Jahia the Java Open Source Web Content Management Community
Jahia for readers
This section aims to provide an introduction on how to use Jahia either as an anonymous user (not logged into the system) or as a Reader (logged into the system but only with read-only access permissions)
Using a Live Published Web Site
Different access rights
Each Jahia content item (= generic elements which are also usually called a Content Object in Jahia - it may be anything from a web page, a group of fields or a mashup) may have different permission rights assigned to users or groups.
Jahia permissions are the following:
• Read(R): Read only permission. The object is visible for this user (or group) in Live mode.
• Write(W): The user (group) mayaccess the draft/staging version of these objects and be able to add or update content. The write permission also allows end-users to add new sub-objects by default. Write permission automatically grants to you the Read permission.
• Admin(A): The admin permission (Do not mix it with the Administrators role) allows you to modify the security permissions on this custom object of content.
Each object of content in Jahia automatically inherits of these rights from the parent objects. You may have all permissions (R, W, A), partial permissions (R or R, W) or no permission at all. This is usually why you may see additional information once logged in the system rather than in an anonymous mode.
Jahia permissions are the following:
• Read(R): Read only permission. The object is visible for this user (or group) in Live mode.
• Write(W): The user (group) mayaccess the draft/staging version of these objects and be able to add or update content. The write permission also allows end-users to add new sub-objects by default. Write permission automatically grants to you the Read permission.
• Admin(A): The admin permission (Do not mix it with the Administrators role) allows you to modify the security permissions on this custom object of content.
Each object of content in Jahia automatically inherits of these rights from the parent objects. You may have all permissions (R, W, A), partial permissions (R or R, W) or no permission at all. This is usually why you may see additional information once logged in the system rather than in an anonymous mode.
Jahia Menus and navigating paths
Jahia automatically maintains the menus and all other various navigation paths (breadcrumbs, shortcuts…) in a coherent state and according to each end-users permission rights. So it is not possible for you to see pages in the navigation elements on which you do not have the adequate rights. These pages are then automatically and dynamically removed from the menus displayed online.
The best way to illustrate the Jahia navigation mechanism is to access a website with an anonymous user (default) and to check the menu. Now log into the system, you mayaccess new pages that were not visible before (e.g. an Intranet and/or an Extranet section or your personalized Portal Page).
So each identified user may see a "different" site with different set of pages and content according to his personal privileges. This principle is called "dynamic content aggregation" and is the base of any dynamic Web Content Management System (also called “Frying Systems”). Jahia will dynamically create the web pages you can see according to your specific permission rights.
Jahia mainly offers two navigation systems:
• Classical Navigation Menus
• Breadcrumb Paths
The web designer of your website may have created custom menus systems for your web environment. For example Floating Menus (inside boxes you can move around), Tabs or Drop-Down DHTML Menus or Facetted Navigation (a dynamic navigation system according to metadata). The system is the same and will let you access various different web pages of the site on which you have the adequate rights.
The best way to illustrate the Jahia navigation mechanism is to access a website with an anonymous user (default) and to check the menu. Now log into the system, you mayaccess new pages that were not visible before (e.g. an Intranet and/or an Extranet section or your personalized Portal Page).
So each identified user may see a "different" site with different set of pages and content according to his personal privileges. This principle is called "dynamic content aggregation" and is the base of any dynamic Web Content Management System (also called “Frying Systems”). Jahia will dynamically create the web pages you can see according to your specific permission rights.
Jahia mainly offers two navigation systems:
• Classical Navigation Menus
• Breadcrumb Paths
The web designer of your website may have created custom menus systems for your web environment. For example Floating Menus (inside boxes you can move around), Tabs or Drop-Down DHTML Menus or Facetted Navigation (a dynamic navigation system according to metadata). The system is the same and will let you access various different web pages of the site on which you have the adequate rights.
Sitemap
The Sitemap displays the page title and the relation between the pages. A Jahia website is a tree starting from the trunk (the home page) and going to the leaves. You can have shortcuts (internal links) between the leaves but the core workflow or permission inheritance system is based on a single hierarchical tree (no multiple source management).
Similar to the navigation menu mechanisms, the sitemap is dynamically adjusted to your rights and permissions. You can for example see more pages on your sitemap page once you are logged into the system.
