Using this website

How to use this website

This is a quick guide to using some features of the website.

I'm sure that more topics will be added as time goes on.

Some basic background on the website.

This website is built using a Code Management System (CMS) called Drupal. Drupal is a well established system used a lot by bloggers and by social networking groups. It was chosen for IGCP572 because of the ease of adding new users (complete with passwords and profiles), and because of its forum module. Drupal is designed to have lots of modules added to it to make it suitable for each different organisation that uses it. We have already added an editor (TinyMCE), image loaders, groups, announcements, an RSS feed and forums. If you feel there is a function that the website could have added to it and you can persuade the project leaders that you are right, then we will look to see how drupal can provide this function.

For instance, if the project gets very busy you may decide that a calendar of events is needed. If you can get agreement then a date, event and calendar module will be added and configured.

Adding content

There are several types of information you can add to the website. Generally they all use the same editor. (Find out how to use the editor.)

Different types of "content" appear in different places. I would expect that most people contributing to the website would use articles, comments, images and messages. Administrators and more experienced site contributors may find they need to make announcements, collect pages into a book or modify the static pages and menus.

Commonly used content types

An article will appear on the home page when you publish it.
A comment will appear after the item that you commented on.
An image is a picture which you can add to the site. An image can be in an image gallery, attached or inserted into a page or article, or just stand alone.
You can also post messages to the forum.

Used by experienced people or administrators

A page is static content that needs to be linked to a menu or into a book.
A book is a set of pages linked together (generally having a common theme). This page is part of a book. You can tell because at the bottom of the page are pointers to the previous and next pages.
We can also have announcements which will appear at the top of the site for up to a month.

Creating new content

STEP 1.

To create some new "content" or information to go onto the website select the "Create Content" tab.

STEP 2.

Choose a content type (I will be choosing story).

STEP 3.

You will now be in the editor. I wrote a short article about the upcoming igc33.

Finally I previewed and then submitted my story. By opening the "publishing options" at the end of the page I can choose to have my story put on the front page or not.

Content options

When you have finished editing your content - be it story, page or comment there are many options available below the main editor window. You can ignore most of them until you are an experienced user who needs to do more than simply write/preview/edit/submit.

Here is a brief overview of them, with the ones you need to know about highlighted. Any options preceded by an arrow will open up on the page.

Input Format - if you want to use lots of formatting you may like to switch to Full HTML which allows more options.
Attached Images - you can attach images to your article
Menu Settings
URL path Settings
Authoring information
Publishing options

[Preview ] [Submit]

I'll look at Preview and Submit here, and deal with Publishing options on the next few pages.

Preview

Preview is used to look at your edited article and see what it will look like when it is published. This is a good option to use as it gives you a second chance to review your words and your format and to ensure that you are saying what you want to say as clearly and simply as possible.

If your article is long the preview will show it in two parts: the teaser and the complete article. The teaser is what will show up on the front page, with a link to the complete article. Below the teaser and complete article is the whole editing page again. Continue with the edit/preview cycle until you are ready to submit.

Submit

Once you submit your story, it is available for other website users to see.

Publishing Options

If you open the Publishing Options entry at the bottom of an editing page you will see

Publishing options

Published - this article is available for other users to see. (You might want to unset this if you want to keep a draft of your article for later work.)

Promoted to front page - your article teaser will appear as one of the items on the front page.

Sticky at top of lists - useful for introductory forum articles which everyone should read. Your item won't disappear as newer items are created. Only use this for VERY IMPORTANT articles.

Create new revision - Useful if you are working with other people and need to manage the copies of a document.

Using the Editor

How to use the TinyMCE editor

Brief User Instructions

Introduction

These instructions assume that you already know how to use standard editors such as Microsoft Word. This document only describes differences. Most of the icons within the editor work as expected. You can bring your mouse up to each item and it will give a brief description of its use.

Editor tool bar

If you don't see the editor where you expect it, scroll to the bottom of the page. Internet Explorer and possible some other browsers will often reposition the editor to the bottom of the page if it can't fit it into the normal area for it.

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Pasting Text from Word

When you cut and paste text directly from MS Word or similar programs it normally carries a lot of excess formatting with it. Some of that formatting may have side effects further down the page in some browsers. You may see that your paragraphs aren't right or that it has incorrectly added line breaks instead of separating into paragraphs or that it doesn't use codes for special characters such as quotation marks and they don't look right.

To correctly paste text into a page use the 'paste as plain text' button . This will strip out all of the excess baggage. There is also a Paste from Word button which may leave some of your formatting intact, but still remove the "baggage".

For short pieces of text such as headings with no special characters it will normally be OK to paste directly into the editing window.

