Landing Newslog

Newslog: How to preview your articles before posting them

2006-04-11T09:06:01Z

A) First you need to set up the ADVANCED CONFIGURATION of the newslog, if you haven't done this before (you only need to do it once):

- Go to your profile and click on the Newslog link situated in the left sidebar.
- The last option there is "Newslog Configuration". Select Advanced and click the Update button:

In this way you will have all the advanced options available.

- Click on the Features link, situated in the horizontal sidebar:

- Look at the options column that starts with "ID". Go down until you see the "Holding Bin" option and click on Yes-postings can be prepared in advance and held ready for posting:

- Click on the Save button at the end of the options.

B) PREVIEWING YOUR ARTICLE AND PUBLISHING IT:

1.- Start a new article by clicking on the New article link placed in the Administrative functions at the bottom of the Newslog configuration page (Or from the Member start area, click on the New Article link in the "Some of your places to go" area).

2.- Write there your article and when you finish click on the Save draft & continue button.

3.- Click on the Add or Edit Articles link situated in the Administrative Functions at the bottom of the page.

4.- In the list of articles you will see the last one that you've saved as a draft, which is shown as a hidden article:

Click on the Edit button next to the word "hidden", and thus you will go back to the edition page of your article.

5.- Now in the edition page you can see a "Status" new option showing up at the end of the page. Click on Ready for publishing option and then on the Save & Exit button:

6.- You will be brought back to the "Add or Edit Articles" page. Now your new article is not shown as a hidden article at the end of the articles list. You can see that there's a new section below this article list, with the title "Stories ready for publishing", and your article below it with the status "ready".
To preview your article and see how it will look when you publish it, click on the Preview button situated below your article:

7.-If you like how it looks, then mark the little box at the left of the article and click on the Publish Selected button below it:

Your article will be posted in your newslog and everybody will be able to see it.

8.- If after previewing your article you need to edit it, then simply use the Edit button next to the article. You will be brought back to the article edition page, and when you're done with the changes click again the Save & Exit button to go to the "Add or Edit Articles" page and do steps 6 and 7.

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SUMMARY

- Set up the advanced configuration going to "Newslog configuration" and also there select the "holding bin" in the "Features" tab (you only need to do it once).
- Write your article and save it as a draft.
- Go to "Add or Edit Articles" and edit your article.
- In the Status section, mark "ready for publising" and then "save & exit".
- Click on the Preview article to see it.
- To publish it, go back to "Add or Edit Articles", mark the box at the left of your article and click "Publish selected".
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Newslog: Inserting pictures

2006-02-22T18:32:01Z

There are several options:

A) USING THE 'PICTURE' OPTION INSIDE THE ARTICLE EDIT PAGE

When you start adding a new article or editing a new one, you can see the 'Picture' section in the page, that you can use to upload pictures to your article.

1) Select the location of the pic:

There are three different ways, depending on where the picture is located:

a) If the pic is in your computer, click the button 'Browse', choose the pic in your computer and click the button 'Open'. The address of the pic will be inserted in the box next to 'Upload File'.

b) If the pic is in internet, you need to copy the URL (internet address) of the pic and paste it in the box next to 'Grab URL'

c) If you don't want to upload one of your pics you can choose any of the pics already included in the NCN server. To do that choose the right option in the menu next to 'From Library', click the button 'View' next to it, mark the picture you want, go down to the bottom of that page and choose 'Use selected picture'. The name of the pic will show up in the box next to the 'View' button.

Besides, you can resize the pic using the the resizing option available. It's especially interesting the "small&large" resizing option, because it lets you to have a small thumbnail of the pic in the frontpage and the full size in the full article page.

2) Click 'Save Draft&Continue' button: After doing step a, b or c then click on the 'Save Draft&Continue' button to have the pic uploaded to the server. At the beginning of the page you will get some red messages saying that the picture has been uploaded and a thumbnail created.

