Mercury Documentation

Opening tabs directly via a link

Entries in tabs can be opened directly via a link. This also works for the accordion display, the image tile display, and for lists with accordion teasers.

The link required for this can be obtained by pointing the mouse at the corresponding entry in the tab or accordion in edit mode. A yellow # symbol will appear. Clicking on this symbol will display the link in the browser's URL bar, which can be used to open the page with the selected entry already opened.

The following links allow you to open the contents of the accordion or tab on this page directly.

Open accordion 1 Open accordionn 2 Open accordion 3

Open tab 1 Open tab 2 Open tab 3

Example content section

The crowd celebrates the content section

This is a typographical dummy text. It can be used to check if all the letters are there and how they look. Sometimes, sentences containing all the letters of the alphabet are used. This one is very well known: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy old dog. Also important are âçcèñtš, as well as small caps, kerning, and ligatures (very clever). These days, emojis like 😇😀😉👍🏻🐶🍎 or ⚽️ are also popular in texts.

This is the link

The following links allow you to open the contents of the accordion or tab on this page directly.

Open accordion 1 Open accordionn 2 Open accordion 3

Open tab 1 Open tab 2 Open tab 3

This is a typographical dummy text

This is dummy text. It allows you to see whether all the letters are there and what they look like. Sometimes words such as Hamburgefonts, Rafgenduks, or Handgloves are used to test fonts.

Sometimes sentences containing all the letters of the alphabet are used—these sentences are called “pangrams.” A well-known example is this one: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy old dog.

Foreign language phrases are often incorporated into typographic dummy text (AVAIL® and Wefox™ are testing aussi la kerning) to test the effect in other languages. In Latin, for example, almost every font looks good. Quod erat demonstrandum.

Since 1975, most test texts have lacked numbers, which is why, according to TypoGb. 204 §, numbers will be mandatory in 86 of the texts from 2034 onwards. Non-compliance will be punished with a fine of up to €245 or $368.

Also important are âçcèñtš, as well as small caps, kerning, and ligatures (very clever).

These days, emojis like 😇😀😉👍🏻🐶🍎 or ⚽️ are also popular in texts.

The following links allow you to open the contents of the accordion or tab on this page directly.

Open accordion 1 Open accordionn 2 Open accordion 3

Open tab 1 Open tab 2 Open tab 3

Example for the content section

Man sieht die Hände einer feiernden Menschenmenge im rotem Licht. Das Wort 'Community' wird verschwommen an die Wand darüber projiziert.

This is dummy text. It allows you to see whether all the letters are there and what they look like. Sometimes words such as Hamburgefonts, Rafgenduks, or Handgloves are used to test fonts. Sometimes sentences containing all the letters of the alphabet are used—these sentences are called “pangrams.” A well-known example is this one: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy old dog.

Since 1975, numbers have been missing from most test texts, which is why, according to TypoGb. § 14a, numbers will become mandatory in 86% of texts from 2034 onwards (AVAIL® and Wefox™). Non-compliance will be punished with a fine of up to €245 or $368. Also important are âçcèñtš, as well as small caps, kerning, and ligatures (very clever). These days, emojis like 😇😀😉👍🏻🐶🍎 or ⚽️ are also popular in texts.

This is the link

The following links allow you to open the contents of the accordion or tab on this page directly.

Open accordion 1 Open accordionn 2 Open accordion 3

Open tab 1 Open tab 2 Open tab 3

This is a typographical dummy text

This is dummy text. It allows you to see whether all the letters are there and what they look like. Sometimes words such as Hamburgefonts, Rafgenduks, or Handgloves are used to test fonts.

Sometimes sentences containing all the letters of the alphabet are used—these sentences are called “pangrams.” A well-known example is this one: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy old dog.

Foreign language phrases are often incorporated into typographic dummy text (AVAIL® and Wefox™ are testing aussi la kerning) to test the effect in other languages. In Latin, for example, almost every font looks good. Quod erat demonstrandum.

Since 1975, most test texts have lacked numbers, which is why, according to TypoGb. 204 §, numbers will be mandatory in 86 of the texts from 2034 onwards. Non-compliance will be punished with a fine of up to €245 or $368.

