Knowledge Base/Official Insight Help/Articles and Forms

Articles Introduction

Justin Ruffell-Ward - Insight Support
posted this on September 29, 2010 10:51

Adding new content to your web site is vital to keeping the information up to date and ensuring that both visitors and members of your organisation return frequently. Wherever possible you should encourage as many members to contribute articles for publication –  Insight allows you to do this in one of two ways:

  1. By submitting an article for consideration using the my documents area of the web site. This method is most useful for occasional contributors.
  2. By delegating responsibility for producing documents to different people in each group using the documents and media permission in the Web Office.

This guide describes how to create and publish new articles and how to fulfil the role of document reviewer.

Creating a new article

  • If you haven’t logged into the web site already, do so now. Click the Login link at the top of the home page and enter the login name and password as supplied.
  • Once you have successfully logged in click the web office link at the top of the home page.  
  • Select a group folder where you would like the document to be located.
  • Select the documents tab to display the current list of documents in this group. 
Not sure what a group folder is? For an explanation of groups see the Site Manager Tour.
Documents tab not available? This will mean you don't have the Documents and Media Web Office permission. Contact your site administrator to request this permission.
  • At the bottom of the work pane select the tasksbullet start a new document task.
  • You will be asked which type of document do you wish to create?. Select An Article option. Refer to the Adverts and Polls guides to find out how to create those types of document.
  • Step 1 – add content to your article - Begin adding text and images to your new article in the contents view.

    The contents view is very similar in operation to popular word processing software.  Click where it suggests to, and enter text in the space provided.

    Document editor Contents pane
    document editor

    Use the toolbar at the top of the page to format the text and add other items to the page e.g images.Here's a description of commonly used options:
    hyperlinkInsert/Edit link Use this option to create a hyperlink from the selected text to other content on your site, or another web site. If no text is highlighted then this option will not be selectable. To select text, move the cursor to the left of the text you wish to highlight, click and hold down the left mouse button and drag to the right to highlight the required text.
    addimage Insert/Edit Image Use this option to insert an image or edit a previously inserted image that is currently selected.
    Paste
    Pastes text from an existing document.
    Text Styles
    heading styles
    Adds Heading styles to highlighted text. Useful for separating your article into sections, making it easier to read.
      Prompts to install a plug-in that can be used to check your spelling. Only available within the Internet Explorer browser.

     Click in the content area and then move your mouse over the other document toolbar options to display a brief description of what each toolbar option does.
  • Step 2 – set the article properties – select the properties tab to configure these options: 

    • Title –  Enter a title to describe the purpose of the article.
    • Author –  Your name will be entered as the author. The author is listed at the bottom of the article on the web site along with the date the article is published. You can edit the field to name someone else as the author or delete the author if you don't want an author/date to appear.
    • Summary – Enter a brief synopsis to encourage people to read the article. You can also press the use image button to place a picture next to the article whenever it appears in an article list.
    • Publish Date - Enter the date when you would like the article to become available. You can also select a date when you would like the article to be removed; if you do not specify a removal date the article will remain on the web site indefinitely.
    • Visible to – Select which groups of people visiting the web site can see the article. See Publishing Security - Quick Start Guide  for a description of the visibility options.
    • Feature this article on the web site front page – When this option is checked the article will appear in the "latest articles list" on the front page of your website.
      Article doesn't appear on your frontpage?
      If this option is selected but still doesn't appear on the frontpage of your web site see Why doesn't my article appear on the frontpage of my web site?
    • Allow feedback about this article - When checked enables web site visitors to comment on the article.
    • Hide 'See Also' links - 'See Also' links are automatically generated links to other documents in the same group that appear, under the group navigation component, usually to the side of the article. To remove these links from this specific article select this option. If you wish to remove these links, from all the articles on your site, then you'll need to turn off the link in all the layouts on your site.
    • Add any associated links – Use this area to add links under the group navigation component, which usually display (depending on your article layout) to the left-hand side of the page.  These links can be to other groups in your site, documents, events, audio & video recordings, rotas, members, external websites etc.
    • Tags - Label your article with keywords that will link it to related content on your web site. The tags entered will appear at the bottom of the article and will link to other content that is labelled with the same tag. See What are Tags? for more information on this feature.
  • Step 3 – publish the article! – Click the Preview button to see what your article will really look like on the web site. Once you are happy with the content of your article, set the publishing status at the top of the article editor to published.

Click the Save button to commit your changes and return to the documents view.  The article will now be available on your web site.

If you view your article by navigating to the group it's located in, you may only see the title summary and a link to the full article. To see the entire article on the group homepage click the homepagegray icon to make it the group homepage article.

Note:  You can use the Save button in the top right corner of the article editor at any time to save you changes and return to the documents view.  Your document will be located in the intray of the current group to allow you to return to editing it at a later stage.

The Document Reviewer

The intray of the documents view will, from time to time, show articles which have been “just submitted”.  These articles are created by members of the web site using the my documents area.  Anyone with the documents and media permission may act as the “document reviewer” for the group and choose to publish the article.

When a new article is awaiting approval a document-approval symbol will appear after the group name in the Site Manager navigation.

To review and approve the article: 

  • Click on the title of the article in the intray.  The article editor will be displayed shortly afterwards.
  • Step 1 - Click on the contents tab to display the contents of the article.  Make any changes to the text if necessary.
  • Step 2 - set the article properties – Select the properties tab to configure the options. A description of each option on the properties tab can be seen in the section above.
  • Step 3 – publish the article! - Once you are happy with the content of the article set the publishing status at the top of the article editor to published.

Click the save button to commit your changes and return to the documents view.  The article will now be available on your web site.

Deleting articles

If you wish to remove an article you can delete the article as follows:

  • Click cancel to exit the article editor if necessary.
  • Click the recyclebin  button next to the document to send the article to the recycle bin. 
Can I recover a deleted article? An article that has been deleted can be re-published by simply selecting the article from the recycle bin and changing it's publishing status to published.

tip Tips

  • Right click your mouse when it's placed over some content e.g.an image, in the contents area and you'll be offered options relating to the selected item.
  • Clicking the articletemplate icon will create a copy of the relevant article. To copy an article from another area of the web site select the tasksbullet Use an existing article as a template task.
 

Comments

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Tim Johns
Is there anyway to just download the HTML, edit it with a real editor, and upload it again? Do I have to use your fisher-price editor? If I do, where is the nearest exit?
February 03, 2011 10:15
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Rachael Arnott

Tim, There is a "Source" button at the end of the web editing toolbar that reveals the html. So I copy that out and paste back in when I want to edit the html directly.

April 11, 2011 20:46
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The Editor

Is there any way of altering the default article layout or is it 'fixed'?

Colin Wilson

January 28, 2012 12:29
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Declan Ganly

Why am I only seeing the html code view in the content area instead of the "normal" content view.  I want to be able to edit an article not read through tonnes of <><><  > < > < >  > > >  > > > > > <  < <p p<<< gunk.  Please help!!!

April 03, 2012 10:08
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Rachael Arnott

Hi Declan, I have had this problem in certain browsers (Chrome & Safari). Try a different browser?

April 03, 2012 15:38