Author a New Community Site

Use the author instance to create a new community site

• sign in with administrator privileges
• from global navigation : Navigation, Communities, Sites

The Communities Sites console provides a wizard to guide one through the steps of creating a community site.  It is possible to move forward to the Next step or Back to the previous step before committing the site in the final step.

To get started creating a new community site :

• select the  Create button

On the Site Template step, enter a title, description, the name for the URL, and select a community site template, for example :

• Community Site Title : Getting Started Tutorial
• Community Site Description : A site for engaging with the community.
  
• Community Site Root : (leave blank for default root /content/sites)
  
• Community Site Base Language: (leave untouched for single language : English)
  
• Community Site Name : engage
  • double-check the name as it is not easily changed after the site is created
  • the initial URL will be displayed underneath the Community Site Name
  • for a valid URL, append a base language code + ".html"
    for example,  http://localhost:4502/content/sites/engage/en.html
• Template : pull down to choose Reference Site

Select Next

The Design step is presented in two sections for selecing the theme and branding banner :

Select the desired style to apply to the template.  When selected, the theme will be overlayed with a check mark.

(optional) Upload a banner image to display across the site pages.   The banner is pinned to the left edge of the browser, between the community site header and menu (navigation links).  The banner height is cropped to 120 pixels.  There is no resizing of the banner to fit the width of the browser and 120 pixel height.

Select Next.

On the Settings step, before selecting Next, notice there are seven sections providing access to configurations involving user management, tagging, moderation, group management, analytics, translation and enablement.

Visit the Getting Started with AEM Communities for Enablement tutorial to experience working with the enablement features.

Check all checkboxes for User Management

• to allow site visitors to self-register
• to allow site visitors to vew the site without signing in
• to allow members to send and receive messages from other community members
• to allow the use of Cpatcha to verify registration is by a person, not a robot
• to allow signing-in with Facebook instead of registering and creating a profile
• to allow signing-in with Twitter instead of registering and creating a profile

The tags which may be applied to community content are controlled by selecting AEM namespaces previously defined through the Tagging Console (such as the Tutorial namespace).

Finding namespaces is easy using type-ahead search.  For example,

• type 'tut'
• select Tutorial

The roles of community members are assigned with these settings.

For the purpose of getting started and experiencing the site signed in as a community moderator, identify a member as a community manager and moderator.  

Finding community members is easy using type-ahead search.  For example, 

• type "a"
• select Aaron McDonald

Accept the default global settings for moderating user generated content (UGC).

If Adobe Analytics is licensed and an Analytics cloud service and framework have been configured, then it is possible to enable Analytics and select the framework.

See Analytics Configuration for Communities Features.

The Translation settings specify the base language for the site as well as whether or not UGC may be translated and into which language, if so.

• check Allow Machine Translation
• leave default languages selected for translation by the default Machine Translation service
• leave default translation provider and config
• there's no need for a global store because there are no language copies
• select Translate entire page
• leave default persistence option

Leave empty when creating an engagement community.  

For a similar tutorial to quickly create an enablement community, see Getting Started with AEM Communities for Enablement.

Select Next.

Select Create.

When the process completes, the folder for the new site is displayed in the Communities - Sites console.

The created site should be managed from the Communities - Sites console, the same console from where new sites may be created.

After selecting the community site's folder to open it, hover over the site icon such that four action icons appear :

From left to right they are :

• Open Site
  select the pencil icon to open the community site in author edit mode, to add and/or configure page components
• Edit Site
  select the properties icon to open the community site for modification of properties, such as the title or to change the theme
• Publish Site
  select the world icon to publish the community site (to localhost:4503 by default)
• Export Site
  select the export icon to create a package of the community site that is both stored in package manager and downloaded.
  Note that UGC is not included in the site package.

After ensuring the publish server is running, select the world icon to publish the community site.

When the community site has been successfully published, a message briefly appears :

Along with the new community site, new user groups are created which have the appropriate permissions set for various administrative functions.  For details, visit User Groups for Community Sites.

For this new community site, given the site name "engage" in Step 1, the four new user groups may be seen from the Groups console (global navigation : Communities, Groups) in the touch-optimized UI :

• Community Engage Cpommunitymanagers
• Community Engage Groupadministrators
• Community Engage Members
• Community Engage Moderators
• Community Engage Privilegedmembers
• Community Engage Sitecontentmanager

Notice that Aaron McDonald is a member of

• Community Engage Cpommunitymanagers
• Community Engage Moderators
• Community Engage Members (indirectly as a member of Moderators group)

Once a site has been configured and pushed to publish, configure login mapping (Day CQ Login Selector Authentication Handler) on the publish instance.  The benefit is that when login credientials are not entered correctly, the authentication error will redisplay the community site's login page with an error message.

Add a Login Page Mapping as

• /content/sites/engage/en/signin:/content/sites/engage/en

When working with the publish site for demonstration purposes, it might be useful to change the default home page to the new site.

To do so requires using CRX|DE Lite to edit the resource mapping table on publish.

To get started

1. on publish, sign in with administrator privileges
2. browse to http://localhost:4503/crx/de
3. in the project browser, expand /etc/map
4. select the http node
   • select Create Node
     • Name localhost.4503
                  (do not use ':')
     • Type sling:Mapping
5. with newly created localhost.4503 node selected
   • add property
     • Name sling:match
     • Type String
     • Value localhost.4503/$
                  (must end with '$' char)
   • add property
     • Name sling:internalRedirect
     • Type String
     • Value /content/sites/engage/en.html
6. select Save All
7. (optional) delete the browsing history
8. browse to http://localhost:4503/
   • arrive at http://localhost:4503/content/sites/engage/en.html

If unable to save changes, be sure the node name is localhost.4503, with a 'dot' separator, and not localhost:4503 with a 'colon' separator, as localhost is not a valid namespace prefix.

The '$' at the end of the regular expression sling:match string is crucial, so that only exactly http://localhost:4503/ is mapped, else the redirect value is prepended to any path that might exist after the server:port in the URL.  Thus, when AEM tries to redirect to the login page, it fails.

After the site has been initially created, authors may use the Open Site icon to perform standard AEM authoring activities.

In addition, administrators may use the Edit Site icon to modify properties of the site, such as the title.

After any modification, remember to Save and re-Publish the site.