Also important are âçcèñtš, as well as small caps, kerning, and ligatures (very clever).

These days, emojis like 😇😀😉👍🏻🐶🍎 or ⚽️ are also popular in texts.

The following links allow you to open the contents of the accordion or tab on this page directly.

Open accordion 1 Open accordionn 2 Open accordion 3

Open tab 1 Open tab 2 Open tab 3

Example for the content section

Man sieht die Hände einer feiernden Menschenmenge im rotem Licht. Das Wort 'Community' wird verschwommen an die Wand darüber projiziert.

This is dummy text. It allows you to see whether all the letters are there and what they look like. Sometimes words such as Hamburgefonts, Rafgenduks, or Handgloves are used to test fonts. Sometimes sentences containing all the letters of the alphabet are used—these sentences are called “pangrams.” A well-known example is this one: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy old dog.

Since 1975, numbers have been missing from most test texts, which is why, according to TypoGb. § 14a, numbers will become mandatory in 86% of texts from 2034 onwards (AVAIL® and Wefox™). Non-compliance will be punished with a fine of up to €245 or $368. Also important are âçcèñtš, as well as small caps, kerning, and ligatures (very clever). These days, emojis like 😇😀😉👍🏻🐶🍎 or ⚽️ are also popular in texts.

This is the link

The following links allow you to open the contents of the accordion or tab on this page directly.

Open accordion 1 Open accordionn 2 Open accordion 3

Open tab 1 Open tab 2 Open tab 3

Example content section

The crowd celebrates the content section

This is a typographical dummy text. It can be used to check if all the letters are there and how they look. Sometimes, sentences containing all the letters of the alphabet are used. This one is very well known: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy old dog. Also important are âçcèñtš, as well as small caps, kerning, and ligatures (very clever). These days, emojis like 😇😀😉👍🏻🐶🍎 or ⚽️ are also popular in texts.

This is the link

Man sieht die Hände einer feiernden Menschenmenge im rotem Licht. Das Wort 'Community' wird verschwommen an die Wand darüber projiziert.

The Mercury functions are described in the documentation.

The Mercury template documentation is created specifically for the OpenCms community. It describes both the basic functions of the Mercury template and customer-specific additions.

New content is added to the documentation with each new version.

Cookies

Milestone 8 improved cookie management. Cookies can now be enabled in multiple groups via the cookie banner.

The update to Milestone 8 brings the following enhancements to the handling of cookies:

  • Consent to cookies has been divided into 3 groups: Necessary, External Content, and Statistics.
  • The cookie banner has been expanded and now allows direct selection of cookie groups.
  • The cookie banner can now be deactivated for selected pages.
    The dynamic function Privacy policy cookie switch has been expanded to include the selection of cookie groups.
  • In flexible content, the user's consent to external cookies can be requested optionally.

Note: The changes in the handling of cookies require a revision of the existing files of the type “Configuration for data protection regulations.” There are various new fields here that can be filled in. If this is not done, default values will be used.

A burger with salad

The “Burger” template variant displays the main navigation in the header area on all screen sizes via a drop-down “Burger” menu.

There are special copy masters for setting up a website with the “Burger” template variant.

Please note: Currently, when creating a website, you have to decide which navigation to use for the header area by selecting the appropriate copy master. It is not possible to change the header area later without considerable manual effort.

Support by the theme generator

The theme generator also supports customization of the “Burger” template variant. To do this, select the “Burger” menu copy master option in the theme settings on the first tab.

To the “Burger” menu demo

Did you know?

“Burger” menu is the colloquial name for a menu that uses a symbol with three horizontal lines placed parallel to each other. This symbolizes the structure of a menu list. The name originated because the symbol can be associated with the three layers of a hamburger.

Further information on Wikipedia

Bunte Tücher auf der Wäscheleine

With Milestone 12, you can subsequently change the template variant of an existing website.

With Milestone 12, it is possible to change the template variant of an already created website at a later date. For example, it is possible to switch from the Standard variant to the Burger variant (or vice versa).

