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13 May 2014

Building websites in Metrici

By Andrew Clifford

You can build sophisticated websites in Metrici, but you can also build simple websites very quickly and easily.

If you are anything like me, you are probably a bit suspicious of claims that you can build websites in Metrici.

Surely the world doesn't need yet another website building tool? Why use Metrici when there are so many other products?

Well, Metrici is not trying to compete with WordPress, Dreamweaver, GoDaddy, 1and1, and the like. You could build and publish large, beautiful websites in Metrici, but most organisations have skills and investment in other tools which would be hard to change.

Metrici is trying to address different requirements. We're trying to meet the needs for websites when any or all of the following apply:

  • Simple, cheap and very quick.
  • Easy to update, either by you or by others.
  • Secure, limiting access to just your colleagues, or a mixture of public and private content.
  • Combine web content with structured data from databases or other applications.
  • Uncertain requirements, so you need something flexible that you can enhance later, or even take your content out of if you need to.

Over the next couple of newsletters I will cover how Metrici supports websites. I will cover how to build a website from first principles. I will also introduce our MiniSite app, which lets you create and publish a website in just a few minutes.

To start with, I want to cover how Metrici supports web pages. Within Metrici, any node can be shown as a web page, but the page node type is designed to make it easy to create and modify web content.

Pages use a WYSIWYG editor, just like a word processor. There are all the formatting options you would expect, and an option to edit the underlying HTML if you need.

Pages support "quick links". Quick links are like the links in Wiki software, using names or references in double square brackets. So if you want to link to the "Refreshments Rota" page, you just type [[Refreshments Rota]], and the quick links feature will create a link. See page type for documentation.

Pages can have attachments. Attachments are files of any type that you can reference for download from the page using the quick links feature. You can show attached pictures by prefixing the name with "img". For example [[img:Jerry Green]] will show the picture of Jerry Green.

Click on the More menu at the top of each page for options to create, modify, copy, move and delete pages.

And that's all there is to it. I could go on about advanced features, but that would be missing the point. The real advantage of Metrici is that you can start creating web pages and linking them together in just a few minutes, and grow from there. To see for yourself, follow our getting started guides to create a free account and a simple web page.

Having shown how easy it is to create the content of the website, next week I will cover permissions and how to share your content with your colleagues, friends, or the world.

Next: Sharing your stuff

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