Designing and planning content

In the previous unit we discussed content requirements, focusing on the areas we’d need to consider when planning a site, such as content types, blocks, user requirements (both for the site visitor and the CMS user), user roles and permissions and content moderation workflow.

Content requirements usually affect the site structure and data models, including content types, fields, block types, taxonomies and media types. Considering our fictional example of the Jobs Portal, let’s assume these are the outcomes of the content planning:

1. Defined content types, fields and widgets

2. Defined content display and View Modes

3. Defined Media types, fields and media display

4. Defined taxonomy vocabularies

5. Defined user roles and permissions

6. Defined content moderation workflow(s)

Content types

GovCMS uses content types to create a variety of pages to meet different needs. For example, news pages look different to event pages. Content types also allow you to capture different information for various purposes. For example, an Event content type captures event date (or dates) and location(s), unlike any other content types.

GovCMS comes with many content types out-of-the-box (OOTB). In this section you’ll learn about structuring content and planning content types.

Steps to create a content type

New content types can be easily created in GovCMS. Follow these simple steps to create a new content type:

1. Plan the content type. Think about what you should call it, how it should be displayed and what fields you’ll need.

2. Create a content type

3. Configure default settings

4. Add custom fields

5. Configure form display and widgets

6. Manage display and view modes

7. Add taxonomy

8. Update permissions