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Congratulations Digital Editors!
This is a tough job but somebody has to do it.
You've been selected because you meet the criteria to be The Chronicle’s Digital
Editors.
I'm not going to pretend like this is the easiest job in the world because it's not, it's very
demanding and it takes a lot of dedication to do it.
But that feeling, when the spam filter is empty, all the posts are approved and you look
at all you've accomplished. It's one of the best feelings in the world.
Your fellow classmates are not going to understand, they're going to wonder why you
are so stressed out about the website because it's just a website after all.
What they don't understand is this website will become your baby; you will be protective
of it. You won't want anyone else to handle it other than your co-editor. You are always
going to want to make it better.
So with this last message, we turn over the website to you and we hope that you will
have just as much fun with the website as we did.
We hope that you love and nurture this website into something even more amazing with
your own special touch, just as we did before you and the next digital editors will do after
you.
If you read, write, and edit with all you have and find the things you love. It will all be
worth it when you leave Durham College, no matter what you choose to do.
Congratulations again,
Jessica Maxwell and Amy Bridges
The Chronicle
Digital Editors 2014-2015
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Table of Contents
Page 1: Welcome
Page 2: Table of Contents
Page 3: Chapter 1: Start-Up
• Adding new users or authors
• Photos through Gravatar
• Troubleshooting
Page 16: Chapter 2: Posts
• How to guide
• Video Posts
• Editors guide to posts
• Editor’s Checklist
• Troubleshooting
Page 32: Chapter 3: Photos
• How to choose your photos
• Photo checklist for uploading
Page 34: Chapter 4: Comments
• Spam filter
• How to approve, delete comments
• What is spam?
• Troubleshooting
Page 41: Chapter 5: Widgets
• Basic what do they do
• Where do you find them
• How do you use them
• Troubleshooting
Page 49: Chapter 6: Layout
• Style
• How to change appearance
• Breaking News
• Troubleshooting
Page 57: Chapter 7: Helpful Links
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Chapter 1: Start-Up
How to add new users
Once you are signed in as an editor your dashboard should look like this.
You are going to go to Users, which is on the left hand side in the menu list.
There is two ways to get to the Add New User screen. You
can hold your cursor over the Users menu and it will bring a
mini menu beside it. You can click Add New from there or
you can just click Users.
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Either way it should bring you to this page.
Once you get this page you are going to hit the Add New button. After you hit
the Add New button it should bring you to this page. It should be empty; you are
going to fill it in.
The Username is going to be their First Name and their Last Name. This
shows up as their name on the website so it is important to make sure it is how
they want to be identified. This can’t be changed later.
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The Email has to be their DC Mail account.
The First and Last Name should be just that – the user’s first and last name.
The Website section should be for the user’s online portfolio.
The Password is something the user picks but a master list is made for all of the
users and their passwords incase they are needed.
The Role for students who aren’t editors or administrators is Author. This
allows them to create posts, add media to the post and publish the posts.
Once everything is finished and doubled checked to make sure everything is right
hit Add New User.
After you hit Add New User the user can now log in at
chronicle.durhamcollege.ca/ap-admin
You will also be able to see the User in the list of users if you go back to the main
user page.
On that page you can see their Username as well as the user’s First and Last
Name, their email, role and how many posts they have made.
After you have added the user you can edit them still you just can’t change the
username. If you hit Edit under the user’s name it will bring you to a screen
that looks like this. The User also has access to a version of this screen. Here they
can change the colour of their interface, add a website, add biography
information, and even a twitter handle.
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Professional information is only permitted, the website section is only for an E-
Portfolio or a professional website. The Biography can only use this format.
Hello, my name is ___________________________.
I am ______________, ______________ and
____________.
I like to write ____________, ___________ and
____________
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Adding a Photo to the user’s profile
To add a photo to the user’s you need to use a third party site called Gravatar.
You are going to have them sign in on their computers to The Chronicle
Website first.
They sign in at chronicle.durhamcollege.ca/wp-admin. The username is
the user’s First Name a space and then their Last Name and the password is
the one they set up.
Then open a new tab and go to en.gravatar.com. It will look like this.
You are going to click on the top right hand button that says WordPress.com
Sign In. Once you click that it will take you to this screen.
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You are going to go to Create an Account. The user needs to use the same
email address as they used on The Chronicle website – their DC Mail account.
