Web Guide

SSU Website Guide

How-to documents to creating stories and basic administration tasks with the software that runs SSU: Drupal/Civicspace.

Documents by IDC WebDev:

How to create a Story Plus article

News in English/Wararka Manta
Top Headlines
Opinions
Editorials, etc.

Documents from other sources:

Add a Columnist

The columnist section is powered by a separate vocabulary (set of categories) than other types of content. The columnist section uses the "SSU Columns" vocabulary.

Each new columnist that is to be featured on Kilil5 must have his or her own term (category) within the SSU Columns vocabulary. This makes it possible to view columns by columnist on the columns page.

To add a new columnist to the vocabulary:

Visit the Admin>Categories page and click add term next to the SSU Columns vocabularly listing
Enter the columnist's name in the Term name field
Enter a short description of the columnist in the Term description field. This might be a sentence or two about the columnist's background or the topics she/he writes about.
Click the Submit button

After following those directions, the columnist will be added to the SSU Columns vocabularly. You can then add articles authored by that columnist:

Use Create Content to create a Story Plus article
Instead of choosing a category from the Content Display listing, you should choose a category in the SSU Columns drop-down menu.
Optionally, choose a topic (politics, culture, etc.). This will additionally place the column in the topical sections accessed on the right side of the page.
Continue creating the Story Plus article as normal, using the columnist's name as the Author Name.

Add image galleries

Using the Wire Story type, you can add up to 3 photos to an article. This is sufficient in most cases. However, there are two additional ways to add many more photos to your articles. Both of these methods are advanced, meaning they take more time and skill to complete than using the photo fields included in the Wire Story type.

Using Photo Galleries

One method is to create a photo gallery, and then create a link in your article to the photo gallery. To create a photo gallery:

Visit admin> Image Galleries
Click the Add Gallery button
Select a title for your gallery. If you want it to be available as a sub-category of another gallery, choose the other gallery from the Parent menu
Click the Submit button
On the gallery listing page, note the number of your gallery. This is a little tricky to find. You need to hover your mouse pointer over the corresponding "edit gallery" link and look for the trailing number in the browser status bar, as in this illustration:

In this case, the number is 32.

Next, you can add images to your gallery.

Visit create content> Image
Follow the instructions to add an image. Make sure to choose your gallery from the Image Galleries pull-down menu. You should not choose "promote to front page."
Click the Submit button
Repeat as often as necessary to add images to the gallery

Optionally, you can link an article to the gallery:

Create a new article, or edit an existing article. Use the Rich Text Editor
In the body of the article, type some text, such as "View Photos of this Event"
Select the text and click the Link button
Enter the address for your gallery in this form:
image/tid/#

Where # is the number of your image gallery. In this case, it would be 32, hence:

image/tid/32
Click the Insert button to add your link.

That's it!

Create a Story Plus article

The wire story content type is used for adding news stories and opinion articles to SSU. It can also be used for other purposes, but it is specifically customized to work with the categories presented on the front page. To create a Story Plus article:

Log into the site
Click the Create Content link
Choose Story Plus. This will load the wire story edit page.
Choose the appropriate options for the article.

The defaults are Published and Promoted to Front Page. This will make the content visible to the public and will list it according to category on any appropriate front-page listings. Two additional options are available: In Moderation Queue alerts the administrators of the content by placing it in the Submission Queue, which they can quickly view to check out the content, and Sticky at Top of Lists makes the article stay at the top of lists until you uncheck it later.
Create a Title and, if desired, a Path Alias for the article

The Title should be the title of the article as you want viewers to see it. The Path alias is optional. A Path alias will determine what shows up in the visitor's address bar as the address (URL) of the article. For example, if I entered bigstoryheadline, the address of the article would be http://www.ssunion.net/bigstoryheadline
Choose the appropriate categories for the article. You can choose one or more categories for Content Display and Topic.

Content display determines whether the article will show up in one of the special content listings (such as the front page) or not. For instance, choose News in English to make the article appear (if it is also promoted to the front page) in the day's News in English listing on the front page. Topic determines which (if any) of the topical categories the content will display in. This is especially useful for archival purposes. You can choose multiple categories by holding down the [control] or [ctrl] key.
Enter the article's publication data. Including publication data in a regular format is the primary advantage of using the wire story content type.

You don't have to enter this data if it is not available. However, it is recommended to fill out these forms if they apply. The date is the date the article was originally published (if published elsewhere). Author name is the name of the author. Source is the name of the publication where the article can be found originally. Source web address is the web address or URL of the original article. Make sure to include all parts of the address, including http://
If a photo is available for the article, include a photo with the Photo field. You must first save the photo onto your computer. The photo can be no more than 1MB in filesize and no larger than 1280x1024 pixels in physical size.

Once you have saved the photo on your computer, click the Browse button and select that file.

NOTE: You can enter up to three photos using fields Photo 1, Photo 2, and Photo 3. It is highly recommended that you use only files of the "JPG" format, that is files with the ".jpg" extension at the end of their filenames.
Now, enter the actual text of the article itself.

