main window.

The Content Block

The vast amount of work you do in Cascade takes place in a content block. When you open up a page for editing, you will need to scroll down to get to the content block. You'll know you've found the content block when you see the buttons of the WYSIWYG editor:

The WYSIWYG editor. "WYSIWYG" stands for "what you see is what you get" and is pronounced "wizzy-wig."

Editing content in Cascade is a lot like using a word processor. You can see the typical bold, italics, and bullets buttons. There are a few non-standard things you should know about:

	Click the button on the far right of the second row of the editor when you want to edit full screen. It's nice to break out of the little content box sometimes.
	Important: Paste as text The Paste as text button is located in the Edit dropdown. When you take content from a Word document or the body of an email, that content often contains hidden computer code. Cascade will not allow you to submit your edits when this code is present. Here's what you need to do: COPY the content you want to put into Cascade (ctrl+c works well for this) Go to Cascade. Click the PASTE AS TEXT button. This will give you a blue box in your content window telling you that you're in paste in plain text mode. You can close that window. PASTE the content (ctrl+v works) ADJUST the formatting and add in any links. Pasting as plain text removes the original content formatting.
	The button that looks kind of like a couple of links in a chain is your insert link button. Details on adding links.
	The formats dropdown is where you can find additional ways to spruce up your content. There are two types of formats used most often: Headings - Use headings to break up long blocks of text so people can more easily scan it. We usually use Heading 5. Custom - Custom blocks allow you to place images on a page or spruce up tables. To apply a custom format, select the image, text, or table you're working with, then click on the formats dropdown.
	The insert image button is to the left of the edit full screen button. When inserting images, remember Only use internal images. The image description becomes your caption. Resize your images outside of Cascade. Select the style to place your image on the page.

Beyond the Content Block

The fields above and below the Content Block are also important to a page's look and function. The following two images match the fields in Cascade that control the different elements of a page. Click to see a larger image.

Above the Content Block

Title: The Title field controls the title of the page - the bit at the top that shows up in large green text.

Summary: Text in the summary field shows up on search engine results. It does not show up on the page itself.

Show Right Column?: Check this box if you want right-column items included on your page. Don't check it if you don't - otherwise you'll have an empty white space on the right, which looks awkward.

Show parent on the menu?: Most pages except your department's main page should have the parent on the menu. This helps folks navigate between the layers of a site.

Show siblings on the menu?: Most pages except your department's main page should have siblings on the menu. This helps people navigate between the content that is on the same level as the page they are viewing.

Below the Content Block

The items that appear below the Content Block control which right column items show up on your page. In Arts & Sciences, we primarily use two: Widgets and Listboxes.

If you think someone will share this page out on social media, you might want to point to a Thumbnail Image that can appear out on the other sites. Few of our content pages are shared on social media - typically, it's the news stories that are shared - so we rarely use this field.

Related Links are very rarely used anymore. If you want a right-column box to list links, it's better to use a Custom Listbox.

Quick Tips

Turn on Paste as Plain Text before you paste content. Use CTRL+C/CTRL+V to copy/paste in Cascade (This works outside of Cascade, too!)
Use internal links wherever possible. Remember that in Cascade you cannot link to a folder but must link to an asset within that folder.
Don't link directly to the Course Catalog (catalog.wm.edu). The URLs to Catalog pages change every year, and direct links become outdated. Link to the redirects in the /as/undergraduate/undergrad-catalog/ or /as/graduate/graduate-catalog/ folder instead. Kathy updates those links when the new Catalog comes out.
Only use images that have been uploaded to Cascade (internal images).
Use Shift+Enter for a line break. (Just clicking on Enter will give you a paragraph break - line breaks don't have the space between text - this tip also works outside of Cascade.)

Helpful Links

Here are some links to Web & Design's help pages on these and related topics.