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CoType is a document editing module. With CoType you can create multiple documents with nested sections in it - just as if you created a DocBook XML file, a LaTeX document or a well structured Word document.

A document consists of nested sections, so you always end up with a structure like this:

Document
  +- Section 1
  |    +- Section 1.1
  |    |    + Section 1.1.1
  |    +- Section 1.2
  +- Section 2

You can also add "boxes" to your sections. These boxes contains images
(references to multimedia files from Mediashare), program examples, or simply
some text. Boxes can be positioned in various places of their containing
sections - top left, top right, above and bottom. 

CoType is designed to cover the grounds between a Wiki and a single document.

Wiki elements:

• With CoType you can collaborate on document creation since every person can edit their own sections (can also be open to anonymous users).
• With CoType you can easily link different sections (there is a toolbar button for this in the editor).
• CoType has a complete revision history for each section and you can see who edited what, when and from where.
• Everything is instantly online.

Single document elements

• All sections in a CoType document can be printed, exported or downloaded as one single document for off-line use (not feature complete yet).
• You get a nice structured table of content.
• You can read the text linearly from section one and forward.

Features:

• Create unlimited number of documents
• Add unlimited number of sections to documents
• Add floating figures with images and text
• Organization sections hierarchically by drag-and-drop
• Automatic table of contents
• HTML WYSIWYG editing using FCKEditor
• Insert cross references
• Support for PostNuke search API
• Complete revision history
• Only one person at a time are allowed to edit the same section. No more overwriting of other peoples work.

Future features/ideas:

• Footnotes/end notes
• Bibliography
• Export to DocBook/Html/LaTeX/PDF/Word

You might ask "why a new wanna-be Book module - there's already one (and many other content modules)?". Well, there's a couple of reasons:

• First of all I was not satisfied with Book's interface.
• I wanted to create something that really shows how easy it is to create new modules with PostNuke .8.
  
• I wanted to improve PostNuke .8 with some new features - which is best done while creating something that uses them. So I have improved on the pnForm system in PostNuke .8, added content menus to pnForm, and added the "PageLock" module. The last is a module that restricts access to a single web page such that only one person at a time can edit it.
• No other content module (except Book) focuses on creating a content structure that can be exported or printed as one single document.

It all started with the need to create a book about outdoor sports together with some friends. This triggered the idea of a collaborative document editor, because managing a Word document on four different computers is g'dam awfull. Eventually the book idea died, but the module idea kept on - and here it is.