Cannot create new book
Request Type:
General Assistance
Forums:
Issue/Request:
We are trying to create a new book on our site (we already have several in use). I created http://fas.yale.edu/book/living-new-haven-area as a book page and and chose the “<create a new book>” option (following the instructions at https://yalesites.yale.edu/module-tutorials/book-module). Once the page is saved, it gets put into our Faculty Leaves book instead of creating a new book. When I go to the Books page, the new book is not listed there either.
Hi Jason,
That’s a peculiar issue, and I’m happy to look into it for you. I would however like some clarification regarding this request and how it relates to Matthew Tanico’s request that we received here: https://yalesites.yale.edu/yalesites-forum/content-0
Matthew is building and requesting support for a page called “Living in New Haven”, whereas the book you’re attempting to build is called “Living in the New Haven Area”. Are these separate pages that you’re attempting to build for separate purposes? It would also be helpful if you could explain why one is being built in a book while the other is being built as a basic page.
Thank you,
-Zach
Hi Zach,
Apologies for the wires getting crossed. Matthew met with Bethany and me and we decided that the content he is developing would work best as a book. So he is planning not to use the sidebar blocks for testimonials but to have the testimonials form one page within the book. (Therefore, you can disregard his request at https://yalesites.yale.edu/yalesites-forum/content-0.) He had been using the h5 environment for the testimonial quotations because he liked the blue color but I asked him to use the blockquote environment instead (for accessibility) and then we can worry about its styling later.
Jason
Hi Jason,
Great, that clears things up. I’ll look into the books today and see if I can successfully create a new one, since it doesn’t seem like you can retroactively move an existing book page and slot it into its own, new book.
Thanks, Zach. Yes, I discovered that too. Feel free to delete http://fas.yale.edu/book/living-new-haven-area if you want to try creating one like that as its own book.
Jason
Hi Jason,
So I investigated this with J’vaughn, and what we discovered was that Books have an annoying quirk that seems to be the cause of your problem. Essentially, creating a new book using an unpublished Book Page won’t create a new book, even if you select <create a new book> in the Book Outline settings.
This also seems to extend to when you’re creating a Book from a new book page, then unpublish the newly published book page afterward. Apparently when you unpublish a “Book Page”, it becomes disengaged from the book it’s attached to and disappears from the Book Outline listings. And when a book has no book pages associated with it, it disappears. It seems like Books can only exist relatively to book pages.
The Solution to this would be to have some content prepared in advance, then create and publish at least one page of the new book, at which point you can unpublish these child pages as needed. You can also just continue to add and tweak the book content in relative obscurity, and add it to the site’s menu structure when you’re ready for it to be navigable on the user end. If it’s not in the menu, it will only be discoverable by searching.
The main takeaway from this should be: Books need at least one live, published page to exist. Does that clear it up any?
-Zach
Thanks, Zach. I had wondered if it would be affected by having the page be unpublished. I tried creating it as unpublished and also creating it as published but then unpublishing it, and I don’t think that made a difference. That’s consistent with what you’re saying – that we need to keep at least one published page in order for the book to work.
I’m thinking that maybe I’ll have Matthew work on this on the dev site (where it can be published but still be “behind the scenes”) until his content gets approved, and then we can copy the pages over to the live site – there shouldn’t be too many pages so this won’t be too onerous.
Thanks for your help,
Jason
Hi Jason,
I think that’s good idea. My recommendation is that, since your production site has seen a fair number of changes on the front and back ends since your soft launch in October, you request a site refresh to copy your production site to your dev environment. You can request that refresh at this link: https://yalesites.yale.edu/refresh-my-site. If you request the refresh, make sure you check the box labeled “Refresh my site into development from production”.
I’m going to mark this resolved, but let me know if you have any other questions.
-Zach