Quick Links Portlet

NOTICE

This information no longer applies. It was decided to return to the old style Quick Links portlet. The information is retained below just in case.

On the Plone 5 version of the EDRN portal, the Quick Links portlet is not a static HTML artifact nor a custom add-on. This document describes how it works and how to update it.

Theory of Operation

Portlets are side-bar sources of information, status, and additional data provided on a portal. They can also be used to quickly access items that may be deeply nested within a portal without the need for search or navigating through folder and page structures. The Quick Links portlet on the MCL and EDRN sites serve this latter purpose.

However, rather than rely on fixed links in a portlet written using static HTML or a custom add-on that provides such links, we take advantage of three of Plone's features to automate the rendering and linkage of the Quick Links portlet:

• Tags (also known as "keywords"). Tags are essentially one-word categorizations that can be applied to any object in a portal. These correspond to the Dublin Core "subject" metadata element. We tag items we want to appear in the Quick Links portlet with the "quicklinks" keywrod.
• Collections (once known as "smart folders"). Collections use search criteria to create the appearance of a folder of items that match the criteria. Collections are dynamic in that as portal content is added, updated, or removed, the matched items update as needed. We create a collection called "Quick Links" in the portal whose sole search criteria is "tag matches quicklinks" and whose sort order is "sortable_title".
• Collection Portlets. Collection portlets are portlets whose contents are an existing Collection object in the portal. For Quick Links, we add a Collection Portlet to the top-level of the portal whose header is "Quick Links", and whose target collection is the Collection object described in the previous bullet.

This makes it trivial to maintain the portlet: all you have to do is add or remove the "quicklinks" tag to and from items you wish to appear.

Updating the Quick Links Portlet

To add an object to the Quick Links portlet:

1. Log in as a user with permissions to edit content on the site. Typically this is a user with the Site Manager role, but other roles may also have the edit permission.
2. Navigate to the item you wish to add or search for it.
3. Click "Edit" in the Plone toolbar.
4. Click the "Categorization" tab.
5. In the "tags" field, add the tag "quicklinks".
6. Click "Save".

To remove an object from the Quick Links portlet:

1. Log in as a user with permissions to edit content on the site. Typically this is a user with the Site Manager role, but other roles may also have the edit permission.
2. Navigate to the item you wish to remove or search for it.
3. Click "Edit" in the Plone toolbar.
4. Click the "Categorization" tab.
5. In the "tags" field, delete the tag "quicklinks".
6. Click "Save".