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Books and content

Most of the editorial content in a FedMS instance lives in:

  • Book pages (node:book) — multi-page hierarchical content like "Joining instructions" or "Course handbook".
  • Basic pages (node:page) — single-page evergreen content.
  • Media items — images, videos, audio, documents, PDFs, remote videos (YouTube/Vimeo), vector images.
  • fedms_event / fedms_session editorial entities — the in-context content of specific events / sessions.

This page covers the Drupal-side authoring workflow for the first three. For event/session content, see Event types and Session types.

Books

Books are a Drupal core feature: a hierarchical structure where each page can have parents and children, with navigation between them.

FedMS uses books for content that has a logical reading order:

  • Joining instructions — title page + per-topic chapters.
  • Course handbooks — module-by-module structure.
  • Standard operating procedures — internal documentation.

Creating a book

  1. /node/add/book
  2. Fill in the title, body, and book-specific options.
  3. For the first page of a new book, choose Create a new book.
  4. For subsequent pages, choose the parent book and parent page.

The "Book page with webform" pattern

If a book page contains an embedded webform, set the Confirmation type of the webform to reload (not redirect) — otherwise submitting the form takes the user out of the book.

Attaching books to a group

To make a book available inside an event/session/org, attach it to the group:

  1. On the group page → Content tab → Add content.
  2. Pick book node type.
  3. Add the existing book or create a new one.

The book becomes a group_node:book relationship, governed by the group's access controls.

There is an open request to be able to configure the book-page footer (parent / siblings / children links): fedms/components/content#7.

Successor tasks on book pages

A book page can carry task patterns via its fedms_task_patterns base field. A common pattern is "when a delegate reads this page, mark the 'Pre-read' task complete and spawn the 'Confirm understanding' webform task". See Task patterns for the wiring.

Basic pages

Basic pages (node:page) are for single-page content that doesn't need hierarchy. Use them for FAQs, glossaries, terms-of-service-style content.

The default page node type ships with a paragraph-based body (field_description) that supports the same paragraph types as events and sessions.

Media

Media items are managed at /admin/content/media.

Out of the box, FedMS ships these media types:

Media type Files
Image jpg, png, gif, webp
Document pdf, doc, docx, xls, xlsx, etc.
PDF (Specialised for PDFs; enables PDF-specific rendering.)
Audio mp3, wav, m4a
Video mp4, webm
Remote video YouTube, Vimeo URLs
Vector image svg

The PDF type splits out PDF rendering so PDFs can be embedded in-browser rather than just downloaded.

Webforms

Webforms are first-class. See Webforms for the detailed authoring workflow.

Multilingual content

Books, pages, events, sessions, and attachments are all translatable. To translate:

  1. Open the entity.
  2. Translate tab → Add the target language.
  3. Fill in the translation.

Out-of-the-box languages: English and German. Add more via /admin/config/regional/language.

Pathauto

Aliases for content entities are generated automatically by the Pathauto module. The aliases are configured at:

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/admin/config/search/path/patterns

FedMS ships pathauto patterns for events, sessions, orgs, books, pages, and attachments. The defaults produce readable URLs like:

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/org/amplius-partners/event/leadership-2025/session/kickoff

Editing these is rarely necessary, but they are there if your SEO/URL conventions need adjustment.

Locking product views

Content Managers can edit views (since fedms/support#22), but the product's built-in views need to be protected from accidental editing — tracked at fedms/components/profile#15.

Next steps