For editors who are working in a large department site and who may also be responsible for editing a child site (e.g. Internal Medicine - Cardiovascular Medicine), keeping track of where components are can be tricky.
As you may have noticed, all of your content should be built in what we refer to as the Parent publication (e.g. “OBGYN – (1)”). The parent holds the content for all of the websites affiliated with that department. The reasons for content being created here are simple: content may be used or referenced in another site or content needs to be moved to another location or site altogether.
Figure 1 in the photo gallery shows the content folder for a child site within a parent publication. You might think of it as the DNA that the parent passes on to the child.
It is often helpful to organize your folders so that they match up with your current main (horizantal) navigation. Just remember that if you change the navigation elements (in your child site – see below) you will need to change these to match in order to keep everything in parallel). In addition, remember to name components in a way that will be easy to remember what they are and where they're being used.
Figure 2 shows the other panel in this view where you build the content components. It is important to build them here, and not in the child site, for the reasons listed above. It may seem that you could build them in your child site, but if you do so even by accident then maintenance on your site becomes exponentially more difficult.
When you build webpages, the content you will be using remains in parent content area BUT the pages themselves will be in your child site. Think of how a parent's DNA influences what the child will look like. Figure 3 shows an overview image of the root folder in a child site.
To put the components on a webpage(s), you will open up the page and you will see a list of any existing components if the page was previously created; if it is brand new, then the list will be empty. When you are ready to add components to a page, click the insert button in the lower left of the page (see Figure 4).
When you click “insert,” the new page opens (see Figure 4 again) and you will be in the “building blocks” section of the site. By default, it will open the component folders in the parent. Here you will select the components you want and arrange them on the page.
Note 1: The Insert box does NOT close when you click insert. It will stay open so you can add multiple components.
Note 2: You cannot insert components without first choosing a template.
Note 3: Always leave the default option of “Edit the Parent Item” selected (see Figure 5)!
Last but not least, if you need to edit specific components, the easiest way is to get to them is to open the page where the component appears. Open the page in question where you can view the list of components on that page (see previous image for placing components). Double click on a component to open up the dialogue and start making your edits.
Hopefully this helps clear up some of the common confusion about the parent-child relationship in Tridion as well as provide some useful tips for navigating in between the two. As always, please feel free to get in touch with Web Group Training & Support (ysm.editor@yale.edu or 203.737.7932).