Again the username is going to be their first and last name but this time no
spaces. The password needs to be the same as The Chronicle website as well.
Then hit Sign Up.
It will then take you to a screen that looks like this and will send a confirmation
email to the one you used.
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The email will look like this. (If you don’t see it right away check your junk mail
or wait it can take a couple of minutes.)
You are going to Activate Account once you get the email. That should bring
you back to Gravatar. Once you are back at Gravatar if it doesn’t automatically
sign back in using the information that you just gave it.
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It should bring you to this screen. This is where you are going to add your STAFF
PHOTO that was taken for your Media Pass. No other photo can be used. You
are going to click Add one by clicking here!
It will take you to this screen.
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You are going to upload from My Computer’s hard drive.
Once the photo is uploaded it will bring you to the editing screen, which will look
something like this.
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You are going to crop and move the box over your face and position it properly.
Once you are happy with the placement hit Crop and Finish! After it is finished
it will take you to a ratings page. Rate the photo G.
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After you pick G it should then take you to this page. Make sure it is the right
photo and that the primary address is set up as the DC Mail address.
After a couple of minutes this should reflect on The Chronicle Website. Have
the user sign back into The Chronicle and the photo should be seen in the upper
right hand corner.
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Close up it looks like this.
After that the user is completely finished and ready to start making posts.
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Troubleshooting for Start-Up
What do I do if they already have a Gravatar Account?
Answer: You are just going to Add Another Email. Have them sign
onto their Gravatar Account and go to their Gravatars. It should look like the
photo below. Have them add a new email and change the new DC Mail to their
primary email address. It should then work the same.
What if the photo isn’t uploading?
Answer: Make sure that the photo is the right size and that it is a
jpeg. Gravatar can only use small photos. If it won’t upload try making the
photo smaller.
What if the photo isn’t showing up on The Chronicle?
Answer: Sometimes the photo takes a while to upload, give it some time.
If it still isn’t showing up sign out of The Chronicle and sign back in. If that
doesn’t work double check that the two emails are the same. Also check and make
sure that the DC Mail is the primary email. Give it a full 24 hrs after that and see
if it hasn’t resolved itself.
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Posts
How to add new posts
Once you are signed in your dashboard should look like this.
You are going to go to Posts and either click on Add New like you see it here or
just click Posts and it should take you to this screen.
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You are going to click Add New at the top of the screen. It will then take you to
this page. If you get the popups you can just exit out of them.
You are going to put your HEADLINE where it says Enter title here. Your
headline should be no longer than 33 characters for ONE line or 66 characters for
TWO lines.
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Next you are going to copy and paste your ‘OK J’ or ‘OK with fixes’ final
version of your article into the body of the post. When you copy and paste it
make sure you are copy and pasting after your Byline. It isn’t needed in the post
you just need your body copy.
If your article comes with photos you are going to add them in now. (See photos
section for more information on photos) Space your article down one and with
the cursor above the article hit the Add Media button that is above the body
copy box. Once you hit the Add Media button it should bring you to this screen.
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You are going to Select File and upload your photo. While it is uploading it
should look like this.
After the photo has uploaded you are going to add a
Cutline to your photo in the Caption box on the
right hand side. The Cutline should have where, who,
and what is going on in the photo. The Cutline
doesn’t have to have the photographer’s name in it if
it’s the same person who wrote the article. It does
need to have the photographer’s name in it if it is
different.
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Once you are finished with the Cutline you are going to
finish the settings on the photo. These settings are
below the Caption box. You are going to make sure
your Alignment is Center and the size is Large.
After everything is set then you can hit Insert into
post.
After you hit Insert into post it will bring you back to the editing post page
like this. Here you can see where the Caption is and how the photo sits in the
post
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If you forget to do any of the steps its okay because you can click the photo to
get this menu to edit the photo. You will need to click the symbol that looks
like a pencil to edit the photo.
It will bring you to this page where you can edit those settings and then hit
Update.
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If you have more than one photo make sure the top one is in the Centre and
Large. Stagger the rest within the post making sure they are Left then Right
Aligned staggering them as they go down and they are Medium in size.
After your photos are all in and your body copy is in now you have to put it in
the right Category. The Category puts it in the proper section of the
website. You are going to click the proper box. The Category section is on the
right hand side of the post page.