Similar to the navigation menu mechanisms, the sitemap is dynamically adjusted to your rights and permissions. You can for example see more pages on your sitemap page once you are logged into the system.
Language Switching
A Jahia website may be available in several languages. If you have no particular settings (you browse the site as an anonymous user) Jahia automatically detects the languages supported by your browser and will try to display the page you want to access in this language (if and only if such a language exists in the Jahia system else the default language of the site will be displayed).
If the current site is available across multiple languages, the web designer will usually display somewhere on the page a menu to let you easily switch among the other available languages. This may be a menu in text mode or with icons such as flags. Once you switch to another language, the Jahia system will let you browse the site in this new language until you decide to change language back again.
You can switch from one language to another from any page. Not all pages or content objects could be translated yet. So according to the section of the website, the language icons will adjust accordingly and will indicate to you if the current page exists in other languages or not.
If the current site is available across multiple languages, the web designer will usually display somewhere on the page a menu to let you easily switch among the other available languages. This may be a menu in text mode or with icons such as flags. Once you switch to another language, the Jahia system will let you browse the site in this new language until you decide to change language back again.
You can switch from one language to another from any page. Not all pages or content objects could be translated yet. So according to the section of the website, the language icons will adjust accordingly and will indicate to you if the current page exists in other languages or not.
Language mixing setting
Another setting the Site Administrator may customize is the "language mixing" option. In this case, if content items are not translated, the Jahia aggregation system will still try to display it on the page but in the next available language (so a page may contain elements or sub web pages available under multiple languages at the same time).
The Administrator may define the default order of languages preference for the whole site (e.g. 1) English, 2) French and 3) Spanish). During the dynamic aggregation process of a web page, if the content is not available in English, Jahia will then automatically try to render it in French and, if still not available, in Spanish.
This is also valid for menus. If web pages only exist in another language, they will be displayed in the navigation menus but with the title present in the other next available language.
This system is quite useful especially for Intranet based web systems where various subsidiaries are working simultaneously in various languages. Usually the goal is then to display as much information as possible to all employees and not to try to filter information according to the current selected language in order to try to keep a homogenous and well translated web site which is commonly the case for public-facing web sites.
The Administrator may define the default order of languages preference for the whole site (e.g. 1) English, 2) French and 3) Spanish). During the dynamic aggregation process of a web page, if the content is not available in English, Jahia will then automatically try to render it in French and, if still not available, in Spanish.
This is also valid for menus. If web pages only exist in another language, they will be displayed in the navigation menus but with the title present in the other next available language.
This system is quite useful especially for Intranet based web systems where various subsidiaries are working simultaneously in various languages. Usually the goal is then to display as much information as possible to all employees and not to try to filter information according to the current selected language in order to try to keep a homogenous and well translated web site which is commonly the case for public-facing web sites.
Search Engine
The Jahia system embeds a native search engine. This search engine lets you either make free search queries (according to your own terms such as in Google) or to generate more complex advanced search queries.
By default, this function performs a search on the whole content of the site (full text search). Content is of course automatically filtered according to your permissions and only the content and the pages you can see could be retrieved.
The search results will automatically highlight the content you were looking for in the small abstracts listed underneath each search results.
By default, this function performs a search on the whole content of the site (full text search). Content is of course automatically filtered according to your permissions and only the content and the pages you can see could be retrieved.
The search results will automatically highlight the content you were looking for in the small abstracts listed underneath each search results.
Standard Search Syntax
Most of the users are only performing basic searches and are only using a serie of cumulative terms separated by spaces.
However Jahia also supports more complex operations that could help you refine the number of search results and better access to the desired elements.
Here is a summary of the syntax that can be used when performing a search query:
Boolean operations
Boolean operators allow terms to be combined through logic operators. The search engine supports AND, "+", OR, NOT and "-" as Boolean operators (Note: Boolean operators must be ALL CAPS).
OR Operator
The OR operator is the default conjunction operator. This means that if there is no Boolean operator between two terms, the OR operator is used. The OR operator links two terms and finds a matching document if either one of the terms exists in a document. This is equivalent to a union using set. The symbol || can be used in place of the word OR.
