.. _TutosBaseDiscoveringTheUI:

Discovering the web interface

-----------------------------

You can now access your web instance to create blogs and post messages

by visiting the URL http://localhost:8080/.

By default, anonymous access is disabled, so a login form will appear. If you

asked to allow anonymous access when initailizing the instance, click on the

'login' link in the top right hand corner. To login, you need then use the admin

account you specified at the time you initialized the database with

``cubicweb-ctl create``.

.. image:: ../../images/tutos-base_login-form_en.png

   :alt: the login form

Once authenticated, you can start playing with your instance. The default index

page looks like the following:

.. image:: ../../images/tutos-base_index_en.png

   :alt: the index page

Minimal configuration

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Before creating entities, let's change that 'unset title' thing that appeared

there and there. This is handled using |cubicweb| properties system. To set it,

click on the 'site configuration link' in the pop-up menu behind your login name

in the upper left-hand corner

.. image:: ../../images/tutos-base_user-menu_en.png

   :alt: the user pop-up menu

The site title is in the 'Ui' section. Simply set it to the desired value and

click the 'validate' button.

.. image:: ../../images/tutos-base_siteconfig_en.png

   :alt: the site configuration form

You should see a 'changes applied' message appear. You can now go back to the

index page by clicking on the |cubicweb| logo in the upper left-hand corner.

You will much likely still see 'unset title' at this point. This is because by

default the index page is cached. Force a refresh of the page (by typing Ctrl-R

in firefox for instance) and you should now see the title you entered.

Adding entities

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The ``blog`` cube defines several entity types, among them ``Blog`` which is a

container for ``BlogEntry`` (e.g. post) on a particular topic. We can get a

graphical view of the schema by clicking on the 'site schema' link in the user

pop-up menu we've already seen:

.. image:: ../../images/tutos-base_schema_en.png

   :alt: graphical view of the schema (aka data-model)

Nice isn't it? Notice that this, as most other stuff we'll see in this tutorial,

is generated by the framework according to the model of the application. In our

case, the model defined by the ``blog`` cube.

Now let us create a few of these entities.

Add a blog

**********

Clicking on the `[+]` at the left of the 'Blog' link on the index page will lead

you to an HTML form to create a blog.

.. image:: ../../images/tutos-base_blog-form_en.png

   :alt: the blog creation form

For instance, call this new blog 'Tech-blog' and type in 'everything about

technology' as the description , then validate the form by clicking on

'Validate'. You'll be redirected to the `primary` view of the newly created blog.

.. image:: ../../images/tutos-base_blog-primary_en.png

   :alt: the blog primary view

Add a blog post

***************

There are several way to add a blog entry. The simplest is to click on the 'add

blog entry' link in the actions box on viewing the blog we've juste created.

You'll then see a form to create a post, with a 'blog entry of' selector preset

to the blog we're coming from. Enter a title, some content, click the 'validate'

button and you're done. You'll be redirected to the blog primary view, though you

now see that it contains the blog post you've just created.

.. image:: ../../images/tutos-base_blog-primary-after-post-creation_en.png

   :alt: the blog primary view after creation of a post

Notice there are some new boxes that appears in the left column.

You can achieve the same thing by following the same path as we did for the blog

creation, e.g. by clicking on the `[+]` at the left of the 'Blog entry' link on

the index page. The diffence being that since there is now context information,

the 'blog entry of' selector won't be preset to the blog.

If you click on the 'modify' link of the action box, you are back to the form to

edit the entity you just created, except that the form now has another section

with a combo-box entitled 'add relation'. It provices a generic way to edit

relations which don't appears in the above form. Choose the relation you want to

add and a second combobox appears where you can pick existing entities.  If there

are too much of them, you'll be proposed to navigate (so go away from the form to

go back to it later, once you've selected the entity you want to link with).

.. image:: ../../images/tutos-base_form-generic-relations_en.png

   :alt: the generic relations combobox

This combobox can't appear until the entity is actually created. That's why you

haven't seen it at creation time. You could also have hit 'Apply' instead of

'validate' and it would have showed up.

About ui auto-adaptation

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One thing among other that makes |cubicweb| different than other framework is

its automatic user interface that adapts itself according to the data being

displayed. Let's see an example.

If you go back to the home page an click on the 'Blog' link, you'll be redirected

to the primary view of the blog, the same we've seen earlier. Now, add another

blog, go back to the index page, and click again on this link. You'll see

a very different view (namely the 'list' view).

.. image:: ../../images/tutos-base_blogs-list_en.png

   :alt: the list view when there are more than one blog to display

This is because in the first case, the framework choosed to use the 'primary'

view since there were only one entity in the data to be displayed. Now that there

are two entities, the 'list' view is more appropriate and hence has been used.

There are various other places where it's able to adapt to display data in the best

way, the main being provided by views *selection* mecanism that will be detailled

later.

Digging deeper

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

By following principles explained below, you should now be able to create new

user to your application, to configure with a finer grain, etc... You'll notice

that the index page list a lot of types you don't know about. Most are built-in

type provided by the framework to make work the whole system. You may ignore them

in a first time and discover them as time goes.

One thing that is worth playing with is the search box. It may be used in various

way, from simple full text search to advanced queries using the :ref:`RQL` .