Then you are going to set a Featured Image. This photo HAS to be
Horizontal or it won’t be able to be the big photo on the front page of the
website. You will find the Featured Image section below Categories and
under Tags.
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You are going to click the Blue Link that says Set Featured Image. It will
take you to this page once again. Chose the photo you want as your Featured
Image and hit the Set Featured Image button.
Then it should look like this once it is uploaded.
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After everything is finished check it again to make sure:
Headline: is 33 characters for one line and 66 characters for two lines
Body Copy: doesn’t have a byline and is the Final Copy
Photos: are in the Center are Large and have a Caption or Cutline
Category: is selected for the proper section the article goes in
Featured Image Set: is Horizontal and set to the right photo
Then you are going to hit SAVE DRAFT – DO NOT PUBLISH. The Save
Draft button can be found back at the top on the right hand side of the page.
You can Preview the article before it is fully published by an editor by hitting
the Preview button either on the right beside the Save Draft button or after
you have Saved your Draft at the top of the page.
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Video Posts
Video Posts are a little different than a normal post. The format is the same for
Headline, Featured Image, and Category (only this time you also select
the videos category).
You start the post the same way only when you go to upload the video you are
going to do a couple extra steps.
You will still go to Add Media but this time you are going to go to Insert From
URL instead.
From there you will add the URL link from the approved YouTube video and
Insert into post.
After the video is uploaded make sure the description is underneath video. You
will also have to insert the same link into the Video Slider. The Video Slider
can be found on the main Post Page here on the right-hand side. You will need
to paste the Embed Code from YouTube and check off the Feature this
post in the Video Slider? Check box.
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Editors guide to posts
As an editor the posts page will look a little different to you but you will get there
the same way. Your Dashboard will look like this.
You are going to go to Posts and see this. As you can see you can see what ones
are Drafts and what and who are working on them.
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I am going to take over the Here is my headline draft so that you can walk
through how to do that and Publish the post.
You are going to first take your cursor over the Draft. You will hit Edit.
Because it says Journalism Student is still editing it, it will bring you to this
screen. It won’t always happen because you won’t always be editing articles with
the Author still online. In this instance you are going to Take Over. Then you
will be able to see the post normally. This is where you check to make sure
everything is right and nothing has been missed. Below this photo is a checklist of
things you need to check before hitting Publish
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Editor’s Checklist for Publishing
Posts
Before you hit Publish make sure that you aren’t publishing the same
Author’s article in a row. We don’t want it to be a Ferd Schmidlap
show with four articles written by Mr. Schmidlap in a row. It needs to
be strategic so it looks proper on the front page. After you have
chosen what articles go next then you are going to Edit each article
and check the following.
ü Headline
o Makes sense and doesn’t have too
many characters
o Is appropriate
o Has no spelling or grammar errors
ü Body Copy
o Doesn’t have a byline in it
o Is the proper format and appears to be
the final copy
ü Photos
o Are the proper alignment and size
o All have a cutline
o Are appropriate
o That there is a Featured Image and
that it is horizontal
ü Category
o Is checked
o Is the right one
If any of these things aren’t proper you need to fix them yourself or
save it as a draft and get the Author to fix it before you hit Publish.
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There is still a couple of things you might have to do after you
Publish the articles. Go back to the Posts page and you will have to
choose one of the articles to be your Sticky Post. The Sticky Post is
the main post on the main page of The Chronicle. It is the first article
seen.
You are going to put your cursor over the post again but instead you
are going to hit Quick Edit. It should look like this.
From here you can change the Author of the article, change the
Headline, change the time and date it was posted, add a Category,
Publish, make it a Draft and make it the Sticky Post. When you
are finished editing it hit Update.
There can only be ONE Sticky at a time. Once you have made the
article Sticky make sure to Un-sticky the previous one.
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Troubleshooting for Posts
What if the post has been published without being checked?
Answer: Make the article a Draft and check it then re-publish.
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Chapter 3: Photos
How to choose your photos
ü Is it appropriate?
o Is it offensive?
o Does it give meaning to the story?
ü Do you have all the information needed for
the photo?
ü Do you have permission to use the photo if
you didn’t take it?
Photo checklist for uploading
ü Jpeg Format
ü Have a MAX upload size of 25MB
ü Need to have a cutline
ü Featured Images HAVE to be HORIZONTAL
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Troubleshooting
What if my photo won’t upload?