3) Select where you want to place the pic:

Check the Picture section again. You should see a thumbnail of the pic that you've uploaded. Next to it you can see an unfolding menu next to 'Position', where you can choose exactly where you want to place that pic in the article, for example right in the text. Try any of the first 7 options and save the draft to see where the pic is placed, that's the best way to learn about these options.

If instead you choose to place the picture manually you can insert it in the article exactly where you want.

To insert the picture manually simply select the last option of the resizing menu (manual) and write this line (called html tag) in the place of the text where you want to see it:

where XXX is the number of your newslog, that you can see at the bottom of the main page of your newslog, where it says 'This news log #XXX is owned by...',

Y is the number of the article you're writing, that you can see following the link 'Add or Edit articles' at the bottom of the editing page (if you previously saved the draft of course),

and picture is the name of the pic that you have uploaded into your article (write the full name, including the final JPG or GIF extension).

Once you've saved the article, you should see the picture in the right place.

B) USING THE PICTURE GALLERY

If you're going to use pictures in your articles very often, I suggest you to set up the picture gallery, to have all the pictures grouped together. Besides, in the right sidebar of your newslog you'll see the last picture uploaded there, and when people click on it they'll be able to see your picture gallery.

If you haven't set up your picture gallery yet, please follow this link to learn how to do it: Link.

If you have already a picture gallery, you can upload there the pics you want to place in your article and then place the proper tag into the text where you want them to be inserted.

INSERTING THE PIC IN YOUR ARTICLE:

1) Go to your article and write this line in the place where you want to insert the pic:

You can use it in any place where you want to insert a picture.

2) You have to write the URL (internet address) of the picture between the quotation marks. To do this, first go to the picture gallery, click on the pic you want to insert to see it in full-size and click on it with the right button of the mouse, then select 'copy image location'. In this way you have copied the URL of the picture.

3) Go back to your article, then between the quotation marks of the tag click with the right button of the mouse and choose 'Paste'. In this way you have completed the image tag and your pic should show up in your article after you save it.

Newslog: The picture gallery

2006-02-22T18:26:01Z

SETTING UP THE PICTURE GALLERY (you only need to do it once):

1) Go to your 'Member start' page and there in the 'Some places to go box go to 'Newslog:View Newslog' to see the main page of your newslog.

2) Go down to the bottom of the page and click on 'Configure NewsLog'.

3) Go down to the option 'NewsLog Configuration', mark the option 'Advanced' and click the button 'Update'. You should get a red message 'configuration updated'.

4) Right below that red message you will see a row with many links, click on the second one, named 'Features'.

5) Go down until the blue box that says 'Have a picture gallery?', mark 'Yes' and then click the button 'Save'. Again you should get a read message saying 'Configuration updated'.

Now you'll see that at the bottom of the page you have a new administrative funcion named 'Picture Gallery'.

You can go there and will see that of course it's empty. I suggest you to save the internet address of this page, including the http, in your favourites folder to go there quickly at any time. And as I told you, you only need to do this step once.

UPLOADING PICS TO THE PICTURE GALLERY:

You have two ways to upload pictures to the Picture gallery:

1) If the pic is in your computer, click the button 'Browse', choose the pic in your computer and click the button 'Open'. Finally click the button 'Get it!'.

2) If the pic is in internet, then copy the URL (internet address) of the pic in the box next to 'Grab URL' and click the button 'Get it'.

Do this for every pic that you want to upload. Notice that when you click in the thumbnails you can see the pic in full size.

Newslog: Formatting text and inserting links

2005-12-23T20:38:01Z

TEXT FORMATTING:

If you want to use these instructions, you have to select the option HTML-no conversion will be done in the format section of the article, instead of plain text.

To change the format of the text you need to use text strings named tags which are written between < > symbols. Many of those tags are in pairs, so one is placed at the beginning of the text to be formatted, and another part at the end.

- Bold words: You have to place the words you want bolded between the tags at the beginning and at the end, in this way: words in bold will be seen words in bold.