With Milestone 12, the following variants of the Mercury template are available:

  • Standard
    In this variant, the main navigation is displayed as a drop-down menu in the header area for larger screens, but as a “burger” menu for smaller screens. Colors and other settings can be customized using the theme generator.
  • Burger
    In this variant, the main navigation in the header area is permanently displayed as a “burger” menu. Otherwise, it is identical to the standard variant. Colors and other settings can be customized using the theme generator.
  • Agency
    This option is for web experts and allows the use of custom CSS and JavaScript. However, the theme generator is not available. 
To the instructions

Calendar page

Milestone 14 enables events and church services to be added to your personal calendar.

Data for events and church services can be downloaded by website users as an iCalendar file. This allows event data to be transferred to a personal calendar.

iCalendar is a standardized data format for exchanging calendar content. The iCalendar format is accepted by almost all calendar programs that can integrate web-based calendar data, including Google Calendar/Android Calendar, Microsoft Outlook, and all macOS/iOS calendar applications.

To the instructions

Beim Anklicken können Daten an Facebook übertragen werden

We are celebrating a wonderful anniversary these days: for 1,700 years now, our Sundays have been free from work! 😎

Blogger's notebook with red drink

For the display of blogs, Milestone 15 provides additional formatters that can be used for list and detail views.

The display of list headers for a blog differs greatly from other header types, such as detailed headers. In headers for blogs, for example, all formatting such as bold or italics is displayed. Line breaks, paragraph breaks, and links are also displayed as entered. 

The following elements can be used in the special blog display:

  • Articles
  • Decoy
  • Media

For blogs, the goal is to display the list as a continuous text. The layout arrangement of headline, text, and image is predetermined.

Ein buntes durcheinander von Farben und Pinseln

Blog list view

The blog display can be further customized using various element settings in the list.

The following element settings are specifically available for lists with blog teasers:

Visible paragraphs  

Determines how many paragraphs from the content are already displayed in the list.

Unlike most other list headers, there is no text truncation in the blog list header. Instead, at least the first paragraph is always displayed in full.

With this element setting, additional paragraphs after the first one can also be displayed directly in the list.

Optionally, all paragraphs can be displayed in the list, in which case there may be no need for a detailed display. In this case, if you enter ‘none’ for the button label, no link to the detailed display will be created, not even in the heading.

Show image zoom

This option is available for blog list teasers, as the image is not linked as it is with most other teaser types.

Show author

Optionally, the author of an article can already be displayed in the list.

Please note that the author is only available in the “Article” element. For the other elements that can be used with the blog, such as ‘Decoy’ or “Media,” it is not possible to specify an author. Therefore, no author is displayed in the list for these elements. 

Blog comment counter

This option allows you to display the number of comments for a blog entry directly in the list. This requires additional settings on the page, which are described below.

Blog comments

Comments for the blog can be implemented on the detail page using additional dynamic functions. With Milestone 15, the service provider Hyvor Talk was added as a new option.

To use the Blog comment counter element setting in the list, you need to drag the Hyvor Talk Comments dynamic function onto the list page and activate the Comment Counter Only option in the element settings. With Milestone 15, this special option is only available for the combination “Blog Teaser with Hyvor Talk Comments.”

Blog detail view

In addition to the special lead-in for the lists, there is also a special blog detail display. This corresponds to the layout of the blog list teaser, but of course displays all paragraphs of the article. 

A special feature here is seamless continued reading. When the user clicks on the “More” or “Continue reading...” link below the lead text in the list, the detail page jumps directly to the next paragraph when it loads. This means that the user does not have to scroll away from the text they have already read.

Note: To activate the special blog detail display on the detail page, it is necessary to set the element setting Detail container selection to the value Special main content as detail container in the corresponding container of the selected layout row.

Sonnenuntergang fotografiert von der linken Rheinseite. Man sieht den Kölner Dom und die Hohenzollernbrücke.

As the resting place for the remains of the Three Kings

In 1164, Rainald von Dassel, Archbishop of Cologne, brought bones from Milan to Cologne, which were regarded and worshipped as relics of the Three Kings.

These attracted many pilgrims to Cologne. Therefore, around 1225, plans were made to build Cologne Cathedral. The foundation stone was laid on August 15, 1248, by Archbishop Konrad von Hochstaden.

Robot

Captchas are often used in forms to ensure that entries are made by humans. 

