Creating and Working with Collaborative Books

The CivicSpace Site Configuration Guide has been created using the CivicSpace collaborative book. The collaborative book feature is well suited for creating multi-page hypertexts such as a site resource guides.

• When creating a new book page, choose the Parent page to place the new page into the table of contents link structure (Note: you can always edit an existing page and use the Parent setting to reposition a book page within the text).
• Book pages also have other navigation elements for moving through the text, such as the previous, up and next elements visible at the bottom of this page
• From any location in a book, the user can choose the printer-friendly version link at the bottom of the page. CivicSpace will then generate a version of the book containing the current page and all it's children.

To control the ordering of book pages in the table of contents structure, visit the book configuration section. For example, look at the CivicSpace Site Configuration Guide configuration page. There you can easily view all the pages in this text, as well as order them. Notice the weight menu beside each page listing. CivicSpace normally orders pages on the same "level" within the text alphabetically. You can override that ordering by giving pages which should be higher up lighter weights--negative numbers--or lower down heavier weights--positive numbers.

To create a new book, simply make the Parent "root."

Last, a blog post, forum post, story, or static page can also be added into a book. Choose the administer link for a given post or page, then use the Edit book outline button available at the bottom of the page to add it into an existing book.