Doc174: Navigating the Earth Skin

Title: Navigating the Earth Skin

The Earth skin, like most Traction skins, consists of five primary view types: the front page, the project news page, the single-entry, the multi-entry, and the search result views. This topic provides an introduction to each view type.

Front Page

The Front Page is a roll-up of information posted to all projects for which you have read permission. It is your typical launching point into Traction.

The Front Page Body

The body (center) of the page shows sections of the front page.

The Headlines and News sections expose the most recent articles from any project (which you can read) that are marked with the corresponding headline or news labels. These sections display the project which each article is published in, followed by title, first paragraph, and detail such as who posted it, on what date, the (#) permalink, and whether there are comments on the article.
All entries, including articles and comments, regardless of label, appear in the Recent Entries section.
In this example, there is also a custom section which we called Favorite Picks.

At the bottom of the page there is a Feedback link that will allow you to fill out and send us a form which will include your system information, a Contact Us link to send us an email, and a Help link which will return you to this guide.

Note: the person who has server setup permission can add sections, remove and change the default sections. So what you see may differ from the organization as presented in this help guide.

The Front Page Right Column

The right column shows the Locator, Sign In/Out button, Sidebar Entry, Tools, and RSS XML Link.

The locator in the upper right says you are on the Frontpage.

When you click into a project or article Consists of a Title, Text, Attachments and Labels, the locator expands. For example, if you are in the 63^rd article in the MarketResearch project, the locator will read:

frontpage > marketresearch > 63

See the example below, showing the locator in the upper right. Note that it matches the Traction ID, as presented under the title of the Article:

You can always click on the Front Page link in the bread crumb to return to the Front Page, or in this case you can also click the MarketResearch link in the locator in order to go to the MarketResearch Project Newspage.

The calendar tells you which timeslice is selected, indicates on which dates information in the current view has been posted, and allows you to navigate back and forth through time. Every character or word on the calendar is a link and will change your timeslice.

In the example below, you can see that the selected timeslice is Q4 of 2003. The locator says Front Page, and the Front Page is a roll-up of all content in all projects you can read, so you can infer that content has been published in all the bold months (Jan, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Sep, Nov, and Dec).

Clicking Nov will bring you to a Front Page view for the month of November. Notice now that the Calendar indicates content has been published on the 11th, 24th, 25th, and 26th (as these dates are shown in bold and blue). You can click Show Current Month to go to the current month, or you can navigate through months with the < and > links at the top of the calendar. To return to a view of all the months in 2003, click the 2003 link.

The Sidebar Entry is the area below the calendar which (in the example up above) is titled "Shortcuts". Your administrator may or may not have defaulted the Front Page and Project Newspages to show a sidebar entry. The Sidebar Entry is just an Article in Traction, but has been promoted to appear in this position.

The available Tools on the Front Page include Add New Article (button is on the grey bar at the top right) and Show Collector. The available tools will vary depending on your view. So, many more will appear in a single-entry or multi-entry view.

The RSS XML button is a for RSS Readers, telling them the URL link text to use to receive a syndicated feed from the selected view.

The Front Page Left Column

This column gives you access to the search feature and links to the list of projects you can read. At the bottom there are links to setup forms for My Account (Personal Setup), Project, and Server Setup.

The search box lets you type a search or a Introduction to the Rapid Selector Guide command. Rapid Selector is a command language that lets query and navigate to any view in Traction with just few keystrokes.

The front page section links reflect the sections on the body of the Front Page. In this case, they include Headlines, News, and Recent Entries. Your server administrator may have removed these or created new sections. Note that the sections in the body of the Front Page show the most recent entries for each section. When you click the link, you will see all entries for the selected time period... so if you click here you may see different content or no content at all.

The project list in the left column shows the active projects which you have permission to view. These can be clicked to arrive at the corresponding project newspage. The number to the right of some projects indicates how many articles or comments have been published in the currently selected timeslice.

Project Newspage

The Project Newspage allows you to drill down into activity solely relating to a specific project or topic. Like the Front Page, it has default sections for headlines and news, but it also includes sections for articles marked ToDo, Done, Notice, and Bulletin.

Note: The person who has project setup permission can add sections or remove and change these default sections.