- Italics words: Place the words between the tags . For example words in italics will be seen words in italics.

- Changing the colour of the text: Every colour has a corresponding code that you need to know if you want to use it in your text. This is a table with the colour numbers: Link.

Then place the words between the tags (where the numbers 1 should be replaced by the six digits of the colour code). For example Words in red will be seen Words in red.

- Combining tags: You can use many tags together to change different aspects of the text, but it's necessary that you close them in the opposite order in which you opened them. For example to get Amazing! you need to write Amazing!

As you can observe, for basic main colours (like red, blue, green...) it's not necessary to write the colour html code in the font tag, it's enough with the name of the colour.

- Inserting single line breaks: Use the tag
. It doesn't need a closing tag.

ADDING LINKS:

You have to write this line in the document: description where your.url.here is the url you want (including http://) and description can be any words you want to be shown.

For example, the link to NCN would be inserted as NCN and will be seen as NCN.

There are other ways to insert links, for example by using the tags and , but the first one seems easier to use here in NCN.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate in asking me or posting them in the Landing group.

Workgroups: the basics

2005-11-09T22:56:01Z

- Workgroup: this is the introductory page, where the owner of the group usually writes a guideline of the group or some comments, so it's convenient that you read it. You can see also there the different sections of the group which are also in a row at the bottom of the page.

- Members: Obviously, this is a list with all the people who joined the group, sorted by their joining date. There you can see their profile and send also a message to any member. It can be useful for you to start to know some NCN members.

- Newslog: A newslog is a place where a person or a group can post articles and others can comment about them. Landing has this newslog, where I'm posting articles to help newcomers to do their first steps. Any person in this group can post a comment here and even add a new article if they like. If you have any thoughts, ideas or anything that you want to share, you could set up your own newslog, here in the Landing newslog you have some instructions to set it up.

- Bulletin Board: members can interact here and post messages. The replies to a particular message are organized in threads, so it's easy to read the whole conversation. There's a row at the top of the page where you can choose the way you prefer to see the messages. Play with those options, they don't bite hehe:

The title of the Bulletin Board can be changed by the group administrator, as well as the other conversation rooms. For example, here in Landing the Bulletin Board is named The Questions Room and it's especially oriented to write questions. But the names always remain unchanged in the row at the bottom of the page.

- Conversation room: a place for informal conversation, where you can post a message in the box at the bottom of the page and clicking the Post/Refresh button.

In Landing this room is called Let's talk, and you could use it for example to introduce yourself.

You can also recall all the previous messages posted in this room: above the box to post a message there is a little box which says Scroll back ___ messages. Write in the little box the number of messages you want to recall (for example 10) and then click the button Post/Refresh on the left in the same row.

- Meeting Room: this is a conversation room which can be used when there's something very specific to discuss, though usually it's used like another chat room. Depending on the hue of your message, you have to choose one of the colors below the message-posting box. I don't usually worry too much about those colors, but it's up to you. Here in Landing this room is called The Hats Room.

- Projects: if you have an idea that want to propose to implement, you can start a new project in this section.

- Files: to upload any file that you want to share with the rest of the group. Select the Examine button, select the file you want to upload, click Open and finally the Upload now button. Or if the file is in internet, you can write the url in the second box and click the Get it! button.

- Links: to share any link with the group simply click in the New link button, write the URL, a title and a description and click the Save button.

- Calendar: a normal calendar, which also lets you to add an event for everybody to see, simply clicking on a particular date.

Newslog: How to set it up and configure it

2005-10-12T18:27:02Z

- The first four boxes are there for you to write a title for your newslog, a line text which goes below the title (tag line), and also a short introduction for your newslog (they are optional).

- In the middle of the page you'll see some options to set up the privacy of your newslog: you decide who can read your newslog and who can post/read comments in it (only members, the general public, nobody...). By defect, only members can read your newslog and post/read the comments in it.

- The next three options in this page are related with the number of articles that you want to be shown at a time (5 by defect), and the number of previous articles and comments shown in the sidebar of your newslog (10 by defect).

