Document Actions
Adding a Message from Your Library Director
You may want to include on your Plinkit Web site a welcome message from your library director. To help you get such a message in place quickly, your initial Plinkit Web site will include a sample Director’s Message item that you can update with an actual message from your director.
The sample Director’s Message provided with your site is a news item, which means that it functions a bit differently than the About Us pages described in previous sections. Unlike standard Plinkit content pages, news items are featured in the news portlet. Posting a Director’s Message as a news item calls attention to the message and makes it easy for users to access it.
|
|
Note: Although the procedures in this section deal with a specific news item that comes with your initial site, these procedures apply to any news item. For more information about creating brand new news items, see Creating and Managing News Items. |
The Director’s Message will initially be unpublished, which means that the general public will not be able to view it. To post a message from your director for public viewing, you will need to update the content of the sample Director’s Message news item and then change the item’s publishing state to make the message available to the public. You may also choose to change the effective date setting for the Director’s Message periodically if you want it to continue to show up prominently in the news portlet.
Updating and Publishing the Director’s Message
1. Log in to Plinkit.
2. Click the About Us folder in the navigation portlet to view an expanded list of its contents. The Director’s Message appears in green, indicating that it has not yet been published for viewing by the public.
3. Click the Director’s Message link. The default message is displayed in the view tab.
4. Click the edit tab to open the Edit News Item page.
5. If desired, edit the text in the Title box and the Description box. If you prefer, you can continue to use the default title and description, as we have elected to do in this example.
6. In the Body Text box, delete the existing placeholder text by highlighting it with your mouse and then pressing the Delete key on your keyboard.
7. Enter the text of your new Director’s Message.
|
|
Tip: You can use the buttons and tools that appear on the green bar to add basic formatting to your text. These tools, which behave much like the tools and buttons in most word processing programs, are described in Formatting and Editing Content with the Kupu WYSIWYG Editor (version 1.3.9). |
8. Scroll down to the Image area of the Edit News Item page, where you will see the image that was used in the default Director’s Message.
You can either replace this image with a picture of your director or library, or you can simply remove the image. If you remove the image, no picture will be included in your Director’s Message.
9. Either delete or replace the original image:
– To delete the default image so that no image will be published with your Director’s Message, select the Delete current image option and then skip to step 10.
– To replace the default image with an image of your director or library, click the Replace with new image option and then click Browse.
|
|
Tip: When viewing form pages that include radio button choices like the ones shown above (that is, a list of options from which you are to select only one option by clicking the appropriate circle), it is best to avoid using the scrolling wheel on your mouse. Using such “mousewheels” can change radio button selections and result in unexpected behavior. We recommend always using the on-screen scroll bars to navigate through your site when you are logged in as an Editor user. Mousewheels can also change drop-down menu selections unexpectedly. |
In the File Upload window that appears, navigate to the image file you want to use, highlight it, and then click Open. (The image must be stored on your hard drive or network.)
10. Scroll to the bottom of the Edit News Item page and click save.
The main content area automatically switches to the view tab so that you can review your changes.
|
|
Tip: If you replaced the image but the old image is still being displayed, click your browser’s Refresh button. |
11. If you are satisfied with the message and image, click the public draft status indicator on the green menu bar and then select publish from the drop-down menu.
After you select publish, a message at the top of the page confirms that the publishing state of the page has been changed, and the publishing state changes to published. The link to the Director’s Message on the navigation portlet is no longer displayed in green.
A link to the Director’s Message should now also appear in the news portlet.
|
|
Tip: If the Director’s Message does not appear in the news portlet or appears near the bottom of the list of news items (as in the example above), follow the procedures in the next section. |
Changing the Effective Date for Your Director’s Message
The Director’s Message is a news item, so it is displayed in the news portlet that appears in the left column of most Plinkit pages. However, since the news portlet only displays the titles of and links to the most current news items, your Director’s Message may sometimes move down or even slip off the news portlet list. As we saw in Updating and Publishing the Director’s Message, the Director’s Message may appear at the bottom of the news portlet when you first publish it.
This Director’s Message appears at the bottom of this list because its effective date is February 6, 2006, and two other news items with later effective dates exist. The effective date is a setting you can edit using the properties tab.
To make certain that your Director’s Message is prominently placed on the news portlet, periodically change the effective date of the message, as follows:
1. Log in to Plinkit.
2. Click the About Us folder in the navigation portlet and then click the Director’s Message link.
3. In the main content area, click the properties tab.
|
|
Tip: Although the title of the news item does not appear in the main area of the properties tab, the breadcrumb (you are here) trail above the tabs and the highlighting in the navigation portlet indicate that we are viewing the properties for the Director’s Message. |
4. Scroll down to the Effective Date and Expiration Date sections and notice the settings. The effective date is the date on which the Director’s Message will become visible to the public (if the Director’s Message is in the published state). This is also the date used to order the news items in the news portlet.
5. Change the effective date to today’s date. This will cause the Director’s Message to appear at the top of the news portlet.
|
|
Tip: If you want the Director’s Message to be visible at all times, do not specify an expiration date. Remember, though, that you may still need to update the effective start date periodically if you want the message to appear near the top of the news portlet. |
6. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click save.
Notice that the Director’s Message now appears at the top of the news portlet.