Answer: Make sure it fits all of the requirements
a. JPEG Format
b. It is no more than 25 MB
c. You are uploading it properly and not just
copy and pasting the photo
If that doesn’t work close the browser and restart it
working from the post Draft that auto-saves.
The photo that shows up on the website is cropped
funny or stretched.
Answer: Make sure the photo is a HORIZONTAL photo. If it
isn’t you will have to bring the photo into Photoshop and crop the
photo properly. The cropped photo just goes into the Featured Image
section so the small photo or Sticky photo is proper. That way when
they click on the article you can still see the full photo.
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Chapter 4: Comments
How to find, approve and delete
comments
First you want to go to the Dashboard, look down the left side and
find the tab labeled Comments.
Click it and it will bring you to this page.
By default it shows you the comments that have already been
approved.
The tabs across the top show pending, spam and trash.
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For right now, let’s start with the pending section.
All comments made to the website need to be approved before they
will appear.
Each comment will go to either pending or spam.
In the pending section, you can choose to approve, edit or delete
comments by hovering over the comment.
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If it is okay, you click approve and you are done, if it is a bad
comment or rude.
Click trash and it will disappear.
What is spam and what is a spam filter?
Spam is like the junk mail of the comments section.
It is usually an automated commenter that just makes up gibberish
comments to get people to click through to their website.
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These spam comments should never be approved.
The Chronicle website has a spam filter so most of the spam goes into
the spam folder.
Keep your eyes open when looking through the comments.
Sometimes the comments look somewhat appropriate but the poster
(which can be seen on the left side of the comment) is someone
named “Best Dating Sites.”
The spam filter is the reason why most of these bad comments end up
in the spam section.
You can find it by going to the Dashboard and click settings on the
left hand side.
Click on Akismet, this is the spam filter program.
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You don’t have to do anything with it. It automatically runs but going
here allows you to see how well it works.
When the spam happens, how much it’s caught and how accurate it is.
Now, spam happens a lot.
You will log on and delete spam, come back five minutes later and it
will be bursting with them again.
You will have to delete the spam.
So go back to the comments section, click the spam tab at the top.
Look through to make sure none of the comments are okay.
If they are okay, hover over them and click Not spam to approve it.
Then click the select all square in the top left corner above the first
spam comment.
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Then above that square there is a Bulk Actions drop down tab,
select delete permanently and press apply.
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Comments Checklist
Is it an okay comment to publish?
• Is it appropriate?
• Is it polite?
• Is it free of bad language?
• Is the name of commenter a real name?
• Is the comment free of promotional content?
• Is it related to the article it’s posted on?
If you answered No to any of these, then the comment is
spam and you shouldn’t approve it.
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Troubleshooting
There isn’t much that can go wrong with the comments on the
website.
Some things to keep in mind:
• If you accidently approve a spam comment, you can undo it by
going to the comment section and deleting it.
• If you accidently spam a good comment, you go to the spam tab
and mark it as “not spam”
• Make sure to keep the spam filter up to date.
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Chapter 5: Widgets
What is a widget?
A widget is a small program that allows you to create a personalized
message; advertisement or social media box in a specific place on
your webpage, blog, etc.
It creates a box that helps gather information in a more uniform and
functional way.
Where do you find widgets?
The World Wide Web is full of widgets; a quick Google search for
widgets that work with WordPress will get you far.
However the Chronicle website that runs through WordPress offers
a widget section where you can get most of what you need.
First you need to go to the dashboard,
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Once you land on the dashboard page.
You will find the tab on the left hand side called appearance near
the bottom of the page, hover over that.
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Then you will see the widget bar, click that and you will land on this
page.
How do I use Widgets?
How you use widgets on the website depends on what you want them
for and how you want them to look.
If you are using the prebuilt in widgets from WordPress, follow the
above steps and from there.
You will drag the WPZoom widgets for social media or whatever
else you are adding to the website to the Homepage Sidebar tab or
any of the other sections on the right hand side.
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Each section is for a different part of the website.
Once you open the WPZoom tab in the sidebar section, it is a simple
process of adding the information needed to create the widget.
• Make a title, something simple such as, Facebook.
