The Basics

What is Groupy?

Groupy is a content management system that allows groups within an organization to share content on the web. Groupy provides a unique tool for organizing diverse content types (Text, Files, Images, Media, Events, etc...) in an easy to use rich editing environment. GroupyCMS also provides a development platform that allows a great number web applications to be created.

Core Concepts

Content

Content is anything that a user can create on a web site. It can be a simple piece of HTML, an image, a calender event, multimedia, really it could be anything (for list of content included in Groupy see Content Types). Each piece of content is viewable in its own URL. All content in Groupy has certain common fields like a title and description. Every time you save a piece of content, a new version of that content is created which must be published before becoming visible. You can always revert to previous versions of content if you make a mistake.

Groups

All content in Groupy is divided into folders called Groups. Any piece of content can appear in one or more group. Groups exist in a hierarchy (tree) so that groups can have sub-groups. Each group has the ability to control how content inside the group looks. There are different 'Group Templates' which restrict the types of content you can add to the group, as well as make it easier to display the content in that group.

Modules

Modules are programmed pieces of HTML. They can display pieces of content, have forms and, display items from an RSS feed, really just about anything. They have an option form that can control various aspects of what they do. The difference between a module and content is that in order to create a new module you have to know how to program in PHP.

Content Views

Content Views are a way of displaying a piece of content. They are somewhat like a module but always display exactly one piece of content. It can be the entire content, a link, or something in-between. Different types of content have different views available. Any time you see a piece of content you are seeing it through a view. Most views have options that control exactly what you see.

Roles

Roles determine who can do what on your website. Users can be part of several roles. Roles grant the ability to do certain things to all content, or to particular pieces of your web site.

The Groupy Interface

As soon as you log in to Groupy, the first thing you will notice is a bar with icons that appears at the top of the screen. This is called the action bar. Below the action bar you will see your website.

There are two basic parts to the action bar. On the left, everything is context specific, and on the right there are non-context (system wide) tools and actions. At the top left, there are breadcrumbs that let you know where in your site you are, and allow you to navigate within the hierarchy of groups in your site. Below the breadcrumbs there are actions that you can perform on the content or group you are currently viewing. What you are currently doing is highlighted in this area. On the top right, there are administrative-type tools (if you have the proper permissions), and below those are actions that are non context specific. Examples include viewing the trash, viewing all unpublished content, viewing unapproved comments, editing your user profile, and logging out.

Moving your mouse over everything in the action bar will give you a short description of what that item is and does. Throughout Groupy many things (form inputs, check boxes etc...) have descriptions that will appear when you mouse over the item. This is the first way you can to learn more about a particular action or option.