The Document plug-in is a type of library manager, which is to say it
provides a specialized interface to managing content stored in an
ExSite library. The presumption is that the library contains
downloadable files that are not viewable directly in your browser, but
which must be downloaded first and then viewed with another
program. Common examples include:
- PDFs
- spreadsheets
- Word documents
- presentations
- ZIP files or other bundled files
- any other downloadable file
Note that an ExSite library is really just a folder that holds files,
and you can put any kind of file into the library. It is normal
to organize your site so that you use some libraries for images (see
((PhotoAlbum)) for example), some for multimedia (eg. Flash files),
some for documents, etc. This helps to keep things more
organized. However, you are not forced to organize things in any
particular way. You can create dozens of libraries with specific
types of contents, or just throw everything together into one big,
messy library.
The Document plug-in assumes that everything in a particular library is
a downloadable file, and will format the library contents in a way that
makes it easy to browse and download files of interest. It
includes some details on the type of file and the size, so that users
can tell if it is something they want to download at all.
By default, it will try to work with a library called "docs", and offer
to create this library for you if it is not found. However, it
will show other libraries that you have available in the sidebar, and
you can select any of these to work with if you prefer.
To display a library's contents for download, simply place the
Documents plug-in into a page, and select the library to display from
the choices it gives you.
Private Libraries and Documents
If you have a library containing documents that should not be available
to the general public, set the library access to "members only".
To prevent non-members from even seeing the list of downloadable
documents, place the library plug-in on a "members only" page as well.
Large Files
There are limits to the size of file that can be uploaded into the
CMS's revision handling system, which is what allows older revisions to
be archived. The actual limit varies from system to system, but
is typically a few megabytes. That may not seem like much, but
remember than on the web you want to keep file sizes as small as
possible because some users have slow connections and it is not polite
to make them wait a long time for data that could easily have been made
smaller.
If you decide that it is very important to exceed the file size limit
in some cases, you should use the ((Upload)) plug-in to force the large
file into the CMS. It will bypass the revision-handling system in
the CMS, and write the file directly to disk. You can then use
the Document plug-in to edit the description of the document.
Note that all large files handled in this way are publicly accessible.