Basic Handling

Last update: April 17, 2024

Topics:
Authoring

CREATED FOR:

User

NOTE

This page is designed to give an overview of basic handling when using the Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) author environment. It uses the Sites console as a basis.
Some functionality is not available in all consoles and additional functionality is available in some consoles. Specific information about the individual consoles and their related functionality is covered in more detail on other pages.
Keyboard shortcuts are available throughout AEM. In particular when using consoles and editing pages.

The Welcome Screen

The classic UI provides a selection of consoles, using well-known mechanisms for navigating and initiating actions, including click, double-click, and context menus.

Following login, the Welcome screen is shown. It provides a list of links to consoles and services:

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Consoles

The main consoles are:

Console	Purpose
Welcome	Provides an overview and direct access (via links) to the main functionality of AEM.
Digital Assets	These consoles let you import and manage digital assets such as images, videos, documents, and audio files. These assets can then be used by any website running on the same AEM instance.
Launches	This helps you manage your launches; these enable you to develop the content for a future release of one or more activated web pages. Note: In the touch-enabled UI much of the same functionality is available in the Sites console, together with the References rail. If necessary, this console is available from the Tools console; select Operations, then Launches.
Inbox	Often, various people are involved in the subtasks of a workflow and each person must complete their step before handing off the work to the next person. The Inbox lets you see notifications related to such tasks. See Working with Workflows.
Tagging	The Tagging consoles let you administer tags. Tags are short names or phrases that you can use to classify and annotate pieces of content making it easier to find and organize them. For more information, see Using and Managing Tags.
Tools	The Tools consoles provide access to several specialized tools and consoles that help you administer your websites, digital assets, and other aspects of your content repository.
Users	These consoles let you manage access rights for users and groups. For full details, see User Administration and Security.
Websites	The Sites/Websites consoles let you create, view, and manage websites running on your AEM instance. Through these consoles you can create, copy, move and delete website pages, start workflows, and activate (publish) pages. You can also open a page for editing.
Workflows	A workflow is a defined series of steps that describes the process of completing some task. Often, several people are involved in a task and each person must complete their step before handing off the work to the next person. The Workflow console lets you build workflow models and managing running workflow instances. See Working with Workflows.

The Websites console provides two panes for you to navigate and manage your pages:

Left pane

This shows the tree structure of your websites and the pages within those websites.

It also shows information about other aspects or AEM, including projects, blueprints, and assets.
Right pane

This shows the pages (at the location selected in the left pane) and can be used to take action.

From here you can manage your pages using either the toolbar, a context menu or by opening a page for further actions.

NOTE

The basic handling is the same across all consoles. This section concentrates on the Websites console as it is the primary console used when authoring.

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Accessing Help

On various consoles (for example, Websites), a Help button is available. Clicking Help opens either Package Share or the documentation site.

When editing a page, the sidekick also has a button for accessing help.

Navigating with the Websites Console

The Websites console lists your pages of content in a tree structure (left-hand pane). For ease of navigation, sections of the tree structure can be expanded (+) or collapsed (-) as required:

Clicking the page name in the left pane does the following:
- Lists the child pages in the right pane
- Expands the structure in the left pane.
  
  For performance reasons, this action depends on the number of children nodes. With a standard installation, this method of expansion works when there are 30 or fewer child nodes.
Double-clicking the page name (left pane) expands the tree, though as the page is opened at the same time this effect is not so obvious.

NOTE

This default value ( 30) can be changed per console in your application-specific configurations of the siteadmin widget:

On the siteadmin node:

Set the value of the property:
treeAutoExpandMax
on:
/apps/wcm/core/content/siteadmin

Or globally in the theme:
Set the value of:
TREE_AUTOEXPAND_MAX
in:
/apps/cq/ui/widgets/themes/default/widgets/wcm/SiteAdmin.js

See SiteAdmin in the CQ Widget API for more details.

Page Information on the Websites Console

The right pane of the Websites console provides a list view with information about pages:

page-info

The following are available; a subset of these fields is shown as default:

Column	Description
Thumbnail	Shows a thumbnail for the page.
Title	The title that appears on the page
Name	The name AEM refers to the page
Published	Indicates whether the page has been published and provides the publication date and time.
Modified	Indicates whether the page has been modified and provides the modification date and time. To save any modification, you must activate the page.
Scene7 Publish	Indicates whether the page has been published to Scene7.
Status	Indicates the status of the page, such as whether the page is part of a workflow or livecopy, or whether a page is locked.
Impressions	Shows the activity on a page in number of hits.
Template	Indicates the template that a page is based on.
In Workflow	Indicates when the page is in a workflow.
Locked by	Shows when a page has been locked and the user account that has locked it.
Live Copy	Indicates when the page is part of a live copy.

NOTE

To select the columns visible, hover your mouse over a column title. A drop-down menu is shown, and from here you can use the Columns option.

The colors next to pages in the Published and Modified columns indicate publication status:

Column	Color	Description
Published	Green	Publication was successful. Content is published.
Published	Yellow	Publication is pending. Confirmation of publication has not yet been received by the system.
Published	Red	Publication failed. There is no connection with the publish instance. This can also mean that the content was deactivated.
Published	blank	This page has never been published.
Modified	Blue	Page has been modified since the last publication.
Modified	blank	This page has never been modified, or has not been modified since the last publication.

Context Menus

The classic UI uses well-known mechanisms for navigating and initiating actions, including click and double-click. Depending on the current situation, a range of context menus (opened with the right-mouse-button) are also available:

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