To search for documents that contain either "WCM" or "Portal" use the query:
WCM Portal
or
WCM OR Portal
AND Operator
The AND operator matches documents where both terms exist anywhere in the text of a single document. This is equivalent to an intersection using sets. The symbol && can be used in place of the word AND.
To search for documents that contain "Jahia” and “portal" use the query:
"Jahia" AND "portal"
“+” Operator
The "+" or required operator requires that the term after the "+" symbol exist somewhere in a field of a single document.
To search for documents that must contain "Jahia" and may contain "WCM" use the query:
+Jahia WCM
NOT Operator
The NOT operator excludes documents that contain the term after NOT. This is equivalent to a difference using sets. The symbol ! can be used in place of the word NOT.
To search for documents that contain "Jahia CMS" but not "Jahia Portal" use the query:
"Jahia WCMS" NOT "Jahia Portal”
The NOT operator cannot be used with just one term. For example, the following search will return no results:
NOT "Jahia CMS”
“-” Operator
The "-" or prohibit operator excludes documents that contain the term after the "-" symbol.
To search for documents that contain "Jahia WCM" but not "Jahia Portal" use the query:
"Jahia WCM" -"Jahia Portal"
Wildcards
The search engine supports single and multiple character wildcard searches.
• To perform a single character wildcard search, use the "?" symbol.
• To perform a multiple character wildcard search, use the "*" symbol.
The single character wildcard search looks for terms that match those with the single character replaced.
For example, to search for "text" or "test" you can use the search:
te?t
Multiple character wildcard searches looks for 0 or more characters. For example, to search for test, tests or tester, you can use the search:
test*
You can also use the wildcard searches in the middle of a term.
te*t
Fuzzy search
The search engine supports fuzzy searches based on the Levenshtein Distance, or Edit Distance algorithm.
To do a fuzzy search use the tilde, "~", symbol at the end of a Single word Term.
For example to search for a term similar in spelling to "roam" use the fuzzy search:
roam~
This search will find terms like foam and roams
Terms found by the fuzzy search will automatically get a boost factor of 0.2
Grouping
The search engine supports using parentheses to group clauses to form sub queries. This can be very useful if you want to control the Boolean logic for a query.
To search for either "jahia" or "wcm" and "website" use the query:
(jahia OR wcm) AND website
This eliminates any confusion and makes sure that the term “website” must exist and that either the term “jahia” or “wcm” may exist.
Boosting a term
The search engine provides the relevance level of matching documents based on the terms found. To boost a term use the caret, "^", symbol with a boost factor (a number) at the end of the term you are searching. The higher the boost factor, the more relevant the term will be.
Boosting allows you to control the relevance of a document by boosting its term. For example, if you are searching for:
jahia wcm
and you want the term "jahia" to be more relevant, boost it using the ^ symbol along with the boost factor next to the term. You can then type:
jahia^5 wcm
This will make documents with the term jahia appear more relevant. You can also boost Phrase Terms as in the example:
"jahia wcm"^5 "jahia portal“
By default, the boost factor is 1. Although, the boost factor must be positive, it can be less than 1 (i.e. 0.2)
Escaping certain characters
The search engine supports escaping special characters that are part of the query syntax. The current special characters are:
+ - && || ! ( ) { } [ ] ^ " ~ * ? : \
To escape these character use the \ before the character. For example to search for (1+1):2 use the query:
\(1\+1\)\:2
However Jahia also supports more complex operations that could help you refine the number of search results and better access to the desired elements.
Here is a summary of the syntax that can be used when performing a search query:
Boolean operations
Boolean operators allow terms to be combined through logic operators. The search engine supports AND, "+", OR, NOT and "-" as Boolean operators (Note: Boolean operators must be ALL CAPS).
OR Operator
The OR operator is the default conjunction operator. This means that if there is no Boolean operator between two terms, the OR operator is used. The OR operator links two terms and finds a matching document if either one of the terms exists in a document. This is equivalent to a union using set. The symbol || can be used in place of the word OR.
To search for documents that contain either "WCM" or "Portal" use the query:
WCM Portal
or
WCM OR Portal
AND Operator
The AND operator matches documents where both terms exist anywhere in the text of a single document. This is equivalent to an intersection using sets. The symbol && can be used in place of the word AND.
