Layout of the eZ Publish Administration Interface

The Administration Interface is the advanced, back-end eZ Publish interface used to add and manage content and to perform many administration tasks, such as configuring user accounts. Everyday content creation and editing tasks can be performed via the the Administration Interface or the front-end Website Interface (which was introduced in the second article in this series). A good understanding of the main layout makes your work easier and more efficient.

This article is the fourth in a series focusing on concepts and features discussed in the newly released book eZ Publish Content Management Basics and is a short user guide describing the overall organization of the Administration Interface in general, and the Content structure tab in particular. We focus on navigation, the context-sensitive pop-up menu and the windows within the main area when the Content structure tab is selected.

This material is written for users who are unfamiliar with the interface and for content editors working with eZ Publish content through the back-end of their website. The intended audience has a basic knowledge of the object-oriented content model used in eZ Publish, including concepts such as content classes, content objects, attributes and datatypes. You should also understand how content objects are wrapped inside (or encapsulated) and structured using content nodes in a content node tree.

Administration Interface access requirements

The Administration Interface can, by default, only be accessed by users who are registered on the site and belong to the Editor or Administrator group. After logging in as an Editor, you can add and edit content. With an Administrator account, you can also add and modify user rights and other advanced settings.

Interactive features of the Administration Interface make use of JavaScript technology. This means that JavaScript must be installed and enabled in your web browser for such features to be available. JavaScript is a lightweight programming language that extends the functionality of XHTML. It is used in eZ Publish to create a more user-friendly environment, including the context-sensitive pop-up menu. The interface will still function correctly in non-JavaScript browsers, but will not be as feature-rich as intended.