Milestone 16 enables the use of external captchas for forms. Either Friendly Captcha or Google reCAPTCHA are supported. If an external provider is configured, the captchas in all forms are automatically replaced by the configured provider.

The Mercury template previously used a self-generated captcha. This is no longer up to date, as “form bots” are now able to overcome it. In the recent past, there have been incidents where forms using the old captcha were “flooded” with meaningless requests. 

More about captchas on Wikipedia

View from Cologne Cathedral

The construction took 632 years

Construction of the cathedral began in 1248. It was completed in 1880. In between, there was a 300-year interruption in construction from 1528 to 1823.

This is probably the longest construction period for any building after the Great Wall of China.

Man sieht eine feiernden Menschenmenge auf einer Tanzfläche mit stimmungsvoller Beleuchtung. Im Vordergrund formt eine Person mit den Händen ein Herz.
0:00
0:52

This is the introduction to the audio.

If a preview image is specified in the content, it will be used as the background for the audio player.

Ein buntes durcheinander von Farben und Pinseln

Far away, behind the mountains of words, far from the lands of vowels and consonants, live the blind texts. They live secluded in Letterville on the coast of Semantics, a large ocean of language.

This workshop teaches the basics of OpenCms

Far away, behind the mountains of words, far from the lands of vowels and consonants, live the blind texts. They live secluded in Letterville on the coast of Semantics, a large ocean of language. A small stream called Duden flows through their town and provides them with the necessary rules. It is a paradisiacal land where fried sentence fragments fly into your mouth. Not even the almighty punctuation rules over the blind texts - a truly unorthographic life. But one day, a small line of blind text, whose name was Lorem Ipsum, decided to go out into the wide world of grammar. The great Oxmox advised her against it, saying that it was teeming with evil commas, wild question marks, and sneaky semicolons, but the little dummy text was not to be deterred.

Cologne Cathedral from the front

The cathedral is 157 meters high

To be precise, the north tower of Cologne Cathedral is 157.38 meters high, while the south tower is 157.31 meters high.

This meant that Cologne Cathedral was actually the tallest building in the world from 1880 to 1884.

Neonlicht mit dem Schriftzug 'Pop' in Rot-Gelb auf einer bunten Glasscheibe.

A picture is worth a thousand words!

This image series from the Mercury Template documentation contains many images illustrating the features.

Beach House Number 5

The Mercury template has been updated to the latest version, Bootstrap 5.2. The update automatically affects all existing websites that use Mercury.

Bootstrap 5 ensures that future developments of the template can benefit from the latest CSS features. The change automatically affects all existing websites that use the Mercury template.

Bootstrap 5 offers various new features, including:

XXL screen size added

With XXL, Bootstrap 5 supports an additional screen size. This allows more content to be displayed on large desktop screens. This additional screen size is automatically available on all web pages. 

Using CSS Custom Properties

Bootstrap 5 utilizes modern web design techniques such as CSS custom properties. Often referred to as CSS variables, these make designing with CSS much easier for agencies.

No more support for Internet Explorer

Bootstrap 5 no longer supports Internet Explorer. This browser is now obsolete and is no longer being developed by Microsoft due to various security vulnerabilities—in favor of Edge.

Careful attention has been paid to ensuring that existing Mercury sites are displayed in exactly the same way as before the conversion. There may be minimal differences in details, but these should be improvements. If, after the conversion, the display of a Mercury site has changed significantly for the worse, please inform Alkacon Software or your OpenCms administration.

Further information on the Bootstrap website

Woman looking through a magnifying glass
The functions of the various elements of the Mercury template are described here. For each element, there is at least one page with usage examples.
To the overview

100 years “Decker Pitter”
3:41

A special birthday at Cologne Cathedral

The “Decke Pitter” – the Peter's Bell of Cologne Cathedral – celebrated its 100th birthday on May 5, 2023.

Nr. 1234/567/890

Man with backpack looking up at the sky

We are hiring: Typoblindtext writer

Sometimes you use words such as Hamburgefonts, Rafgenduks, or Handgloves to test fonts. Sometimes you use sentences that contain all letters of the alphabet - these sentences are called “pangrams.” This one is very well known: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy old dog. 

