Carnegie Mellon University

CMU Web

A service provided by the University CMS Team

Tips & Tricks

Whether you are new to the CMS or have previous experience, there are always ways to boost efficiency. Here are some tips and tricks to make building your webpage efficient and effective.

Use Keyboard Shortcuts

When logged into the CMS, simply press ? to bring up a list of keyword shortcuts to make working in the CMS quicker and more efficient.

Keyboard shortcuts

Collapse Sections to Simplify the Interface

Sometimes your pages can get pretty complex. To make the edit interface easier to work in, collapse the areas you aren't working in by clicking on the section headings.

collapse-section.png

Bypass Draft Preview For a Quick Submit

During the save process, sometimes you want to quickly edit a page without having to preview your draft before you submit. Instead of clicking Preview Draft, click on the kabob menu then Submit.

quick-submit.jpg

Right-Click for Context Menu

Right-click on any asset in the asset tree or in the workspace to bring up a quick menu with a list of actions.

Context Menu

Visit the Live Version

You can visit the live (published) version of a page or file by clicking ••• More > Live in the Action Toolbar. A new browser tab will open with the live version in full display. If your site has not launched yet, you'll see the version on the staging server.

View the Live Link of a Page

See Responsiveness

CMS websites are responsive (i.e., mobile-friendly) so the presentation of a website will change depending on factors such as display size and device type. To see this in action, visit a site on your desktop and manually resize your browser to see how the layout changes.

A phone with resized version of the main CMU website.

Mix Up Your Social Media Image 

When creating a new page, you can use a different social media image than the default image specified in the Setup Block. For the Social Media Image field simply Choose File. Note: If Facebook isn't displaying the image, use Facebook's Debugger to clear their cache.

Add, Remove, Rearrange

While building and editing your pages, you'll be adding, removing and rearranging components to get page layout just right. Use the controls provided on section labels.

Controls to add, remove, and rearrange sections

From left to right:

  • (2/3) - Specifies what number item this is out of total number of items
  • Up (↑) - Move one position up
  • Down (↓) - Move one position down
  • Add (+) - Add a new item below current item
  • Remove (x) - Remove the item

Find on Page

When editing a page with a lot of content, it can be difficult to find the section you need to update. Use your browser's Find function to search for a specific word or phrase. Press Command+F (Mac) or Ctrl+F (Windows), then type a word or phrase to help you find the section you need.

Browser's find function

Star Assets

Star an asset from the Context Menu or the Action toolbar. Starred assets will appear in the Starred tab of the My Content widget in the Dashboard


My Content Widget - Starred Assets