What is the purpose of the Publication Types: E-mail, Mobile, and Unspecified?

Question

While creating a Publication, we have below options for the Publication Type:

:

So far, I have used Web and Content type Publications and to some extent I understand their purpose.

Can you please provide examples where and when the other types: [ E-Mail, Mobile and Unspecified ] need to be used?

In my project I can see many Publications which are for a Mobile website but they are all set as Web (060 level) and Content (040)? Should I set both the 060 and 040 Publications type to Mobile?

Are there any special content types/Component/Pages/Schema to be created when a Publication is of type Mobile?

Also, in which case should a Publication Type be Unspecified? Will Tridion automatically detect the correct type of a Publication?

Answer 1

In general, the Publication Type doesn't have much predefined meaning for the system itself (*); it is mainly intended to help users distinguish different purposes.

Note that the list of available Publication Types is customizable (in Tridion.ContentManager.config.

In a typical BluePrint, you will find Publications which merely acts as Repositories and are not intended for publishing (Publication Type Undefined or Content) and Publications representing Websites (Publication Type Web or Mobile).

Publication Type Mobile is a bit dubious, because nowadays responsive design is often used to make website accessible to mobile too. But, again, the system doesn't care which Publication Type you use for a Site Publication.

(*) Note that the SDL Web 8 Site Wizard does use Publication Type to locate Site Types and Content Publications.

Answer 2

One possible use of these Publication types is in those scenario where number of publications in the system are big and it is difficult to navigate/find publications - there you can use these publication types to filter publications in CME as shown below:

Answer 3

Please find below example code and update your customized publication Type in Tridion.ContentManager.config file and restart services.

 \tridion\config\Tridion.ContentManager.config




<publicationTypes>
      <!-- 
      Constraints: 
          1) id and name attribute is unique. 
          2) id > 1024. Numbers below 1024 are reserved.
          3) titleResource is optional. if titleResource is not provided then the value specified in name will be used as PublicationType.Title
      -->
      <add id="1" name="Content" titleResource="lblContentPublicationType" />
      <add id="2" name="Web" titleResource="lblWebPublicationType" />
      <add id="4" name="Mobile" titleResource="lblMobilePublicationType" />
      <add id="5" name="SiteType" titleResource="lblSiteTypePublicationType" />
    </publicationTypes>