By Mark Morgan
In Conversant, pages are defined by their page type. A page type might be a weblog, a discussion area, or a WebOutline.
Where do I define page types?
In general, page types are set in the structure editor. In many ways, the structure editor is the heart of managing a conversation. Your structure editor can be found at:
yoursiteURL/admin/conversations/conversationID/structure
Down at the bottom of the page is a box that says "Add new file or folder." The dropdown menu lists the various page types (called here "file types") that you can create using conversant. (For specific instructions on creating page types, read the official documentation.)
Page Types and Lego Blocks
Brian Carnell has described Conversant as building with Legos. Any particular page is built, like a Lego building set, out of a variety of pieces. When you choose a page type, you're choosing what you're going to build with your Lego pieces. (Me, I always enjoyed the space-related sets. But I digress.)
In other words, a page type is just a way of displaying the content of your Conversant conversation. And just like you can reuse the same bricks to build a house or a spaceship or a quarter-scale dinosaur, you can use the same piece of information to build different kinds of page types. Or even the same page type, in different places.
This ability to reuse your content, especially discussion group messages, is a very powerful part of Conversant and one of the things I like best about it. One post might be part of one or more weblogs, and later be included in an index, and later still be made into a standard HTML page (a "Bound message", discussed below). When a web browser looks at a page type, all the various parts--all the Lego pieces, if you will--are assembled into the page type you've specified.
Here's a brief rundown of the current page types (again, described in more detail in the official documentation). It's important to realize that you are not limited to one of each; you can have as many of each type as you want:
Bound Message: This is a notably confusing bit of Conversant terminology. When you "bind a message to a URL", essentially you are making it a standard web page, like your home page or a story or a business report. Binding a message to an URL is like making an Mac OS alias to that message, or a Windows shortcut. It remains available as a numbered discussion group message (like yoursite/100) but it is also available as one or more pages in the site's structure (like yoursite/businessreports/northerndivision). Any message can be bound, and furthermore a bound message can be bound to however many different URLs you choose, each with its own display characteristics. In other words, there are two (main) reasons to bind a message to an URL: to establish it a location in the site's structure, and to alter the appearance of the page its on. For example, an essay may not need the extra confusion of the navigation calendar of the discussion group.
Advanced Query Page: A way of displaying the results of a particular set of search engine settings.
DG Calendar Page: The heart and soul of the web interface, this is where the settings are for displaying one day's worth of the conversation's messages. Also provides a way of navigating through different days. You can think of this as a regular web-based discussion forum, but it's also the way you generate new content for the conversation. You can have as many different DG calendar pages in one conversation as you want, but they all share the same set of messages.
Event Calendar: Displays messages and other information in a calendar/scheduling format.
FullThread Page: Displays all the messages in a particular thread, or topic.
Query Page: Displays a form for searching through the messages in a conversation, and also displays the results of the search.
Redirect Page: Not really a page, this lets you redirect one URL (such as yoursite/essays/brilliant) to another (such as yoursite/essays/notsobrilliant). Helpful for keeping outside links alive when you reorganize the site's structure.
Topics Page: A list of all the top-level topics for the conversation. A topic is just a message that isn't a reply to another message.
Weblog: A way of building a weblog or journal out of selected messges. Definitions of the word "weblog" vary, but basically this is a way to build any kind of page that is updated regularly to include new content. Includes such things as pages that provide links and commentary every day, or online journals, or a website's "What's new" page. Also provides a navigation calendar for moving between different days in the weblog.
WeblogView: A weblog in Conversant, as described above, is basically a way of displaying and navigating a group of messages that are defined by chronological order. What if you want to take two identical groups of messages, but display them in different ways? You make a weblog--and a WeblogView. The WeblogView shares the messages of the weblog, but you can set the templates and other information separately. The official documentation mentions making a Dynamic HTML variant of a weblog, or one designed for mobile applications. In a nutshell, it lets you treat a weblog's entire set of messages like one Lego brick and reuse that brick in other ways. As many different ways as you like.
WebOutline: A WebOutline displays some or all of the pages in your site's structure, for example as a site map.
This only scratches the surface of what you can do with the various page types in Conversant. Like with Legos: you don't have to stick with what's on the picture on the front of the box.