To search for documents that contain "Jahia” and “portal" use the query:
"Jahia" AND "portal"
“+” Operator
The "+" or required operator requires that the term after the "+" symbol exist somewhere in a field of a single document.
To search for documents that must contain "Jahia" and may contain "WCM" use the query:
+Jahia WCM
NOT Operator
The NOT operator excludes documents that contain the term after NOT. This is equivalent to a difference using sets. The symbol ! can be used in place of the word NOT.
To search for documents that contain "Jahia CMS" but not "Jahia Portal" use the query:
"Jahia WCMS" NOT "Jahia Portal”
The NOT operator cannot be used with just one term. For example, the following search will return no results:
NOT "Jahia CMS”
“-” Operator
The "-" or prohibit operator excludes documents that contain the term after the "-" symbol.
To search for documents that contain "Jahia WCM" but not "Jahia Portal" use the query:
"Jahia WCM" -"Jahia Portal"
Wildcards
The search engine supports single and multiple character wildcard searches.
• To perform a single character wildcard search, use the "?" symbol.
• To perform a multiple character wildcard search, use the "*" symbol.
The single character wildcard search looks for terms that match those with the single character replaced.
For example, to search for "text" or "test" you can use the search:
te?t
Multiple character wildcard searches looks for 0 or more characters. For example, to search for test, tests or tester, you can use the search:
test*
You can also use the wildcard searches in the middle of a term.
te*t
Fuzzy search
The search engine supports fuzzy searches based on the Levenshtein Distance, or Edit Distance algorithm.
To do a fuzzy search use the tilde, "~", symbol at the end of a Single word Term.
For example to search for a term similar in spelling to "roam" use the fuzzy search:
roam~
This search will find terms like foam and roams
Terms found by the fuzzy search will automatically get a boost factor of 0.2
Grouping
The search engine supports using parentheses to group clauses to form sub queries. This can be very useful if you want to control the Boolean logic for a query.
To search for either "jahia" or "wcm" and "website" use the query:
(jahia OR wcm) AND website
This eliminates any confusion and makes sure that the term “website” must exist and that either the term “jahia” or “wcm” may exist.
Boosting a term
The search engine provides the relevance level of matching documents based on the terms found. To boost a term use the caret, "^", symbol with a boost factor (a number) at the end of the term you are searching. The higher the boost factor, the more relevant the term will be.
Boosting allows you to control the relevance of a document by boosting its term. For example, if you are searching for:
jahia wcm
and you want the term "jahia" to be more relevant, boost it using the ^ symbol along with the boost factor next to the term. You can then type:
jahia^5 wcm
This will make documents with the term jahia appear more relevant. You can also boost Phrase Terms as in the example:
"jahia wcm"^5 "jahia portal“
By default, the boost factor is 1. Although, the boost factor must be positive, it can be less than 1 (i.e. 0.2)
Escaping certain characters
The search engine supports escaping special characters that are part of the query syntax. The current special characters are:
+ - && || ! ( ) { } [ ] ^ " ~ * ? : \
To escape these character use the \ before the character. For example to search for (1+1):2 use the query:
\(1\+1\)\:2
Advanced Search
Your template developer can also customize the search form in order to handle more complex advanced search queries.
On such an advanced search form, you can refine your search results through different parameters such as the last modification date, the categories being used or define the precise domain of the search (e.g.: only binary documents or only the current sub-site).
If the portlets are not using the Jahia content objects to store their data (this is usually the case for most external web applications or mashups), their content will not be indexed and cannot be retrieved in the global search engine. You may however have dedicated search engine embedded in each portlet or a custom template may federate and aggregate the search results of several distinct web applications into one single page result.
The Jahia search engine is provided with a PDF and MS Office plug-ins to index the content of such binary documents. Problems may occur with the indexing of certain MS Word documents due to the poor Word file format. In such cases, please use the “Save As” command in your Microsoft Word to save your content into a new file and simply upload this new file back into Jahia. The content shall be now correctly indexed by the Jahia search engine.
On such an advanced search form, you can refine your search results through different parameters such as the last modification date, the categories being used or define the precise domain of the search (e.g.: only binary documents or only the current sub-site).
If the portlets are not using the Jahia content objects to store their data (this is usually the case for most external web applications or mashups), their content will not be indexed and cannot be retrieved in the global search engine. You may however have dedicated search engine embedded in each portlet or a custom template may federate and aggregate the search results of several distinct web applications into one single page result.
