Field Panel

The field panel contains editors for all the fields that make up the content item. The fields are usually organized into a few different groups, each of which is displayed on a separate field panel tab. The fields that make up a content item vary widely from publication to publication. A publication will also usually contain a number of different types of content item, each of which has different fields.

The fields may all be displayed on a single tab card, or may be divided among several. This also varies between publications (and within publications according to content type). The following illustration shows a typical set of field tabs (Main and Options). The field tabs in your publication may, however, look quite different.

Some of the less commonly used fields in a content item may be defined as hidden fields. They are then not displayed by default. You can see what hidden fields a content item has by selecting View > Show fields from the main menu. This displays a sub-menu containing an option for each hidden field. You can show/hide the hidden fields by selecting these options.

At least one of the fields in a content item will often be a large text field (often called body) that is used to hold the main body of the content item. Otherwise, fields can vary widely. Some allow any kind of text to be entered, others are more restrictive: they have a maximum length, or only allow you to enter numbers, or only allow numbers within a particular range. Other fields may only allow you to select an option from a pull-down menu, or switch an option on by checking a box. One special type of field (called a gallery field) looks and behaves like a relation (see Related Content Area), in that you can drop items on to it. This kind of field is intended to simplify the editing of picture gallery content items.

The content item's related content (see Related Content Area) are displayed in the related content area below the field panel tabs, an expandable area that you can show and hide by clicking on the Related content expander at the top of the area, selecting View > Show Relations or pressing Ctrl+F7.