Web Publishing 101
From New Orleans Wiki
|
[edit] Overview
The Web Publishing Workshop 101 will introduce attendees to publishing on the web using the WordPress web site management system. WordPress is an user friendly web publishing system that creates a web site that acts as a web newsletter and also an email newsletter. Community organizers familiar with email lists and writing for their community can use WordPress to publish online in a familiar format.
Attendees will be provided with a WordPress based web site as part of the workshop. Please allow two business days after the workshop to register and establish your website. (Converting an existing web site may take slightly longer.)
[edit] Requirements
- Ability to read and write email messages.
- Ability to navigate the web and complete web based forms.
[edit] Goal
- An attendee will know how to log into WordPress and create an article using Textile markup language, create links to other web sites, and will be able to moderate comments.
[edit] Technical Objectives
- Login to WordPress.
- Understand the difference between the public web site and dashboard.
- Create an original article.
- Save an article as a draft and resume editing a draft.
- Publish an article.
- Create a hyperlink in an article.
- Track comments through recent comments.
- Approve comments in moderation.
[edit] Publishing and Community Objectives
- Wrtiting in the first person, informally, and frequently.
- Brevity and summary.
- Comments and moderation.
- Moderation guidelines.
[edit] Procedure
- Introduce attendees to WordPress web sites.
- Give attendees logins to demonstrative WordPress web site.
- Login to weblog.
- Tour of dashboard view.
- Write article with title and message.
- Publish article.
- Write article with title and message.
- Store the article as a draft.
- Resume editing the article and post the article.
- Write an article with a hyperlink.
- View comments in moderation view.
- Approve a comment in moderation.
- Reject an inapporpiate comment in moderation.
- Log out of WordPress.
[edit] Assessment
Attendees will have created three articles each in the demonstration web site. Attendees will have successfuly aproved an appropriate comment. Attendees will have successfuly rejected an inappropriate comment.
[edit] Follow Up
Attendees will be given a WordPress based web site for their community organization. They will be paired with an experienced web master who will assist them in writing new articles for their web site.
[edit] Cheat Sheet
These are the procedures covered in the workshop.
[edit] Logging Into WordPress
- In the sidebar, scroll down to the section with the heading "Meta".
- Click on the link labeled "Login". A login form with a username and password textbox will appear. (If you see a link that reads "Site Admin", you are already logged in.)
- In the textbox labeled "Username" enter your user name.
- In the textbox labeled "Password" enter your password.
- Click the "Login" button. A "Dashboard" page will appear.
[edit] Review of the Dashboard
In the body of the Dashboard page, you'll find links to get you started, including a link to "Write a Post".
In the "Latest Activity" sidebar of the Dashboard page you'll find recent changes to your web site.
- Incoming Links
- These are web sites that have linked to your web site. Go and see what people are saying about your web site by looking at who links to you.
- Recent Comments
- These are the recent comments about articles on your web site. If there are comments that are awaiting moderation, you will see a link "Comments in moderation" in the heading.
- Recent Posts
- These are recent posts to your web site. If you are sharing the resposiblity of posting to the web site, this might be news to you.
[edit] Screencasts
- Logging into WordPress.
- Review of the Dashboard.
- Pubishing an article.
- Saving an article as a draft and publishing an article.
- Moderating comments.
[edit] Textile Reference
[edit] Why Textile?
You might wonder why you are learning a markup language, when you've gown accustomed to visual editors, word processors like Word for Windows, that let you edit your documents by applying the fonts, colors, and formatting by selecting text and clicking buttons.
One problem is that when you insert specific formatting, you are assuming that the template for your web site will never change. If you decide to emphasize text by making it blue, you'll have trouble if you decide someday to change your web site's background to blue.
The other problem is that there are editors that try to do this for WordPress, but they are no where near as good as a word processor. People expect it to work just right, and are not prepared to troubleshoot all the foibles in these fledgling visual editors.
- People will cut and paste from Yahoo! mail or GMail, but the visual editor for WordPress will insert links and formatting form the Yahoo! mail, including links that only work within Yahoo! mail and GMail.
- People will cut and paste from Word for Windows and the visual editor will add all the formatting, which may look completely out of place in the web site's design.
Finally, the visual editors for WordPress are visual, but they are not easy. You have to open dialog boxes, fill out forms, remember what to click and exactly how to click it.
With Textile, once you have done something correctly the first time, you can always go back to the post where you did it correctly and see how you did. Once you get going, you'll build on your understanding of the language.
[edit] Textile syntax examples
This is not an exhaustive listing of Textile's syntax. For a list of all available options, see the full syntax reference.
[edit] Emphasized Text
Emphasized text is text that draws attention to itself. Rather than specify exactly what color, size and font, you specify the intent of the emphasis. They you trust that they designer of your web site, or the publisher of your document, will do the right thing aestically.
If you were to apply a specific color, say blue, for emphasis, you'd be in trouble if, in a year form now, your graphic designer wanted to use a blue background on your web site.
This text is _emphasized_ in Textile with an _italic_ font.
This text is emphasized in Textile with an italic font.
This text is *made strong* in Textile with a *bold* font.
This text is made strong in Textile with a bold font.
This text is _*emphasized and made strong*_ in Textile with a *_italic and bold_* font.
This text is emphasized and made strong in Textile with a italic and bold font.
This text is -struck out- in Textile with a -line through the text-.
This text is struck out in Textile with a line thought the text.
[edit] Links
You create links much in the same way you add style. First, put quotes around the text. Then put a colon sung to the right of the last quote. Then put the web address snug to the right of colon.
"Times-Picayune":http://nola.com/
Learn more about it at your "local library":http://www.nutrias.org/.
Learn more about it at your local library.