Blogger's notebook with red drink

You bring: Experience with typographic dummy text

Foreign language phrases are often incorporated into typographic dummy texts (AVAIL® and Wefox™ are testing aussi la kerning) to test the effect in other languages. In Latin, for example, almost every font looks good. Quod erat demonstrandum. Since 1975, numbers have been missing from most test texts, which is why, according to TypoGb. 204 §, numbers will become mandatory in 86 of the texts from 2034 onwards. Non-compliance will be punished with a fine of up to €245 or $368. Âçcèñtë are now just as important, but are almost always included in newer fonts. OpenType functionalities are an important but difficult field to integrate. Depending on the software and default settings, built-in small caps, kerning, or ligatures (very clever) may not be displayed correctly.

Messages without images are displayed correctly in all lists. This applies in particular to lists with masonry or text tile layouts.
Mehr

Version 23-09 introduces the new “Unused Content” app. This app can be used to find and delete unused content.
More

Partying crowd with light show
For the content type tab / accordion, there is a new formatter called “image tile display.” This shows a series of clickable image tiles. When you click on an image tile, a container with the content opens underneath it, similar to an accordion.
More

Vertraulich bis zur Veröffentlichung

Content, such as news articles, which must remain visible only to certain editors until publication, even in the offline project, can now be easily created in the editor.

Occasionally, certain content, such as news articles, may only be visible to specific editors until it is published in the offline project, but should be visible to everyone after publication. With version 23-12, such content can now be easily created in the editor. Previously, this was only possible with considerable effort by manually setting permissions.

Man sieht eine feiernden Menschenmenge auf einer Tanzfläche mit stimmungsvoller Beleuchtung. Im Vordergrund formt eine Person mit den Händen ein Herz.

In Western culture, January 1 has been widely accepted as the start of the year since the Middle Ages. Regardless of this, other dates have been and continue to be used in different regions and at different times.

In 153 BC, the Romans moved the start of the official year from March 1 to January 1, the day the consuls took office, according to their calendar. However, the calendar year still kept the March style with March 1 as the start of the year. It was not until Caesar's calendar reform (Julian calendar) that the originally appended months of January and February were placed at the beginning of the year, so that the calendar year and the official year began on January 1.

As a result, the counting months (September, meaning “seventh”; October, “eighth”; November, ‘ninth’; December, “tenth”) also lost their positions corresponding to their names.

Eine junge Frau liegt auf dem Boden und liest Bücher

The Storyteller builds a screen-filling sequence of animated content with its own navigation. The display of each individual “page” can be customized.

Man sieht eine feiernden Menschenmenge auf einer Tanzfläche mit stimmungsvoller Beleuchtung. Im Vordergrund formt eine Person mit den Händen ein Herz.

In Western culture, January 1 has been widely accepted as the start of the year since the Middle Ages. Regardless of this, other dates have been and continue to be used in different regions and at different times.

In 153 BC, the Romans moved the start of the official year from March 1 to January 1, the day the consuls took office, according to their calendar. However, the calendar year still kept the March style with March 1 as the start of the year. It was not until Caesar's calendar reform (Julian calendar) that the originally appended months of January and February were placed at the beginning of the year, so that the calendar year and the official year began on January 1.

As a result, the counting months (September, meaning “seventh”; October, “eighth”; November, ‘ninth’; December, “tenth”) also lost their positions corresponding to their names.

Man sieht eine feiernden Menschenmenge auf einer Tanzfläche mit stimmungsvoller Beleuchtung. Im Vordergrund formt eine Person mit den Händen ein Herz.

In Western culture, January 1 has been widely accepted as the start of the year since the Middle Ages. Regardless of this, other dates have been and continue to be used in different regions and at different times.

In 153 BC, the Romans moved the start of the official year from March 1 to January 1, the day the consuls took office, according to their calendar. However, the calendar year still kept the March style with March 1 as the start of the year. It was not until Caesar's calendar reform (Julian calendar) that the originally appended months of January and February were placed at the beginning of the year, so that the calendar year and the official year began on January 1.

As a result, the counting months (September, meaning “seventh”; October, “eighth”; November, ‘ninth’; December, “tenth”) also lost their positions corresponding to their names.