Adding content to an edition
On this page
On this page we'll walk you through adding content directly to an edition.
Adding content to editions
When you open an edition you'll now see two tabs: slots and content. From the slots tab you can add slots by dragging slots to the slots window and adding content to these slots. To add content directly to the edition, click the content tab.
If no content has been added to an edition, the empty state screen is shown and from here you can click "Add some content" to choose some content to add to the edition.
The content browser is shown and you add any of your content from the Content Library, including hierarchies. In this example we want to add the "Site map" hierarchy to add some new pages to our site, so we'll choose this content and click the "+" icon.
Adding hierarchies
When you add a hierarchy node to an edition, you'll be asked if you want to add all the descendents as well. This is because a hierarchy is a collection of content items organized into a tree structure. In most cases we want to add all the items in the tree and in this example we're updating the entire site map to add some pages, so we'll click "Node and descendents" to add the whole tree.
The entire hierarchy has now been added to the edition, as shown in the image below.
When you click on a hierarchy item that's been added to an edition, the properties panel is shown on the right. In the "Snapshot contains" section the number of items in the hierarchy is displayed- in this case 3 items.
Adding other content
To add some more content click "Add content" and choose the content to add from the content browser.
We'll add a few more content items to the "October promo edition" including a blog.
When you add content to an edition a content snapshot will be created. A snapshot represents the content item exactly as it appears at the point it was added to the edition. This ensures that the content that is published on the edition start date is exactly the version of the content that you added to the edition.
In the example shown below there are 3 content snapshots.
When you click on a snapshot, the properties window on the right will show more information about the content item from which it was created and you can click the content item link to open the content item in the Content Library.
When you've added all your content, directly to the edition or in slots, click "Schedule" to schedule the edition to go live on the edition start date. Your content will be published on the start date and available in your website or app. See scheduling an edition to follow that step.
Saving a snapshot to an edition from the content form
If you want to ensure that a specific version of a content item is available to add to an edition you can save a snapshot of this content to an edition from the content form in the production view. This will create a snapshot of the content item at the point it was saved and make it available via the snapshot tab of the content browser. There may be multiple snapshots of the same content item available to the planner and they can choose which version to add to the edition.
To save a snapshot to an edition, open a content item in the Content Library and choose "Save snapshot to edition" from the Save menu. In the example shown below, we're saving a blog post to an edition called "Autumn sale promo edition".
Now in the edition when we add some content and click the "Snapshots" tab in the content browser, any snapshots that have been saved to the selected edition (in this case the "Autumn sale promo edition") will be shown. We can select the blog and add it to the edition.
The blog is now added to the edition alongside our other content.
See the saving content to an edition page for more details of how to save a snapshot from the content form.
Note that saving a snapshot to an edition is not supported for hierarchies, although you can save a snapshot of a single content item that is part of a hierarchy. You can add a hierarchy to an edition from the Content Library, as explained in the section below.
Adding a hierarchy to an edition from the Content Library
You can also add a hierarchy to an edition directly from the Content Library. With the hierarchy open, right click on the node you want to add and choose "Add to edition". In the example shown below we're adding the root of the hierarchy.
From the dialog choose the edition to which you want to add the hierarchy. You can choose whether to add the selected node or all its descendents. In this example we want to add all its descendents as well.
The hierarchy will be added directly to the edition.
Concepts: what are content snapshots?
Snapshots
When you add content to an edition what you are actually adding is a "snapshot" of this content. A snapshot is a representation of a content item exactly as it appears at the point when it was added to the edition. By creating snapshots, Dynamic Content allows planners to be certain that the content, including any linked items, or hierarchies, they schedule is exactly the version of the content that will appear when the edition goes live.
If the content item is subsequently updated and the planner wants to use the latest version, they will need to add the updated content item in the edition.