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Creating and Managing News Items
In Adding a Message from Your Library Director we introduced one specific example of a news item: the sample Director’s Message that is included with new Plinkit Web sites. We described how to change the content of this preconfigured news item, publish it, and change its effective date (in order to ensure its prominence in the list of news items in the news portlet).
In this section, we will describe how to create brand new news items. After you have created news items, you can perform the same maintenance tasks on them that we described for the Director’s Message.
Although news items look similar to standard Plinkit pages when they are displayed in the main content area of the Plinkit window, they have some special features that standard Plinkit pages do not have. The most important differences between these two types of Plinkit items are:
• News items generally contain “timely” material about recent events and developments, while standard Plinkit pages contain more static information.
• News items, because of their need to be current, are configured to be active and visible for only a specific, limited period of time, while most standard Plinkit pages are not time-sensitive.
• The most current news items can be accessed from the news portlet that appears on most Plinkit pages, and all current news items can be viewed on the News page. Standard Plinkit pages are not grouped and displayed in this way.
You might use news items to:
• Announce library closures
• Announce new programs or policies
• Announce new acquisitions
• Give a recap of a recent event
Creating a News Item
To create a news item:
1. Log in to Plinkit.
2. In the navigation portlet, click the News & Events folder.
The default News & Events page opens with the view tab selected.
3. Click the contents tab to view the contents of the News & Events folder.
4. Click the News folder to view its contents.
5. On the green menu bar, click add item and then select news item from the drop-down menu.
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Note: All news items (with the exception of the preconfigured Director’s Message) should be stored in the News folder. In the example shown here, we know that the item we are creating will be stored correctly because we selected add itemànews item while viewing the contents of the News folder. |
After you select news item, a blank Edit News Item form is displayed.
6. In the Title box, enter a title for your news item.
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Tip: The red square next to the word Title indicates that this field is required. You must enter a title for your news item. The title is displayed on the news portlet and the News page. |
7. If desired, enter a short description in the Description box.
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Tip: Entering a description is optional, but encouraged. The description appears in search results, in the summary view of news items on the News page, and in hovering text boxes that appear when a user rests the mouse pointer over a news item link. |
8. In the Body Text box, enter the text of your news item.
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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). |
9. If you want to add an image to your news item, scroll down to the image area of the Edit News Item window and click Browse.
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. If you have added an image and you want a caption to appear beneath it, enter a short caption in the Image Caption box.
11. 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 new news item.
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Tip: Note that the new announcement is in the public draft state, which means that it has not yet been published. |
12. If you are satisfied with the news item, click the public draft status indicator on the green menu bar and then select publish from the drop-down menu.
A message at the top of the page confirms that the publishing state of the page has been changed, and the publishing state indicator changes to published.
Your newly created news item should now also appear in the news portlet. (Click the news & events tab and scroll down to the news portlet to check.)
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Note: By default, new news items are configured to be active immediately and indefinitely from the time you create them. However, since most news items are time-sensitive, you will probably want to create an end date for your news item, as described in the next section. |
Controlling When News Items Are Active
When we created and published a new news item in the last section, we saw that the item was displayed immediately on the news portlet. This happens because the effective date—the date on which the news item becomes visible to the public—initially defaults to the date on which a news item was created.
By default, new news items will be displayed indefinitely. Since most news items are time-sensitive, however, you will probably want to add an expiration date to your news items. In some circumstances, you may also want to change the effective date.
To change the effective and expiration dates for a news item:
1. Log in to Plinkit.
2. Navigate to the news item.
– In the navigation portlet, click the News & Events folder.
– Click the contents tab to view the contents of the News & Events folder.
– Select the News folder to view its contents.
– Click the name of the news item you want to edit. The news item is displayed in the main content area with the view tab selected.
3. Click the properties tab. An Edit News Item page displays the property settings for the news item.
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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 indicates which news item you are viewing. |
4. Scroll down to the Effective Date and Expiration Date sections and notice the settings.
5. If desired, change the effective date, which is the date on which the news item becomes visible to the public (if the item is in a published state).
6. If you do not want the news item to be visible indefinitely, select an expiration date. In this example we want the news item about the library’s new hours to stop appearing on the site on May 1st, one month after the new hours go into effect.
7. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click save.
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Note: Remember, from the last section, that the effective date also determines the order of news items in the news portlet. If you will be posting a news item for a long period of time, you may need to update the effective date periodically to ensure that the news item remains visible on the news portlet. See Changing the Effective Date for Your Director’s Message for an example and instructions. |