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Working with Block Assets

Cascade CMS Block Asset IconXHTML Block Assets feed content to Page Assets. The Block itself does not publish, but the page[s] to which it feeds the updated content will need to be re-published in order to synchronize your content updates with your published site.

Updating Existing Blocks | Discussion About Blocks |

Updating Existing Blocks

To update XHTML Block content:
You will need to find the Block, edit it, then publish the pages using it. And it's also a good idea to check on the live site once everything is published.

FINDING AN EXISTING BLOCK, IN USE

  1. Go to the Page asset which displays or uses the Block's content and open the Edit panel.
  2. Look at the page's Block Choosers (will vary by layout). Below each active Block Chooser will be the System Path to the Block feeding content to the Page.
    chooser-path.png

  3. Note the path[s] to allow you find in the asset tree the Block holding the content which needs to be updated.

GO TO and EDIT THE RELEVANT BLOCK[S] AS NEEDED.

  • Cascade will immediately feed the updated content to the Page Asset[s] using it.

FIND AND PUBLISH THE PAGES USING THE BLOCK.

  • Look at the Block Asset's RELATIONSHIPS.
    Go to: More >> Relationships to see a linked list of the Page Assets which use the Block's content.
  • Use the Relationships links to visit these pages and assure that they are publish-ready;
THEN
  • Either publish page-by-page as needed;
    or, IF all are publish-ready, you may use the Relationships dialog to publish all at once.

CHECK THE LIVE PAGES WHEN PUBLISHING IS COMPLETE

  • To check the Publishing Queue, go to the stack-menu in the Cascade menu bar and choose "Publish Queue"
  • If checking page-by-page, you can get to the live page quickly by using the More menu command:
  • Go to: More >> Live

Discussion About Block Assets

In Cascade CMS, XHTML Blocks can be considered to be a kind of portable WYSIWYG Editor. Anywhere in a Cascade editing interface where you see a Block Chooser, then content can be fed into that page asset from a Block asset. 

Block Choosers often feed the content into a specific area of a page with a specific CSS style environment already set up and in place to receive it and display it in some expected way (e.g. specifically-styled <h4> tags for Contact Blocks). 

Many of the Blocks which may be available to you from the Add Content menu have already been set up for specific purposes; so, when Choosing a Block or creating a Block please keep in mind the context of the Block Chooser itself.

Generally, an XHTML Block consists of a WYSIWYG editor and possibly some built-in Metadata fields such as Display Name or Title, etc. Remember that every WYSIWYG editor in Cascade has its own embedded HTML/plain-text editor; so, any code which is appropriate for introduction into the HTML <body> element can be introduced using an XHTML Block asset's embedded HTML Editor. For information about how to protect code from Cascade's syntax checker, see the Hannon Hill site's Code Sections information.

There are other kinds of Blocks which editors are less likely to need, or encounter, such as:

  • Indexing Blocks, which pull metadata from other assets, and which might be used to support some types of page content displays, such as News Article Listings pages. 
  • Text Blocks, for ordinary plain text.
  • XML or Feed types, which may be represented by some of the pre-set Blocks from the Add Content menu, and which are used for specific purposes, such as an RSS feed.

Which Blocks editors might find under their Add Content menus are determined by the available site resources, and by User permissions. More information about how Cascade CMS uses Block assets can also be found on the Hannon Hill site.