The above graphic shows the plain-text text interface. By clicking the enable rich-text link, you can enable the rich-text text interface. There are several important considerations to keep in mind.
- Do not hand-type a long article into text interface. If you accidentally click the "back" button, you may lose your entire article! First write the article in a simple editor like Notepad and save a backup. Or use Microsoft Word if you can't find Notepad.
- The easiest way to copy an article from another source is to paste it into the plain-text text interface. Most of the time, articles don't need special formatting. If you are copying an article from another source, open two browser windows (or tabs). Copy the text by selecting it in the second window, then paste it into the plain-text text interface. Submit the article like that. If you need to add formatting, like bold or web links, click the Edit tab to go back and re-edit.
- If you need to add formatting using the rich-text text interface, do not paste directly from another website into the rich-text text interface. Pasting directly from a website into the rich-text interface often causes problems because you are pasting unnecessary HTML code into your article. Please follow these steps instead:
Following one of the steps above, copy or type your text into the text interface in the Body field.
If you are using the rich-text text interface, use one of many formatting tools to add formatting:

To add Bold (as in the above example), select some text and click the B button.

To add a web link (link to another website, or URL), select some text and click the Link button (above). Enter the full address (URL) of the website in the window that pops up. Then click the Insert button.

Note: If you are making a link to an e-mail address, you must begin the link with the text mailto: as in this example: mailto:joey@aol.com
Select the proper Input format for the article. The default is Filtered HTML.

Most of the time, you can keep the default. However, if you are adding unusual elements, like HTML tables or custom HTML tags, you should choose Full HTML. Trying Full HTML is a good way to troubleshoot an article that is not displaying properly.
If you want to attach a file, use the attach file fields to do so.

First, click the Browse button (in orange) and select the file you want to attach. Second, click the Attach button (in blue) to attach the file. You must wait a few moments for the file to attach and the page to reload. Once it reloads, you can submit the article. You must click the Attach button before you submit the page, or the file will not attach.
Finally, when you're finished, click the Submit button. You can always submit your article at any time, and use the Edit tab to edit it further.

Create a Video

The preferred format for video on SSU is Quicktime. Creating video content requires two steps:

Upload the video file to the SSU server (or note the location of the video if hosted elsewhere on the Internet)
Create a Video node on the SSU website to link to that video file

Step 1: Upload Video to SSU's server

You can upload the file using FTP. The FTP host is ssunion.net and the username is supplied by the administrator. Upload the video files to the /files/video/ folder (www/files/video)

Step 2: Create a Video node on SSU

If your video is in Quicktime format, you should follow these steps.

Click the Create Content link
Choose Video
Enter a Title and, if desired, a Path Alias
Enter the full URL for the video file in the Video File field. If you followed the above steps, this address will be something like this: http://www.ssunion.net/files/video/videofilename.mov where "videofilename.mov" is the filename of the video you uploaded.
You need to enter the dimensions (size) of the video. This is the number of pixels that the video is wide (x) and tall (y). Often you can find this information by playing the video with Quicktime on your computer, then using the Window > Show Movie Info menu command.
Optionally, enter the filesize of the video (such as 1.5MB)
Choose the category to list the video in (usually Featured Videos) and type a description for the video.
Click the Submit button

Users can click the play link to view the video in their web browser, or click the download link to download the video file.

Videos That Do Not Use the Quicktime Format

If you need to upload a non-Quicktime video (for example, Windows Media or RealVideo), you should follow the steps in Part 1 to upload the file. Do not follow the steps in part 2. Instead:

Create a Story node from the Create Content menu (or create a Story Plus if you want to display source/author information)
Choose Featured Videos from the content display menu
Type a description for the video in the Body field, including text that will link to the video.
Highlight the link text and click the link (looks like a chain) icon to make it into a link
In the pop-up window, enter the URL for the video (usually like http://www.ssunion.net/files/video/videofilename.avi) and click Insert
Submit the story.

Users will be able to launch an external program to view the video when it is not a Quicktime file, but they will not be able to view it directly in the browser.

Create Audio content

These steps are valid for audio files under 5 megabytes (MB).

Click the Create Content link
Choose Audio
Enter a Title and, if desired, a Path Alias
Enter a description for the audio file
Optionally, choose a category for the audio in the Content Display menu (usually Featured Audio)
Click the Browse button to select the audio file. Click Open to select the file.
If you don't want users to download the file, uncheck the Allow file downloads checkbox.
Click the Submit button and wait for your audio file to upload

Users can click the play link to listen to the audio in their web browser, or click the download link to download the audio file (if you allowed it).

Larger Audio Files

If you need to upload a larger than 5MB audio file, you should not follow the above steps to upload the file. Instead:

Use FTP to access to upload the file to the server. FTP host is ssunion.net and the username is supplied by the administrator. Upload the file into the files/audio directory
Create a Story node from the Create Content menu (or create a Wire Story if you want to display source/author information)
Choose Featured Audio from the content display menu
Type a description for the audio in the Body field, including text that will link to the audio.
Highlight the link text and click the link (looks like a chain) icon to make it into a link
In the pop-up window, enter the URL for the audio (usually like http://www.ssunion.net/files/audio/longaudiofile.mp3) and click Insert
Submit the story.

Users will be able to launch an external program to listen to the audio, but they will not be able to listen to it directly in the browser.