User-Guide for UM-Flint NOW

• The Frontpage
  • Featured stories
  • Featured video
  • Featured Instagram photo
  • Featured Q&A article
• Post Formats
  • Article (i.e. standard post)
  • Gallery post
  • Image post
  • Link post
  • Q&A post
  • Quote post
  • Video post
• [Author Profiles]
• [Adding/Changing a Topics Image]

The Frontpage

There are five types of widgets on the frontpage, three of which are editable by site authors: the ephemera widget, the Instagram widget, and the category card widget. The rail (a.k.a. the sidebar) and featured stories are dynamically updated.

Featured Stories

An article can be made into a featured story by simply adding the tag featured in the Tags panel. Featured articles will be in order of appearance with the most recent being the main featured story at the very top. Featured Stories must have an image.

The Ephemera Widget (a.k.a. the Featured Video widget)

The ephemera widget can accommodate any post format, but the one that has been designated for the instance on the frontpage is video posts. The format can be changed in the Widgets dashboard by clicking on Content Block One in the right-hand column and then clicking on the UM-Flint NOW Ephemera toggle. Here you can change the title and the format. Please do not change the number of posts to show field as the widget cannot actually accommodate more than one currently.

The ephemera widget will dynamically update with the latest video post, so there isn't any need to edit it unless you want to change the title that shows up in the rubric (the category label in the upper-right-hand corner of the widget).

Dependencies: Video Thumbnails plugin

The Instagram Widget

This widget is probably the biggest pain at the moment because everything has to be manually updated. To make an update:

1. Click on Appearance in the admin menu,
2. click on Content Block Two and then click on the Instagram Widget toggle,
3. optionally change the text in the title field, which will update the category label in the upper-right corner of the widget,
4. enter the url of the image into the Instagram URL field,
5. copy and paste the text from the Instagram post into the Text field,
6. click Save

Dependencies: competence, patience

Category Cards (a.k.a. the Q&A widget)

Similar to the ephemera widget except that this one takes the category as the parameter. Currently it is set for Q&A and will pull in content from the most recent Q&A article. This widget is more robust, but you should probably ignore the Excerpt length (in words) field as there really isn't enough room for the excerpt and that is being removed by the CSS.

Instructions are identical to the previous two and it currently resides in Content Block Three.

Dependencies: Category Posts Widget plugin

Post Formats

Article (Standard Post)

The article is the default when you create a new post. When creating one with a featured image make sure to add it through the Featured Image panel. If the article is going to be a featured story on the frontpage, remember to add the featured tag in the Tags panel.

Audio Post

An audio post can be created by selecting Audio from the Format panel when creating a new post. To add audio, preferably from SoundCloud or a similar service:

1. click on the Add Media button above the editor toolbar on the left,
2. click on Insert from URL on the left sidebar of the modal window,
3. paste in the URL to the audio from the provider's website,
4. click on Insert into post.

Gallery Post

Currently unavailable, but will be in the near future.

Image Post

A feature image can have its own post. When creating a new post just select Image from the Format panel.

Link Post

Pretty much useless, but you can create an entire post for a link. Please Don't.

Q&A Post

Formats cannot actually be added to WordPress and adding custom post types means that that content will not be in the main feed (i.e. available via RSS). So for Q&A posts, there are two important things to do:

1. Make sure to add qa as a category, and…
2. Format the article using the Q and A buttons in the editor toolbar. After the text has been entered, select text that is the question and click on the Q, and then do likewise for the answers. These buttons will apply custom styles to the text.

A custom template is currently in the works for Q&A posts.

Quote Post

Select Quote from the Format panel and then paste in anything that's ever been said by Tony Robbins.

Video Post

Select Video from the Format panel and then follow the same steps as the Audio Post, but make sure that an image shows up in the Video Thumbnail panel. You may need to click on Preview and then return to the editor for it to show up.