In the example below, the Headlines, News, Recent Entries and Bulletin sections have content. You will notice that the Locator is updated to show your location and the Calendar may now show different dates in bold, to correspond to the content which has been posted to this specific project. Also, the list of projects on the left column of the Front Page is replaced by a list of labels belonging to this project.

While the contents of most sections will change depending on the time period you are focused on, the bulletin section is configured to show all of the articles labeled bulletin in the project. By using the bulletin label, you can insure that it will always appear on the corresponding project newspage.

Section Links and Label list

Section Links: The section links reflect the sections on the body of the Project Newspage. In this case, they include Headlines, News, Recent Entries, and Bulletins. Your server or project administrator may have removed these or created new sections. Note that the sections in the body of the Newspage show the most recent entries for each section. When you click the link, you will see all entries for the selected time period... so if you click here you may see different content or no content at all.

Label List: The list of projects you saw on the Front Page is replaced, in the Project Newspage, with a list of labels that have activity in the selected timeslice.

In this example, This means that the label headline, for example, has been applied to 2 articles which were posted in the Q3 of 2002. You can click a label (here or wherever you see one in a Single or Multi-Entry view) to see the corresponding list of articles. An example of this is shown in the Multi-Entry view section below.

Single Entry View

This view shows one article. It also provides context within the article by showing labels in the right margin, comments inline, and a list of Related Entries at the bottom. The Related Entries section shows lists of articles which have a relationship to this article. The most common examples of relationships include:

References: Articles linked to from this one.
Referenced By: Articles linking to this one. These are sometimes called back links.
Commented on by: A list of comments made on this article.
Emailed by: Shows cases where this article was emailed by a user from Traction.

The example below is titled "Questions about TeamPage." You can see in the header that it's Article ID is StarCustomer1 and it was posted by JackStar on July 8, 2002. The header also shows you the (#) permalink, Trackback link, edit history link, and an indication that there is 1 attachment and 2 comments.

In the upper right margin, you can see that there are two labels on title/article level, the headline label from the current project (StarCustomer) and the Todo label from the ProductAlpha project.

The 2 comments are embedded between the relevant paragraphs.

Following the article, there is a comment form, an attachment (the Traction image), and the Related Entries section. The Related Entries section shows a Commented on By relationships (detailing the 2 comments in the body) and a Referenced By relationship (indicating an incoming link from the "Installation Feedback" article)

The Tools that now show on the right column (not included in the picture above) of the page now include:

Note the items that show on the list depend on the view you are in:

any view (Show Collector)
any Single or Multi-Entry view (Reclassify Articles, Email Articles, Collect Articles, Erase Articles)
any Single-Entry View (Edit Article, Add Comment, Email Reply, Visibility)

Also, if you do not have Remove Articles permission, then Erase Articles will not show. And none of these tools will show for users who are not signed in as a user (Visitor).

Multi-entry view and Search Results View

The most common ways to get to the multi-entry view are by clicking on a label within an article or on the Label List when in a Project Newspage. Or you can search by label (in Rapid Selector or Advanced Search). There are a few other actions that can lead to a list of entries.

Multi-entry views appear, by default, in brief which means they only show the title and relevant paragraph(s). The relevant paragraphs are the ones that have the label you are seeking. If a label is on the article or title level, then the first paragraph is considered the relevant paragraph.

Volume selector: To expand to a full view of the articles, you can click the title to go into the Single-Entry view, or you can stay in the multi-entry view but switch to full by flipping the volume selector from brief to full. The volume selector is in the upper left of the browser, above the body of the page.

The Search Results view is another form of multi-entry view. You will learn more about search in the Searching in Traction section.

The following example shows a multi-entry view in Brief volume for the label weblog and the time period July 1 to September 30, 2002. Notice that the highlighted paragraphs are the ones that have the weblog label. If the label is at the title level in a given article, then the first paragraph will be shown. Also notice that the Calendar indicates (by bolding July and December) that there is content for this label in July and December. If you click any other month, the body of the screen will be blank.

Notice that the Tools showing on the right column of the page now include:

This is the list that is either relevant to any page (like Show Collector) or to a Multi-Entry view (all but Show Collector).

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Article: Doc174 (permalink)
Date: March 22, 2008; 4:08:40 PM Eastern Daylight Time

Author Name: Documentation Importer
Author ID: importer