The Jahia search engine is provided with a PDF and MS Office plug-ins to index the content of such binary documents. Problems may occur with the indexing of certain MS Word documents due to the poor Word file format. In such cases, please use the “Save As” command in your Microsoft Word to save your content into a new file and simply upload this new file back into Jahia. The content shall be now correctly indexed by the Jahia search engine.
Did you mean Feature
The improvement of the search capability is clearly a key asset for the team. We really focus our effort on facilitating visitors’ access to relevant information (documents, content, multimedia) as quickly as possible.
One of the tasks handled by the R&D team was to develop the "Did You Mean" (Search Engine Spell Check) functionality.
This new feature is a search spelling suggestion, which improve your daily search results. We use popular Open Source Java Framework like Compass and Solr to check queries against common spellings of each word. When we determine an alternative suggestion that we think might improve the search results, you will see "Did you mean:" at the top of your search results page.
Click on the following video to see the result in Jahia.
One of the tasks handled by the R&D team was to develop the "Did You Mean" (Search Engine Spell Check) functionality.
This new feature is a search spelling suggestion, which improve your daily search results. We use popular Open Source Java Framework like Compass and Solr to check queries against common spellings of each word. When we determine an alternative suggestion that we think might improve the search results, you will see "Did you mean:" at the top of your search results page.
Click on the following video to see the result in Jahia.
Portlets and Mashup
As mentioned above, one of the unique capability of Jahia is to mix static content objects with dynamic portlets or mashups within the same web page.
“Portlets” usually refers to local web based applications you may access directly from within your portal without having to access to another website. In the Java world, they are usually using technologies such as the standardized Portlet API (JSR168 or JSR286). Portlets might have been developed independently of Jahia and might also run on other distinct portal servers. In Jahia v6 you can now also develop Jahia-centric portlets, which can access the whole Jahia Content API in order to reuse existing content, pages, documents or add new content items directly into the Jahia database. Such portlets will of course only work on top of a Jahia environment afterwards.
“Mashups” is a broader term that usually includes both portlets but also smaller Javascript based web applications. Most of them are usually remotely hosted on the edge of the internet cloud and could be called and embedded in any web page by using simple HTML tags. Jahia v6 also supports the Google Gadgets which are offering another wide collection of rich Web 2.0 micro-applications.
In order simplify used vocabularies Jahia decided to regroup all these various technologies under one single “Mashup” term.
Mashups could often be used without any login privileges (e.g: a RSS mashup or a YouTube video). However portlets or mashups might require additional authentication. Most basic web applications will require a distinct login within the portlet itself. Most common portlets are developed to automatically recognize your session (through Single Sign-On). So if you are already logged into Jahia, the portlet will display different menus according to your profile. Each Portlet may have different roles according to the available functions. Check on the related portlet documentation to know more about how to use each web application.
“Portlets” usually refers to local web based applications you may access directly from within your portal without having to access to another website. In the Java world, they are usually using technologies such as the standardized Portlet API (JSR168 or JSR286). Portlets might have been developed independently of Jahia and might also run on other distinct portal servers. In Jahia v6 you can now also develop Jahia-centric portlets, which can access the whole Jahia Content API in order to reuse existing content, pages, documents or add new content items directly into the Jahia database. Such portlets will of course only work on top of a Jahia environment afterwards.
“Mashups” is a broader term that usually includes both portlets but also smaller Javascript based web applications. Most of them are usually remotely hosted on the edge of the internet cloud and could be called and embedded in any web page by using simple HTML tags. Jahia v6 also supports the Google Gadgets which are offering another wide collection of rich Web 2.0 micro-applications.
In order simplify used vocabularies Jahia decided to regroup all these various technologies under one single “Mashup” term.
Mashups could often be used without any login privileges (e.g: a RSS mashup or a YouTube video). However portlets or mashups might require additional authentication. Most basic web applications will require a distinct login within the portlet itself. Most common portlets are developed to automatically recognize your session (through Single Sign-On). So if you are already logged into Jahia, the portlet will display different menus according to your profile. Each Portlet may have different roles according to the available functions. Check on the related portlet documentation to know more about how to use each web application.
