Copying & Deleting Sites

Important Note: Both copying and deleting sites are processes that run in the background on the CMS server. It is strongly recommended that users not be in the system when these actions are occurring in order to make sure their actions do not conflict with the copy/delete batch operation. For example, if you attempt to copy a site, but another user is actively editing a page in that site, the copy may fail on that particular page. As well as the page not being in the new site, any links to that page in the copy will be invalid as well.

Similarly, if a page is open for edit when the someone attempts to delete it, the delete will fail. These conflicts are noted in the logs so it is always advisable to review the logs to ensure a copy or delete was successful.

Copying a Site

If you want to reuse the structure, content, or other parts of a site, you can copy the site and then modify the copy. The copy is not associated with the original site and the copied site does not change if you make a change to the original site (or vice versa).

When you copy a site, Percussion CMS does the following:

Copies the original site's home page, sections, folders, templates, pages, local content, and links to the copied site.
Gives copied templates, pages, folders, and sections the same names as those on the original site.
Copies templates and pages with identical local content and assets as the originals. If you chose to share assets, CM1 copies the local content, but leaves links to the original assets. If you chose to copy assets, CM1 copies the selected asset folder content to a new folder in the Assets library.
Copied archives, categories, auto-lists, and tags assets that reference the original site will be updated to point to the new site.
Sets the status of all of the copied pages to Draft.
Copies the publishing configuration from the original site to the copied site.
In Page AutoLists, changes the Website Location to the copied site's root path.
Repoints all internal links to the correct pages on the copied site.

When you copy a site, CM1 gives you the option of either copying any shared assets, or reusing the existing shared assets on the copy. When making your decision on whether to copy or reuse shared assets, it is important to note the following:

If you choose to share assets across sites, the newly created site will leave links to the original assets.
If you choose to copy the assets, the system copies the contents of the folder that you specify to a new folder in the Assets library. All templates/pages which use the copied assets will be updated accordingly. Copied image auto list assets that reference the original asset library location will be updated to point to the new location.

If an error occurs while any element in the site is being copied, CM1 skips that element and proceeds to copy the next one. You can check for any errors of this type in the server log.

To copy a site:

1) Select Navigation from the navigation bar, and click Copy Site in the upper right corner.

2) The system will prompt you for the new site name and whether to copy assets. Click Save to continue.

3) On the confirmation dialog, click OK to copy the site.

Deleting a Site

Important Note Before Deleting: When you delete a site, the site definition, templates, and all page content in CM1 is deleted. Shared assets and published HTML pages on the web server are NOT deleted.

Once you have deleted a site, you cannot then unpublish it from the web server. In this situation, you would need to manually remove the files from the web server. If you want to unpublish the site through CM1, you can remove each page from the web server by using the "Remove from Site" feature, or by archiving the page. Remove from Site removes the page from the web server immediately. Archiving will queue it for removal from the live site during the next publishing run. If you are going to remove your site completely and you have a large site, it's often easier to manually remove all the content from the web server.

To delete a site:

1) From Navigation, click Delete Site in the upper right corner.

2) The system will display a Warning dialog to confirm that you want to delete the site. Click OK to continue.