View System Documentation - Content Management Overview

This section of the documentation describes how to maintain the various types of content/files that a typical site content manager/"power user" would be responsible for. There are three basic types of content presented to the user by the IBIS-PH View System:

  • HTML_CONTENT XML files

    These are XML files that contain HTML content used to build general web pages. This includes the Welcome page, overview/introduction type pages, contents and usage pages, help pages, and other site meta data type pages. Since these pages display a wide variety of different content a simple XML file mechanism is used which contains the main HTML body elements embedded within an XML element (see HTML_CONTENT XML for more info on how to maintain this type of content).

  • Indicator Profile XML files

    Indicator Profile data are stored within the IBIS-PH View System as XML files. However, these XML files are not maintained by hand - They are created and maintained by the IBIS-PH Data Administration system. As such the content is maintained and published with the interface provided by that application and is not documented here.

  • Custom Dataset Query Control XML files

    The actual query result data is generated programatically and is not part of the content to be managed as part of this application. However, the XML files that control that query's filtering criteria, display options, parameters to be submitted to the backend IBIS-Q application is part of the content that a content manager needs to maintain. Much of the content contained within this section of the documentation pertains to maintaining these Query Module XML files.

Since ALL of the content is stored within XML, an understanding of XML is needed. It is also recommended that the "ibis:include" be understood as this mechanism can help modularize XML files. Following those general XML related pages are the content which would typically need to be maintained. This includes mostly query module related content but there is also a few less standard XML files that are used for the PHOM report pages and the publications index. The last section of this page describes the basic skills and tools needed to maintain the content.

Content Management Categories


Basic Skills for Content Managers

  • Know the XML content. This includes the structure of the file, what elements are valid, what content is valid, where the content is used, and what that content does. See the IBIS-PH View System's Model Documentation for more detailed information about the XML files and their elements.
  • Know agency's publishing guidelines
  • How to keep content consistent
  • Know how to use an XML capable text editor
  • Understand the "ibis:include" and relative paths

Advanced Skills

Content managers that maintain static content need to be able to:
  • Understand internet URLs
  • Understand internet site application file directory paths and addressing
  • Understand HTML, CSS, and possibly Javascript
  • Understand the "ibis:" prefixed HTML element URL addressing

Tools

  • XML editor. It is recommended to use a validating XML editor but even a simple text editor like MS-Windows Notepad can be used. Some highly rated commercial products include XMLSpy and StylusStudio with numerous others like Microsoft's Visual Studio, Dreamweaver, Homesite, all providing support for XML files. Free/open source tools include Notepad++ with an XML plugin like XMLBuddy, Eclipse, and many others.
  • Applicable repository tools (if any)

IBIS-PH Community of Practice, Utah Department of Health, Salt Lake City, UT 84114-2101, Telephone: 801-538-9191, Fax: 801-538-9346
The information provided above is from the Utah Department of Health's Center for Health Data IBIS-PH web site (http://ibis.health.utah.gov). The information published on this website may be reproduced without permission. Please use the following citation: "Retrieved Sat, 07 November 2009 13:29:46 from Utah Department of Health, Center for Health Data, Indicator-Based Information System for Public Health Web site: http://ibis.health.utah.gov".

Content updated: Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:17:17 MDT