| Folders
and Discussions
Folders
and Discussions
Outline View of Discussions
Ordering the Contents of a Folder
Resources
Folders
and Discussions
Folders
are containers, like those on your hard drive, which can contain
other folders and/or discussions, links
or chat rooms. Discussions are documents
where you can post messages. Discussions and folders both have
a "description" area at the top where you can put a
few paragraphs of text to explain what's below. When you create
a discussion or folder, you're asked for the title and a description.
The title is how the discussion or folder is identified in the
containing folder. The description goes at the top of the folder
or discussion just below the title. The description is also sometimes
called a "header" in the documentation.
To edit
the folder or discussion title or header, click Edit when
you're inside that folder or discussion.
To alter
the maximum size of a folder or discussion header, go to the Sysop
Control Panel.
To set
the maximum items you can list in a folder, go to Control
Panel > Customizing > Folders > Presentation.
If you put more than that in a folder, you'll get a button at
the bottom of the list to show the rest.
Folders
have a folder icon alongside their title in the containing folder:
 (topic.gif)
Discussions
have a discussion icon alongside their title in the containing
folder: 
(converse.gif)
Outline
View of Discussions
Discussions
can be viewed either as outline, showing just the title, author,
and time/date, or in their entirety. To see the outline view of
a discussion, click on the small triangle to the left of the discussion
icon: 
Or, click
on the Outline button in the small button bar above the
messages, when you're within the discussion. These views work
in both threaded and conversational
views.
To enable
the presence of the Outline button, you'll need to go to
the Control Panel > Customizing >
Discussions and look for the Outline setting in the Threaded
Messages area.
Ordering
the Contents of a Folder
You can
choose to display the contents of a folder several ways. You can
have newly-created material appear at the bottom of the list or
at the top of the list. Or you can have the most recently active
discussion appear at the top. Another option is to list the material
alphabetically. If none of these are what you need, you can use
sort sequence numbers to place items in exactly the order you
want.
In the
Control Panel > Customizing > Folder
> Presentation, you can make this choice on a site-wide
basis.
However,
if you want a particular folder to have a different order, you'll
need to use sort sequence to manually place them in the order
you want. Sort sequence is simply a number that determines where
on the page the item will appear. Higher-numbered items appear
further toward the top of the page. Lower-numbered items, including
those with negative numbers, go further down toward the bottom
of the page.
Folders,
discussions, links, and chat rooms are given a default sort sequence
when they're created. All objects with the same sort sequence
number are put in order according to the default setting you chose
in the Sysop Control Panel for folder items.
Folders
are created with a default sort sequence of 100000. Discussions,
links, and chat rooms are created with a default sort sequence
of 0. You can override this sort sequence in the Edit area for
each object to put them in the order you choose. (For folders,
go to Edit > Folder Appearance.)
For
example, this is how the following objects would be ordered on
the page, when the default appearance is to alphabetize
the items:
| Name |
Sort
Sequence Number |
|
Apples |
100000 |
|
Pears |
100000 |
|
Beans |
500 |
|
Peas |
500 |
|
Zucchini |
500 |
|
Beef |
0 |
|
Beef |
-100 |
|
Pork |
-200 |
You can
use this technique to alphabetize the contents of a folder when
the rest of your site isn't presented alphabetically. For example,
all items beginning with A would receive sort sequence numbers
in the 2600s, all items beginning with B would receive numbers
in the 2500s, etc.
Sort
sequence numbers can be negative or positive.
In Preferences,
users can override your default ordering and choose to view the
folders and discussions with one of the other ordering options.
If you want to make certain your material is always presented
in the order in which you choose, you'll need to use sort sequence
numbers to accomplish that.
Resources
Sysop
Docs
Web Crossing
FAQ:
Sysop
Control Panel
|