Adding images to your pages

Loading Pictures

It is recommended that all images used be either JPEG, GIF or PNG. Other formats may appear to work but will have problems with some browsers and will be slow to download. JPEG is best for photos in that it compresses to a smaller size and yet shows in better quality.

GIF and PNG are better for graphics and can be created with a transparent background so that they sit nicely over the website background.

To Upload and Insert an Image

First click within the Edit window at the position where you want to insert the image.

Click on the 'insert/edit image' icon

The first line within the General Tab is 'Image URL'.

Click on the browse button and a new browse window will come up. It will show any images you have already uploaded.

At the bottom of this browse window is a section where you can upload pictures and other files to the server. Use this to browse your local files and to upload them to the webserver.

When your image has been uploaded click on the 'add' at the far right of the name and you should now have returned to the 'insert/edit image' dialog of TinyMCE with the image URL filled out.

Fill out Image Description and Title with a description of the image. While you should incorporate keywords for search engines in this it should be a readable sentence or paragraph description.

The Image Description is very important. This creates the ALT attribute for the image. This is seen 'under the image' before the image loads or if it doesn't load and is used by visually impaired users. Search engines such as Google take particular note of this in creating keywords.

You can look at the appearance tab if you want to have your image aligned to the left or right of your text.

If you going to use the image as a link, many browsers will show the image with a border to indicate the link. If you don't want this border then you should place a 0 in border field.

Centering an Image

It seems strange that while HTML has direct attributes on images to allow them to be positioned to the left or right, it has never had a direct attribute to position an image in the center of its window.

The correct method (see http://www.w3.org/Style/Examples/007/center ) is as follows:

Select the Image and click the Image Button. Ensure that you have not set the Alignment parameter within the Appearance TAB of the Image Button.
Select the Image and click the Edit CSS Button. . On the Block TAB, for the Display parameter select 'block' then click on the Apply button at the bottom.
Still within the Edit CSS, on the Box TAB, unclick the 'same for all' within the margin box. Beside 'right' type auto. Beside 'left' type auto. These are also within the margin box. You can leave the next column set at pixels as this will not be used with the auto parameter. Now click on the Update button at the bottom.

The image should now be centered.

Adding Links to other pages or sites

Select the text or image you want to use then click on the Link button .

In the Link URL field you need to place the URL. For links to other sites this needs to be the full URL starting with "http://".

Links to other pages within the website can use the page name or node number.

Most of the time you will only need to fill in the one field - Link URL, but placing a single sentence in the Title field is useful for adding keywords for search engines. Some browsers will show this as a hover description when the viewer brings their mouse over the link.

If you wish to create a link to a place within the same web page such as a link back to the top of the page, or index links for a long page you will need to add an anchor point for the link to connect to.

- First click on the Anchor button at the position in the document where you will link to and give it an anchor name. Anchor names should not be repeated on a page.

- At the text or picture you want to link click the link button and select the anchor that you created from the Anchor Links field.

Anchor names can also be added to links to other pages in order to link to a specific place within a webpage. A hash (#) followed by the anchor name is added to the Link URL.

Keyboard Shortcuts

TinyMCE Keyboard Shortcuts

Ctrl-Z Undo

Ctrl-Y Redo

Ctrl-B Bold

Ctrl-I Italic

Ctrl-U Underline

The Ctrl-Z is particularly useful. This allows you to retrace through a number of your last operations.

Working with tables

Tables

Use the Add table button if you need to use a table to display data.

Do not use the table’s own parameters to specify aspects such as backgrounds. Instead use Edit CSS to apply the parameters as CSS styles. This particularly applies to backgrounds (background colors or background pictures) as they are interpreted differently in different browsers.
Ensure that pictures and other embedded media objects all have their sizes specified. If the browser doesn't have the size of picture specified then it has to complete the picture's download before it knows how big any surrounding table will be.
It is best not to have too many nested tables.

Using the Forum

Most people who are active on the web will be familiar with forums. They are often used in a question/answer format to help software users, or as a conversation trail for people commenting on a topic.

Access to the forum is via the Debate/Forum link in the IGCP572 Project menu.

Forum menu item There are two forums, and all logged-in users can begin a new topic or contribute to a current discussion.

To open a new topic of discussion, click on the "Post New Forum Topic" link. You may have to select which forum you want your topic to be opened in, if you are not already reading a particular forum.

When you are reading something that has been posted to a forum you can contribute to the discussion by clicking on the "Post New Comment" link.

You will be taken to a standard editor page where you can now create and edit your comment. See Using the Editor for instructions on using the editor.

When you have finished entering your content, use the "Preview" button at the bottom of the page to check your post and see what it will look like. When you are satisfied with what you have written and how it looks use the "Submit" button to post it to the website.