[opencms-dev] New site

Thu Apr 3 10:10:58 CEST 2025

Hello Juan,

ok, here is a "short" introduction how to set up a new site in OpenCms 
using the Mercury template. The tricky thing is not setting up the site 
itself, but to configure the Mercury for its first use.

What you need is a running OpenCms installation with the Mercury 
template installed. Some basic knowledge how to drag & drop content 
elements into a page in OpenCms is useful.

*
*

*1) Create a New Website*

- Go to the launchpad and select the Websites app

- Click on the "New" icon in the toolbar

- Enter the website name (Title), e.g. "MyWebsite" and the Server URL

- Make sure that the "Template" field has 
"/system/modules/alkacon.mercury.template/templates/mercury.jsp" in it

- Click on "Ok" and OpenCms creates the website and the required files.

*2) Configure the Website for the use of the Mercury Template*

- Switch to the Explorer view

- Select your newly created website ("MyWebsite") in the site selector

- Edit the file "/.content/.config"

- Chosse 
"/system/modules/alkacon.mercury.template/configuration/mercury.master.xml" 
as the Master Configuration

*3) Set up a Mercury Template model*

- Switch to the Sitemap Editor

-Select "Templates" from the sitemap mode selector in the toolbar

-> You now see a "Default Model for site "MySite" under Templates and no 
entry at the Model groups

- Create two model groups by pressing the "plus button":

     -Header: Title and Description set to "Header"

     -Footer: Title and Description set to "Footer"

*
*

*4) Configure the Header:*

- Click on the "Header" model group

-> You now see an empty page with a read container in it

- Click on "New" in the toolbar then choose "Template elements" under 
"Types"

- Click on "Layout group" and drag & drop "Mercury header with flexible 
layout option" into the red container

-> You now see a green, empty container and an orange message box

- Click on "New" in the toolbar again and chose "Advanced elements" 
under "Types"

- Click on "Dynamic function" and drag & drop "Header configuration" 
into the green container

-> The page will automatically reload and then show up four new 
containers that we will later use to put content elements in our header

- Press "CTRL-E" until you see the message "Switched view: Template 
elements"

- Go to the edit point in the upper right, select settings and choose 
"Reuse elements" for the group type

-> The box on top of the page now says "Reuse Group"

*5) Add content elements to the Header*

- Click on "New" and choose "Content elements" under "Types"

- Drag and Drop a new "Link Sequence" in the top right container, this 
is the only place where you can put it

-> This will be the top header links, so you now should simply add some 
Dummy values in there. You can later change them to the real links

- Click on "New" and choose "Content elements" under "Types"

- Drag and Drop a new "Content Section" in the top left container, this 
is the only place where you can put it

-> This will be the Header image and website title, so enter a title and 
an image in this content.

- Click on "New" and choose "Advanced elements" under "Types"

- Drag and Drop a new "Navigation"in one of the other containers.

-> This will add the navigation or the breadcrumb (depending in which of 
the containers you dropped it). Edit the content and give it a title

- Click on "New" and choose "Advanced elements" under "Types"

- Drag and Drop a new "Navigation"in the last remaining containers.

-> This will add the navigation or the breadcrumb (depending in which of 
the containers you dropped it). Edit the content and give it a title

-> We are now done with configuring the header and can return to the sitemap

*6) Configure the footer*

- In the Sitemap editor, click on "Footer"

-> You now see an empty page with a read container in it

- Click on "New" and select "Template elements"

- Click on "Layout group" and drag & drop the "Mercury footer full"

-> This will now show so two orange containers which we will later use 
to put content elements in our footer

- Press "CTRL-E" until you see the message "Switched view: Template 
elements"

- Go to the edit point in the upper right, select settings and choose 
"Reuse elements" for the group type

-> The box on top of the page now says "Reuse Group"

*7) Add content elements to the Footer*

- As the footer is more flexible what ot put in there, we need to add 
some rows first

- Click on "New" and select "Template elements"

- Click on "Layout row" and drag & drop the "Row 1 column (12 -full) 
into the lower container

- Click on "New" and select "Template elements"

- Click on "Layout row" and drag & drop the "Row 3 columns (4-4-4) into 
the upper container

