Opal User Guide
Welcome to the Opal User Guide! This is the place to learn about what Opal can do, and how to do it!Basics
Items - Opal is an Item Listing Application. It lets you list any kind of item. You specify the kind of items in the Admin section, under settings. To change the kind of items listed by opal, just change the item_name setting(example: house) and the item_name_plural setting(example: houses) to whatever you want.Plugins
Each Item has several Plugins that belong to it. An Plugin is a type of data/information that describes your Item. When you are viewing one of your Items, you will see all of the available Plugins you can add to an Item. Each Plugin has its own section. For example, an Image is an Plugin. So if you wanted to upload an image of your item, it would show up in the Images section of the item's page. Plugins are modular and can be installed, disabled, renamed, deleted, and rearranged in the Plugins Admin Section.Here are some of the Plugins that come with opal.
Images - Images you can upload from your computer or a url. You can also apply special effects to these images(b & w, sepia, rotation).
Contents - BIG blocks of text that tell you more about an item. These are great for large, descriptive details about an item, or for writing an article or a big review of something.
Comments - Little notes/messages left by other users about an item.
Reviews - Other users can score your particular item, so we know how good it is. Everyone's a critic.
Files - Basically an attachment to an item. It can be any file uploaded from your computer.
Tags - Small text labels that can be used to as an alternative method of organization. If we were listing houses, some might be: blue, mansions, or modern. Items with identical tags can be viewed in a group by clicking on an Item's tag.
Bullets - Shared features or attributes that each item would have. An Admin creates a Bullet's title and a User can then give that title a value for their Item. For Example, If we were listing houses, these would be: Rooms: 4, Price: $100,000. Stuff like that.
Links - Hyperlinks to other websites or webpages for an item.
Contents - BIG blocks of text that tell you more about an item. These are great for large, descriptive details about an item, or for writing an article or a big review of something.
Comments - Little notes/messages left by other users about an item.
Reviews - Other users can score your particular item, so we know how good it is. Everyone's a critic.
Files - Basically an attachment to an item. It can be any file uploaded from your computer.
Tags - Small text labels that can be used to as an alternative method of organization. If we were listing houses, some might be: blue, mansions, or modern. Items with identical tags can be viewed in a group by clicking on an Item's tag.
Bullets - Shared features or attributes that each item would have. An Admin creates a Bullet's title and a User can then give that title a value for their Item. For Example, If we were listing houses, these would be: Rooms: 4, Price: $100,000. Stuff like that.
Links - Hyperlinks to other websites or webpages for an item.
Auto-Hiding - On an Item Page, there will be several sections for each of the Plugins that are enabled in your Opal application. Since we like things to look clean, empty Plugin sections will be hidden to most people(other users and the general public) if no Plugins have been added for that section. This means that the public won't have to see several sections that say 'No Images Added'. The User that created the Item(and Admins) will be able to see these hidden sections, and add new Plugins to them.
Adding New Plugins - As long as a User is logged in, they will be able to see the Plugin Sections that are automatically hidden on their Item's page. In the title for each Plugin will be a link that says 'New Item'. Follow the steps to create the new Plugin.
Icons
New
Delete
Edit
Cancel
Help
These are the default icons for Opal. Icons may vary in different themes.
Browsing
Categories - Items are organized by categories. Each Category can have a sub-category, and each sub-category can have a sub-sub-category. That's as deep as it goes for now. You can add/edit/delete categories in the Admin section.The Main Menu - Opal has 3 main menu buttons: Home, Browse, and About. The Home button is pretty self-explanatory...it takes you to the homepage. The Browse button will cause the Browse Box to appear. The Browse Box contains navigational items for your Opal application: Categories and Tags that organize your items, links to Pages in the About Section, and any other useful information. The About button will take you to the About Section.
The About Section - This section contains all the information about your Opal Application, and what it's for. You can customize all of the content in the About section, and you can also add new Pages to this section in the Admin Section. The about section also contains a Contact Us page that lets users send an email to the Admin Email Address. This email address can be changed in the Admin Section, under Settings. The Contact Us page can also be disabled in this section.
User Section
Add New Item - This page lets a user add a new item. Categories are displayed for the user to choose from. There is also a checkbox that says Public?. If this box is unchecked, only the user and other users in your Opal application will be able to see it.My Items - This section displays all of the Items that the user has created.
Messages - This section allows users to check messages from other users, reply to them, or delete them. Messages can also be marked/unmarked as read.
My Settings - This section contains information about the user, and allows them to change their password, description, interests, and avatar.
Admin Section
Categories - Here you can add/edit/delete categories that items will be added to. You can also add sub-categories to a category, and a sub-sub-category to a sub-category. That's means you can go 3 levels deep in the hierarchy of categories. WARNING: If you delete a category, all items within that category will be deleted too!Plugins - Here you can see the current Plugins in your Opal application. You can also change their names clicking (Edit Name) next to the Plugin's name.
You can also rearrange the order in which the Plugins show up on an Item's page by clicking and dragging the Plugin to its appropriate location.
You can enable/disable Plugins by clicking on the checkbox under Enabled?. Disabling Plugins won't delete anything, the Plugin just won't show up on an Item's page anymore.
The Plugins section also has a few other random functions. For example, You can add/delete Bullet Plugins here.
Users - This section displays all the users in your Opal Application. You can add/edit/delete users here. You can also turn regular users into Admins here, just click the edit icon and check the checkbox that says Admin?, then click the Update button.
Pages - Here you can edit system pages, create/delete public pages.
Settings - This section contains all the system settings for your Opal application. Here you can change the actual name of your items(ie: houses, video games, hotdog vendors, etc.), your site title, change list types, limit the amount of items a user can create, change the theme for Opal, and much more! Each setting has a description next to it, specifying its purpose.