This article introduces the presentation side of FORGE.

Topics covered here:

• FORGE Presentation
• Page: Organization and structure
• Page: URL parameters and link rules
• Page: Variables and permissions
• Editorial workflow

FORGE Presentation

FORGE Presentation covers organizing content inside digital channels (browser, app, etc).

Producers are responsible for FORGE Presentation, with pages being the key concept.

Page: Organization and structure

Asset 

Assets are the page's building block, there are three types available:

• Template: It structures pages in terms of slots like header, footer, and body:
  
  Templates contain slots that contain layouts and modules:
  

  

   

• Layout: It structures a page by splitting it out into a series of columns. Grid layouts ensure added modules align with the design of the digital product:
  
  Layouts contain slots that contain layouts and modules:
  
• Module: It connects the page with content. Each module is specialized per content type (e.g., stories or photo albums) and describes what content and how must be shown in the front end.
  For example, the Story module shows a story with a specific slug and describes how it appears in the front-end:
  
  Based on the position of the module inside the page's template and layouts, producers design where the story with that slug must appear on the page.

Microcopy

The FORGE Vocabulary Tool is the app that helps producers to manage all the small pieces of text across pages. We call these small pieces of text terms. 

When we say small pieces of text, we don’t mean editorial content. We’re talking about microcopy like 'Follow us on social media' or short headers like 'Latest News' as the following example shows:

Producers can use the FORGE Vocabulary Tool to do the following: 

1. Manage, edit and update terms 
2. Translate terms into multiple languages 
3. Use a Comma-Separated Values (CSV) file to upload a list of terms in one go – this will save you lots of time! 

Folder

Producers need to group together the many pages they design to make it efficient to navigate them for maintenance and evolution. Folders meet this need. 

Page: URL parameters and link rules

URL Parameters

A page can be dynamic: where the page is the basis for multiple URLs and is the layout for many different versions of the page. You can always tell whether a page is dynamic because it has the word {slug} in its title.

The following examples show how two different URLs can have the same page layout as they use the same template: ~/news-centre/stories/murray-wins-wimbledon and ~/news-centre/stories/djokovic-wins-wimbledon.

Link rules

Link rules are the mechanism used to navigate to the detail page of an editorial entity in a list.

Producers craft journeys visitors enjoy exploring by publishing lists of editorial entitles, such as stories, photos, etc.

The FORGE Presentation Manager provides producers with a flexible definition mechanism of navigating from an editorial entity in a list, to the relevant detail page. The mechanism used is a link rule, which preserves the front-end visitors' journey, even if producers move the detail page from one folder to another.

Let's learn how it works.

Let's assume that page P contains module M (for example, the module that renders an editorial selection of a list of stories), showing a list with entity E (for example, a story).

The FORGE Presentation Manager determines the destination and detail page D of the entity E by checking whether page D exists for which the following statements are true:

1. D contains at least a link rule.
2. D contains the link rule L that matches the E properties.
3. A link rule L is defined by entity type, priority, and conditions. The matching between the link rule L and E is based on the correspondence of the E entity type and conditions on URL parameters value; if more than a link rule matches entity E, the link rule with higher priority is selected. 

If D exists, its URL may contain some URL parameters to resolve by using the parameters value of E. Once resolved the URL parameters, that's the URL of the destination page D of entity E.

Example

Let's assume that entity E is a story (entity type = story) with slug my-story.

Then, let's assume that

• a page D1 exists with URL ~news-centre/stories/{slug} and the following link rule:
  • Entity type = Story
  • Priority = 0
  • Conditions:
    • slug = my-story
• a page D2 exists with URL ~news-centre/old-stories/{slug} and the following link rule:
  • Entity type = Story
  • Priority = 1
  • Conditions:
    • slug = my-story

Eventually, page D2 is selected to show story E because it matches all conditions and has the highest priority.

Page: Variables and permissions

Variables

It's a reusable piece of data that can be applied to folders or individual pages to change what is shown to the user on the front end. 

An example is allowing the producer to set the 'header/footer' variable, which will show up on the desired pages.

Variables come in three types:

• Key Value: These are the most used variables which can be edited, including header and footer. A Key Value item is a couple key/value.
• Data Item: Allows web producers to reuse FORGE entities, for example a news story which they want to show up on a selection of web pages.
• List Item: Allows web producers to display a list of entities on a selection of web pages.

Each variable has a scope controlling on which pages the variable is then shown after being set:

• Inherited: An inherited variable is applied to every page inside a specified folder.
• Local: A local variable is only usable on the current page and does not carry to other pages.
• Overwritten: An overwritten variable allows web producers to change the value of an inherited variable only for the current page. Overwritten variables can be restored to return to an inherited value.

Permissions

Administrators define permissions and assign them to producers to organize their job by making visible for them only what they need.

Editorial workflow

Producers manage pages through a set of statuses that describe their availability to be delivered to the front end:

• Not published: The page is not visible on the front end.
• Published: The page is visible on the front end.

Next

Visit The Presentation Manager basics the page to further explore FORGE as a Presentation Manager.