The Document plug-in is a type of library manager, which is to say it provides a specialized interface to managing content stored in an ExSite library.  The presumption is that the library contains downloadable files that are not viewable directly in your browser, but which must be downloaded first and then viewed with another program.  Common examples include:

• PDFs
• spreadsheets
• Word documents
• presentations
• ZIP files or other bundled files
• any other downloadable file

Note that an ExSite library is really just a folder that holds files, and you can put any kind of file into the library.  It is normal to organize your site so that you use some libraries for images (see PhotoAlbum for example), some for multimedia (eg. Flash files), some for documents, etc.  This helps to keep things more organized.  However, you are not forced to organize things in any particular way.  You can create dozens of libraries with specific types of contents, or just throw everything together into one big, messy library.

The Document plug-in assumes that everything in a particular library is a downloadable file, and will format the library contents in a way that makes it easy to browse and download files of interest.  It includes some details on the type of file and the size, so that users can tell if it is something they want to download at all.

By default, it will try to work with a library called "docs", and offer to create this library for you if it is not found.  However, it will show other libraries that you have available in the sidebar, and you can select any of these to work with if you prefer.

To display a library's contents for download, simply place the Documents plug-in into a page, and select the library to display from the choices it gives you.

Private Libraries and Documents

If you have a library containing documents that should not be available to the general public, set the library access to "members only".  To prevent non-members from even seeing the list of downloadable documents, place the library plug-in on a "members only" page as well.

Large Files

There are limits to the size of file that can be uploaded into the CMS's revision handling system, which is what allows older revisions to be archived.  The actual limit varies from system to system, but is typically a few megabytes.  That may not seem like much, but remember than on the web you want to keep file sizes as small as possible because some users have slow connections and it is not polite to make them wait a long time for data that could easily have been made smaller.

If you decide that it is very important to exceed the file size limit in some cases, you should use the Upload plug-in to force the large file into the CMS.  It will bypass the revision-handling system in the CMS, and write the file directly to disk.  You can then use the Document plug-in to edit the description of the document.  Note that all large files handled in this way are publicly accessible.