- The last option is to set up the advanced configuration for your newslog (selected in Simple by defect). At the moment, it's better that you get familiarized first with the basic configuration, so you can leave this option untouched. I'll talk about the advanced configuration in another article.

- When you've configured these basic options, click the Update button to save the changes that you've made.

- Now a new option is shown at the beginning & end of the page: [Categories]. If you click there you'll see a list of the different categories created by defect: Articles, Diary, Dreams... Each of one has a color and an icon assigned, but you can edit it clicking the Edit button next to each category and the Save button when you're done.

Besides, you can add a new category clicking the New Category button at the end of the categories list. You'll have a page to introduce the Name of the category, the color and other characteristics. Then click Save button and you're done.

ADDING A NEW ARTICLE:

At the end of the newslog configuration page you have four administrative functions: view the newslog, configure it, add/edit articles or add a new article. To add a new article to your newslog:

- Click in the New article option.

- Select the category where you want to include your article. You have some predefined categories or you can add new ones, as I commented you above.

- Add a title for the article.

- In the Text for Front Page box write an introduction for your article or the whole article if you prefer.

- In the Optional full article box write the rest of the article or nothing if you already posted your whole article in the first box.

- Format: If you don't know html code, you should select the plain text option. If you have written your article using html code, then select the second option.

- You can add a picture to your article. You can upload it from your computer clicking the Browse button, or grab it from internet writing its URL.

- If you think that you're article is suitable for one of the NCN subject categories, then select the appropiated one from the Supplemental Category menu. Then your article will be shown in your own newslog and also along with the rest of articles in the particular NCN subject that you selected.

- Then click the Save&Publish button to post your article.

NCN: The Message Center

2005-09-18T14:20:26Z

There are for sections in the Message Center:

- Inbox/Outbox area: it shows you the messages that you have in your inbox (those received by you) and in your outbox (those sent by you), as well as the unread and unanswered messages.

- Find messages area: you can select the incoming or outgoing messages (or both) option in the menu and press the Search/List button, to see a list of all the messages that you have received or sent, and see if they have been read (by you or by the destinatary depending on the option you chose).

Your search can be narrowed by different criteria shown in the menus included in that option. And even you can add a label to any message by selecting the box next to it, choosing the label from the menu below the list of messages and clicking Mark with label.

- Conversations area: to follow up the conversations between you and other member. You will see all those messages together, so it's easy to follow the conversation.

- Send a New Message area: you can select here a person from your contact list (those members added by you after looking at their profile) or write the name of any member and click Compose.

NCN: First steps

2005-09-18T12:51:01Z

Well, first of all... Welcome!! We hope that you enjoy your stay here.

You can do many things here. There are two areas, public and member area, with a menu for each one located at the top of the page.

Here are some ideas to do in the Members area:

- You should go to the Profile option and update your information , because it's your presentation card. Add the info that you consider relevant, for example what your interests are, what you are looking for, upload a pic...

There is also an option to include your Myers-Briggs Personality Test. Probably you don't know what it is, here you can find more information and take the test:
Link

- You can read a great variety of articles written by members going to Subjects, and member newslogs (or blogs) going to Communicate. Sometimes the author include a space for comments, where you can add yours if you feel so.

- In People you can see the members organized by country, look up another member, see others that have recently joined like you, access to your contact list and some other options.

- There are some Conversation rooms in the middle of the page of the Communicate section, where you can start or follow conversations. They are a sort of chat, but much slower.

- You can join a group like this one going to Groups. There is a description of every one and also a contact person. To join many of them you simply have to click the 'Join' button on the right, but sometimes there are no button and you have to write the contact person.

- You can set up your own newslog and post there your articles, thoughts, news... If you go to 'Communicate' there is an option to create your own newslog. Here in this newslog you can see some instructions to set it up.

If you have any question about how to use any of this tools, or any other thing that you want to do here, feel free to ask them in the Bulletin Board of our group.