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Terminalfour

Terminalfour is the web management platform provided by UCD IT Services for building and updating UCD websites. 

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About Terminalfour

 Terminalfour is UCD's supported content management system (CMS) designed to streamline the creation, management, and delivery of UCD websites.  Terminalfour specialises in web content management for higher education establishments. The platform is provided and supported by the Web team within UCD IT Services. 

Website content is then created and maintained by the Website Owners. This page describes how to get started with Terminalfour as a UCD staff user.

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1. Complete Terminalfour Training

Sessions are run monthly via Zoom. Note: a staff UCD Connect login is required to book a place.

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2. Request Terminalfour access

The website owner must approve and request your access via this form to edit an existing UCD website. Note: log into the IT Support Hub as a UCD staff member to access the form.

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3. Log into Terminalfour

Once your access has been granted, you will receive a confirmation email from UCD IT Services. Log in via the Terminalfour CMS icon on UCD Connect. See below for first steps.
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4. Request a new website

If you need to request a completely new website for your UCD School/unit, please see here for the process and request form.

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5. Optimise your UCD website

Find resources, accessibility guidance, web analytics and more from UCD WebSmart.

Learn to use Terminalfour: step by step

Once you have logged into Terminalfour, the websites you can access are visible via the Site Structure menu.

See our short video showing an overview of the UCD Terminalfour navigation menu, how to log in and an overview of how to add and publish content. 

Adding sections and page content

Each webpage in Terminalfour comprises a group of content components, sitting within a container called a Section. UCD IT Services recommends that you first design and build out your overall website structure as Sections. Then, add content to the various webpages like building blocks: you can move and arrange components in different combinations.  

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Components and templates: UCD Design Library

The UCD IT Services Web team has created various Terminalfour content types, all optimised for accessibility guidelines and to fit UCD branding. Please see the Design Library website to learn about these content types, suggested combinations and template pages.

Adding images, videos and attaching files

Upload images or documents to the website's Media Library first, before inserting them into website content.  To add a video, embed it directly on the webpage. 

Terminalfour FAQ

Once you are familiar with the basics, learn more about using Terminalfour to build and manage your UCD website.

UCD Terminalfour Best Practices

Web accessibility is worthwhile for ucd.ie websites, not only for optimising visitor experience but is mandated by the European Union. The(opens in a new window) EU Web Accessibility Directive requires EU member states to abide by (opens in a new window)WCAG 2.1 Level AA standards. 

UCD IT Services provides a tool called Silktide, for UCD website editors to monitor their website accessibility and other usability issues. Silktide performs automated testing, scanning each page and providing a comprehensive score to show how accessible the website is, and what issues need to be addressed to improve it for our users.

Silktide is available via UCD Connect: website editors automatically have access to their website reports and suggested actions. 

Remember to complete the 'Description/Alt text' field in the Terminalfour Media Library when uploading your image files too. 

This is important for people using screen readers to access your website, and also improves both the website's accessibility score and its SEO ranking. 

A screenshot of the Terminalfour Media Library edit pane, with the Description/Alt Text field highlighted

Remember to always complete the 'Description/Alt text' field in the Terminalfour Media Library when uploading files you wish to appear on your webpages.

The Alt text is user-facing and appears as a hyperlink to view or download the file on your webpage. Without this field, the linked file won't appear on your webpage - even if the file is uploaded correctly.  

A screenshot of the Terminalfour Media Library edit pane, with the Description/Alt Text field highlighted

After content is deleted, it still appears in the relevant section as Inactive.

These Inactive components can be reactivated and reused. However, if you no longer need a specific component and wish to remove it from your Content view, every UCD Terminafour website has a Trash section. You can move deleted components to this Trash section, once they are made inactive and you are sure you no longer need them. This can be useful if you have a long list of components in a particular section. Trash folders are emptied periodically by UCD IT Services. 

  1. Locate the Trash section of your website (create your own Trash section if one does not exist)
  2. Select the Actions dropdown in the relevant Inactive component.
  3. Select Move.
  4. Select the Trash folder as the destination. 
  5. Repeat as required. 

A screenshot of the Terminalfour content view, with arrows to show how to move inactive components to Trash

Support Hub Homepage

Further Support

The UCD IT Support Hub is where you can log a call with our UCD IT Helpdesk team, find an answer in our Knowledge Base of articles, or request an additional service or access.

UCD IT Services

Computer Centre, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland.

Contact us via the UCD IT Support Hub: www.ucd.ie/ithelp