4. Adding content

This chapter describes basics of article and category creation, and drafts usage.

• Creating a Category
  
• Creating an Article
  
• Using Drafts
  

You must have at least one category in the knowledge base to  create an article because article may exist only if it is assigned to a  category. If you're starting with an empty knowledge base, you need to create a  category first. Otherwise you can skip the next step and create an article right now.

Creating a Category

There are several ways create a new category. The easiest way  is this:

• Go to Article > Articles & Categories  page and click "Add Category" on the left pane toolbar.
  
  Give it a name and hit Enter or click on the green Apply button.
  
  
  

Note that the category will be created as a child to the currently selected category. You can select a category by single clicking on it - selected category has blue background. 

It is the fastest way to create a category, because you are  not asked for anything else except category name. Use this method in future if  you need to quickly create several categories.

We got our first category created; now we can add an article  to the knowledge base.

Creating an Article

There are several equivalent ways to start creating a new  article. You can:

• Click the "Article" button on the  "Add New" pane on the back-end home page.
  
  
  
• Select Articles > Add an Article in the main  menu.
  
  
  
• Go to Article > Articles & Categories  page and click "Add New Article" on the grid toolbar.
  
  

When you do this, the article creation window opens.

The main screen of the article creation window is comprehensible and intuitive. To finish creation of the article you need to  give it a title and assign it to a category.

Take a look the buttons toolbar. There are several buttons on it.

Also notice the Make Featured button below.

Click it to make your article "featured". Next  click will remove this status. Use it to promote articles and show them on the  top of various lists in the front-end: featured article is shown on the top of  the articles list when you're viewing a category contents and in the category  tree. Featured status overrides articles sorting.

Also there is Featured Articles list on the main front-end  page, which shows the most popular featured articles. Use it for the most  valued articles like "Beginner's Guide" or top news.

Article body with WYSIWYG toolbar is shown below. You can  type there, copy-paste text from a text editor or web page, and use WYSIWYG  buttons to change text look and feel, alignment, colors, insert images, links,  tables, and videos, and also edit html source.

The article creation window has several tabs that allow you  do change advanced settings, custom field values, versions, etc. We will talk  about them later during discussion of article edit function.

Using Drafts

It was mentioned previously that there is Save Draft button  on the tool bar or article create/edit window. It saves current article title,  body, attached documents, and all preferences to drafts. Also, if you haven't  saved your article and try to close the article edit window, it will ask you  what must be done with your changes and you can save them to a draft.

• Exit Without Saving - discard  changes and keep the latest saved article version.
• Save Article - save changes to the  article.
• Save Draft - save changes as your  personal draft.
• Cancel - cancel article closing  attempt and return to article editing.

Click "Save Draft". Then go to Articles > My  Drafts. You will see your draft in the list. You can see on the next screenshot  that there are two types of drafts: draft of a new article, and draft of an  existing article.

They have different icons here, if you hover your mouse over  an icon, you will see the hint that explains the draft type:

•   Draft of an existing  article - either saved manually or by autosave (you can have only one draft per  article, if you save this draft, the old draft gets rewritten)
•  Draft of a new  article - (you can have as many drafts of new articles as you want)

You can continue editing a draft from here by clicking  "Resume". You will also be advised about existing drafts when you  will try to create an article or edit an article for which you have a draft  version saved.

There are several options:

• View difference - compare the draft with the current article (this option won't be shown if  you're creating a new article)
• View - open a window where you can view the draft contents (this option won't be shown if you're editing an existing article).
• Resume - load the draft to the current article edit window, so you can continue to  edit it.
• Dismiss  this message - hide this info message (only this time).

If you're creating a new article, and there are several  drafts available, you will see a slightly different message.

• View my  drafts - go to Articles > My Drafts (closes the current article edit  window).
• Dismiss  this message - hide this info message (only this time).

Also draft of the article you're currently editing is being  saved automatically at certain intervals (by default it is 30 seconds, but this can be changed by administrator at Administration > General Settings >  General).

We will learn how to edit articles and change advanced article properties in the next chapter.