• Add the Facebook URL (in this case, Durham College’s
Facebook URL is www.facebook.com/durhamcollege.)
• Add the width you want the box to be. You will need to play
with this number to get it to the right size.
• Then color and what you want the box to show. It’s
recommended to show the stream option so people visiting The
Chronicle can see what Durham College is posting on Facebook.
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Now if you found a widget HTML code from a website, you will
want to follow a different process to add them to the website.
You will go to the widget page but instead of dragging WPZoom
tab to the right side of the page.
You will instead drag the Text tab to the Homepage Sidebar.
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Then you will copy and paste the HTML code from the website
you created it on, into the text box on The Chronicle website.
Then you will hit save and it will appear on the website.
Make sure to always check that the widget has shown up properly.
It may take a few tries to get it right.
It should show up like the photo below.
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Troubleshooting
Finding widgets that work online may be a little tricky. Make sure
that the widgets are compatible with WordPress.
Searches such as; “WordPress widgets” will help you find accurate
ones.
Built in Widgets through WPZoom will require you to get in touch
with them you can do so by following these steps.
• Go to www.wpzoom.com
• Click contact in the top right corner.
• Fill out the box shown below.
• Wait for a reply in your email.
• While waiting you can click the Support Center tab on the
right and see if the answer is answered in the forums.
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Chapter 6: Layout
The Chronicle Theme
The Chronicle website runs a theme through WPZoom on
WordPress. You can access the theme by clicking the highlighted
section on the Dashboard.
WPZoom is a website based software company that creates themes
that allow you to change the look and feel of your website.
Think of it as a custom design for your house but instead it is for a
website.
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How to customize the theme
Once you click there you will see the Chronicle theme in the top left
corner, there will be a large customize button you can click which
will take you to this page.
From there you can change the site tagline which explains what the
website is about, the colours that appear to visitors, background
images what is seen behind the posts, widgets such as Twitter and
Facebook.
It will let you change how the website looks to visitors when they visit
The Chronicle website.
Breaking news ticker
To access the breaking news ticker you will go to the dashboard and
near the bottom of the left side.
There is a tab called WPZoom, click there and then click the side
tab called Homepage and then you will see Breaking News
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You will need to keep the breaking news updated so that the
information shown is not outdated.
For example, you don’t want the breaking news to be talking about an
event that happened in December, when it is January.
You will type what you want it to say in the Breaking News
Content box.
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Once you have saved it, it will appear on The Chronicle website front
page without the red box surrounding it.
This should be important need to know information.
Such as election dates, special events, etc.
Weather widget/Ad space
In the same section where you accessed the breaking news ticker,
you will click on the tab called Banners.
There are three places for the ads/widgets.
• The header ad: The header ad will show up in the top half on
the page on the right hand side on every page on the website.
• Homepage ad: The homepage ad will only show up on the
main page near the bottom.
• Sidebar ad: The sidebar ad will show in the lower half of the
page on the right hand side.
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You will place the widget HTML code or ad space code as explained
in Chapter Five into the HTML code spot and hit save.
Make sure the Enable ad space in header is checked.
*If the ad is just a JPEG then you can upload the picture using the
upload button shown in the above picture and just leave the HTML
box empty. *
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SEO settings:
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, which roughly means the
ability to search a website using a browser or search engine like
Google.
The only thing that needs to be remembered is that the box is always
checked under WPZoom as shown below.
Otherwise The Chronicle won’t be able to be found through Google
searches which diminishes views on the website.
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Troubleshooting
As far as the theme goes, make sure it is updated. You can check to
see if it is updated and update it by going to the dashboard.
Click updates then updating the ones that need it. Only update
themes that you are using.
For example, the website uses The Chronicle theme so there is no
need to update any of the other themes.
Always do the WordPress updates, they help optimize the WordPress
experience and allow the website to run smoothly.
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For any WPZoom related issues,
• Go to www.wpzoom.com
• Click contact in the top right corner.
• Fill out the box shown below
• Wait for a reply in your email.
• While waiting you can click the “support center” tab on the right
and see if the answer is answered in the forums.
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Helpful Links
Wpzoom
www.wpzoom.com
Wpzoom Visual Aids
http://www.wpzoom.com/documentation/chronicle/
Wpzoom Contact
http://www.wpzoom.com/contact/
Wordpress Support
https://wordpress.org/support/
