Configure content metadata

Actor: Site Manager

Content objects in the CMF support rich metadata. The CMF supports the Dublic Core metadata standard, and instances of all of the builtin CMF content types are associated with Dublin Core metadata. Content objects provide Web forms that allow content creators to enter and maintain metadata for their content.

As a site manager, the CMF also gives some metadata configuration options to make the use of metadata more effective for your site.

To change the metadata policies for the content types used on your site, visit the Zope management interface of the CMF Site object that represents your site. From the Contents view of the site object, click on the portal_metadata tool to navigate the Metadata Tool.

Now you should be looking at the Overview tab of the Metadata Tool. This page provides a basic description of the tool. To view the current metadata policies for your content types, click the Elements tab.

This will bring up the metadata policies form. The top row of the form (labeled Element), is a set of hyperlinks for each metadata element that is available to be configured. This list includes Description, Format, Language, Rights, Subject and Title on a normal CMF site. This top row allows you to select which metadata element you are configuring. The metadata element that is not a hyperlink is the one that you are currently working on. To work on a different metadata element, click on the name of that element.

When you first visit the metadata policies form, the first metadata element in the top row (Description) will be selected. The rest of the form is divided into sections. The sections represent the current settings for the selected metadata element for different content types in the system.

If you have never changed the settings for a metadata element, you will see two sections. In the first section, the name of the content type is <default>, which means this setting will apply to all content types for which you have not defined explicit settings for the currently selected metadata element. At the bottom of the form, the last section (headed "") allows you to add settings for a specific content type.

To add settings for a content type, select the content type that your settings will apply to from the Content Type dropdown list. The rest of the fields in each section allow you to actually set the policy for the selected metadata element:

• Required -- This determines whether content creators are required to supply a value for the selected metadata element. Check the box to require a value.
• Default -- The default value to be used for the metadata element.
• Supply Default -- This option determines whether the edit forms for content should pre-fill the form field for the metadata element with the defined default value.
• Vocabulary -- The vocabulary option allows you to restrict the possible values for a metadata element to a set of predefined options. If a vocabulary is defined for a metadata element, the content edit forms will show a drop-down box with the defined vocabulary items rather than allow free text entry. To supply the vocabulary for a metadata element, enter the possible values to be displayed to content authors (one per line) in the textbox provided.
• Enforce Vocabulary - This option determines whether the allowed value for the metadata element is restricted to those that are defined in the vocabulary.

Once you have finished choosing the settings, click the Add button to save your settings for that content type.

You may also edit the settings that you have already defined for content types. Make the changes in the sections for each content type you want to change and click the Update button to save these changes.