LUMINIS TRAINING

Luminis is SIUE's online content management system that houses the SIUE departmental and instituational websites.

Contacts:

Curt Price (template developer) cprice@siue.edu  |  650-5500

Mark Dorris (system administrator) mdorris@siue.edu  |  650-5500

Offices:  Lovejoy Library, Academic Computing, Room 0005

Luminis URL:  http://www.siue.edu/luminis

Login:  Your e-id and password (the same as your email login)

(always make sure that ‘Site Studio’ is checked as your ‘Entry Point’.)

If a student needs access to Luminis, their supervisor needs to contact Mark Dorris and request a Special Account for Luminis.

Luminis Training Help Site:  http://www.siue.edu/lovejoylibrary/ftc/luminis/

Here you can view video tutorials on how to do numerous things within Luminis.  There are also helpful hints, tips and tricks, useful links, resources and tools to enhance your site.  And if you ever get an error message (and you will), there are explanations here on why you may get the error messages that you do.

 
Luminis Structure:

• Webview – All of your site files and folders are housed here.
• Documents (xml files) – Your site pages.  The extension of your site pages is .shtml.  But Luminis adds this on it’s own when it publishes.
• Folders – Your site is broken up into sections and these sections are defined by directories (folders).  Each section of your site will have at least a ‘pdf’ (where your pdf files get imported to), ‘img’ (where your images get imported to) and ‘components’ folders.  If you ever need any other folders added/renamed/deleted, contact us.
• Components – Your site is made up of components that fit together to form your website.  The left and/or right column navigational boxes and links, your site header, and the section header are all components and all except the site header can be edited by editing the proper component files in the component folder.  If you have trouble editing your navigational components, or want us to do it for you, let us know…it can be tricky.
• Layouts – Your site may have more than one layout.  Each layout has a different set of navigational links in the left or right hand column and a different section header.  Each section (directory) of your site may have its own layout.  And each page created in that section, should use the corresponding layout to that section, if there is one specific to that section.
• Global Links – Links in the header component that appear on every page on your site.  If you ever need your global links edited, contact us.

 
Working in Luminis:

• Creating new pages – Browse to the folder where you want to create the new page.  Click ‘New Document’ in the Folder Actions links (top right of page).
• Name, Title, Subject
• The name of your document should be in all lowercase using letters, numbers and underscores only…do not type in an extension.
• The title of your new documentMUST follow these guidelines:
  “Section Header – (first header text in the body)”
  example:  SIUE Nursing Profiles – John Doe
  The title of your document MUST be unique.
• The subject should be a brief (one sentence or so) description of the page.
• Effective Date (optional), Expiration Date (mandatory) – If you do not assign an expiration date, your page will expire by default in 90 days.
• Selecting a page layout (this determines what set of navigational links your new page will have).  Example:  If you are creating a new page in the ‘About Us’ section, you would choose the layout that corresponds with the ‘About Us’ section.  The layout will be named accordingly so it should be easy to tell which one you need to use.

• Adding / Editing Your Page Content -
• IMPORTANT!!!  Copying & pasting text…ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS ‘paste as plain text’ by going to ‘edit’ and ‘paste as plain text’).  If you start receiving errors and aren’t able to edit your documents and you have NOT been pasting as plain text, that is probably the reason.
• Creating hyperlinks (when linking to .pdf files, we recommend using: ‘New Window’) – Use the ‘insert hyperlink’ widget (chain link).
• Creating email links –Choose the chain link widget and in the URL field delete the ‘http://’ and insert the:  mailto:jdoe@siue.edu
• Break up your content by using headers – Be sure to break up your content by using the ‘heading 2’ and ‘heading 3’ styles.
• Cleaning Styles – If your styles aren’t displaying correctly, select the style you want from the styles pull down menu and then click the Clean Style widget (paintbrush).
• Creating Bookmarks (anchors) - Absolutely NO numbers! – Your link will be created with the ‘Insert Hyperlink’ feature (chain link widget) and will be preceded by a ‘#’ sign.  Example:  #link.  Which is inserted in the URL field (minus the http://)
  Your “jump to point” or “bookmark” will be created with the ‘Bookmark’ widget.  You must highlight something when creating both the link and bookmark.  The bookmark will be labeled with what was entered after the ‘#’ sign in the original link.  Example:  link.
• WYSIWYG & Source View Tabs – Located at the bottom of the editor, this is how you switch from the design view and the HTML source view.
• View – Preview mode within Luminis.
• File Properties - (grey ‘i’ icon) – Allows you to change the name, title, subject, effective date or expiration date of any document.  You can also see which layout was used to create that document.
• Adding Images – First you need to import the image(s) from your computer and get them into Luminis by browsing to the appropriate ‘img’ folder and using the ‘import’ link from the ‘Folder Actions’ links.
  After your image has been imported, edit the document in which you want to insert the image and click on the ‘insert image’ widget.  Browse to the image you just imported.  You must insert ALT Text, which is a very short description of the image.
• Adding a PDF – From within Luminis, browse to the appropriate PDF folder, choose the ‘import’ link from the Folder Actions links.  Select the PDF you want to import from your computer.  After you are done importing, select ‘edit’ next to the page where you want to add the link to the PDF and link to the PDF.
• Editing Navigation (components) – Browse to the appropriate ‘components’ folder and edit the appropriate component.  Similar to editing a normal page.  You may need to use the ‘Source View’, so if you need help, let us know.  This can be a tricky process.

• Publish To The Web –Clicking ‘Submit’and then ‘Submit’ again on the next page, will publish your page to the web server.   Publishing time can take anywhere from a few seconds to 15 minutes.
• WIP Version:  A way to view your site in an actual browser setting, without publishing to the web:  wipwww.siue.edu/(your site’s url) (viewable within a few seconds to 15 minutes from time of submit)

NOTE:  Checked out documents cannot be edited by anyone except the user who checked out the document.  The user who checked out the document, must check it back in before anyone else can edit it.  If your browser or computer crashes or if you shut down your browser while you have an editor window open, or if you navigate away from the open edit page, the document you had open will be “checked out” until you check it back in.
Also, always logout of Luminis when finished working.  To logout of Luminis, click the ‘Logout’ button at the top right of the browser.  Luminis will log you out automatically after a period of inactivity.  If this happens, any documents that were open at the time, need to be checked back in.