Authoring tools element
The authoring tool element is used to add authoring portlet functions to Web pages.
You can add the following authoring portlet functions to a Web page:
- Create a new content item.
- Perform inline editing of a content item displayed in a Web page.
- Delete the content item displayed in a Web page.
- Approve or reject the current content being previewed. These are only visible to approvers who open a draft content item from a URL sent by an email workflow action used in a workflow stage.
Authoring tools can be referenced within presentation templates, menu element designs and navigator element designs. When added to menus and navigators, the edit, delete and approve functions are applied to each item displayed in a menu or navigator.
Creating an authoring tool element
You can only use an authoring tool element by creating an authoring tool component. You cannot add an authoring tool element to authoring templates, sites, site areas or content items.
Use an authoring tool
When previewing content users with access to an authoring tool are able to execute various authoring portlet functions.Care should be taken when previewing content items that use a presentation template that includes an authoring tool. Some functions are active and ready to use while other functions may not work as normal.
The authoring tool will also be visible when viewing a published site.
Use an authoring tool on multiple servers
When using an authoring tool on more than one server, you use two-way syndication to keep each server being used to author content synchronized. This may lead to the occasional "save" conflict where an item updated on one server will be overwritten with changes to the same item on another server when syndication occurs.
User access to an authoring tool
The authoring tools available to users on a Web page are determined by:
- Whether a user has access to the authoring tool component.
- Which tools have been enabled in the authoring tool element.
- The user's level of access to the content item displayed in a Web page.
- Whether a user has access to the authoring portlet. It is recommended that users are assigned at least contributor access to each Web content library in a site to ensure they have access to the authoring portlet.
- You only grant "editor" access or above to users who need to edit the authoring tool.
- You only grant "user" access to users who also have access to the authoring server and who will be using the authoring tool.
- In most cases, users who only have access to the published site would not be granted access to an authoring tool as the tool is designed to be used as an authoring tool on an authoring server, not a published site.
- Use an authoring tools element
When creating an authoring tool element, you will need to define the layout of the authoring tool and any required actions, and select parameters for each action layout as required.- Authoring tools element design examples
You can format an authoring tool element's look and feel in different ways, including displaying authoring tools as text based links, or image based links.- Referencing an authoring tool
An authoring tool component can be referenced within presentation templates, menu element designs and navigator element designs. When added to menus and navigators, the edit and delete functions are applied to each item displayed in a menu or navigator.
Parent topic
Design elements
Related tasks
Creating components