Overview

Metadata is a core part of the content authoring workflow, understanding how, when, why and who contributed to the development of content and ensuring that this information flows smoothly as content transitions to different systems.

Introduction to Carbon Metadata

Metadata in Carbon is attached to both Documents and Pages, it keeps track of where pages and documents have come from and how they have been changed over time. Metadata in Carbon is stored in JSON and composed on 3 main sections each of which is maintained and edited in different ways.

Readonly Metadata

This metadata is created by automated systems as your documents and pages move from one system to another, for example Carbon uses readonly metadata to track the authors of a page automatically as they make changes and save new versions. Automated systems which are not controlled by Liquid State can also contribute to this metadata when importing documents and pages into Carbon. As indicated by this name, users cannot change this metadata in Carbon, it is only changed by the system itself.

Tags

Tags for documents and pages are stored, viewed and changed through metadata. Tags are managed through a tag editing interface and you do not need to worry about the actual method used to store tags unless you are working with metadata directly through the API or through Imports.

Custom Metadata

This is all other entries in the metadata for a document or page. It can be structured however you like, can be edited by users in carbon and does not need to maintain the same structure across different documents or pages although it is recommended that you do in order to take advantage of more advanced features such as Advanced Search. This is edited directly in carbon through a code editing interface.

Viewing and Editing Metadata

Viewing and editing metadata uses the same interface for both documents and pages, though they are accessed in slightly different ways.

View Document Metadata

To access the metadata for a document

1. Navigate to the Document View
2. Click the drop down menu next to Versions & Exports
3. Click the View Metadata button

View Page Metadata

To access the metadata for a page

1. Navigate to the Document View
2. Find your page in the Page List
3. Click the drop down menu next to Edit Content
4. Click the View Metadata button

You will be presented with a page displaying the metadata for your document or page, with links to edit the tags or custom metadata as seen below.

Editing Tags

Tags can be edited by clicking the "Edit" link visible on the right hand side of the Tags Section

A tags editing interface is displayed with autocomplete to help you find matching tags in your space.

Editing Custom Metadata

Custom Metadata can be edited by clicking the "Edit" link visible to the right of the Custom Metadata Sections, or in the getting started with custom metadata heading

Custom metadata is edited in a code editor and must be valid JSON