-> You now created the containers for the footer. Usually the three 
upper ones can be used for content sections or link sequences (showing 
links below each other), the lower one is used for some footer links in 
a link section besides each other. For example, you could fill it like this:

- Click on "New" and choose "Content elements" under "Types"

- Drag and Drop a new "Content Section" in the top left container

- Add some text and headline there

Click on "New" and choose "Content elements" under "Types"

- Drag and Drop a new "Content Section" in the top right container

- Add some text and headline there

- Click on "New" and choose "Content elements" under "Types"

- Drag and Drop a new "Link Sequence" in the top middle container,

- Add some dummy links in there

- Click on "New" and choose "Content elements" under "Types"

- Drag and Drop a new "Link Sequence" in the top lower container,

-> This will be the footer links, so you now should simply add some 
Dummy values in there. You can later change them to the real links

- Go to the edit point, select settings and choose "Link sequence page 
element" as the formatter, "in a row" for "Display"

-> We are now done with configuring the footer and can return to the sitemap

*8) Configure the template model*

- In the Sitemap editor, click on "Default Model for site "My Website"

-> You now see an empty page with a read container in it

- Click on "New" and select "Template elements"

- Click on "Layout area" and drag & drop the "Area - One row" into the page

-> You will now get one new container, this is where you later place 
your rows

- Click on "New" and select "Advanced elements"

- Choose "Model group" and drag & drop the "Header" model group above 
the Layout are from the step before

- Click on "New" and select "Advanced elements"

- Choose "Model group" and drag & drop the "Footer" model group below 
the Layout are from two steps before

-> You now created you Template model which will be used when creating 
new pages

*9) Creating new pages:*

-Select "Sitemap" from the sitemap mode selector in the toolbar

- Click on "New" in the toolbar then crag & drop a "Default Model for 
site "MySite" into the sitemap

-> The new page is now called "page", you can rename it by clicking on 
the name.

- Click on the newly created page, it then opens in the page editor, 
including the header and footer you have created.

- Click on "New" and select "Template elements"

- Click on "Layout row" and drag & drop any of the layout rows into the 
orange container. You can add multiple layout rows to build the 
structure of the page you want

HINT: If you always want to use the same row structure, you could also 
add the rows to your Template Model. All pages created with this model 
will have the same row structure, but you still are able to modify it 
after creating a new page

- Click on "New" and select "Content Elements. Select the type of 
content you want to have and drag& drop it in any of the containers in 
your rows.

Please refer to https://mercury-template.opencms.org/ for all the 
content types and how to use or configure them. Please note: The Mercury 
documentation is only available in German, so you need to use the 
translate functions of your browser to get it in English.

I hope that I mixed nothing up here, but it should work this way.

Kind regards,

Michael

Am 02.04.25 um 14:09 schrieb Juan Garrido via opencms-dev:
> Hi Miguel
> Thanks for your reply. I want to create a website using the Mercury 
> template.
>
> El mié, 2 abr 2025 a la(s) 7:52 a.m., Michael Emmerich via opencms-dev 
> (opencms-dev at opencms.org) escribió:
>
>     Hello Diego,
>
>     > Hi, I'm new to OpenCMS and I'd like to know if you have a guide
>     on how
>     > to create a new site. I've read the documentation and I don't fully
>     > understand it. Is there a step-by-step guide?
>     > Thanks
>
>     Do you want to create a new site using the Mercury template, or do
>     you
>     want to create a new site that uses a new, custom build template?
>
>     If you want to use the Mercury template for your site, the
>     "challenge"
>     is to configure it correctly for your use. if you want to use your
>     own
>     one, the thing is to make your template first.
>
>     If you can say which way you want to do, I could give some advice.
>
>
>     Kind regards,
>
>     Michael
>
>     -- 
>     Michael Emmerich
>
>     Alkacon Software GmbH & Co. KG - The OpenCms Experts
>     http://www.alkacon.com - http://www.opencms.org
>
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-- 
Michael Emmerich

Alkacon Software GmbH & Co. KG - The OpenCms Experts
http://www.alkacon.com -http://www.opencms.org
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