Stories

What Is A Story?

A Story is a dated entry which is added to your website. The stories are sorted by date, and have many features associated with them. There are two main components to a story: the topic and the actual story.

Topics allow you to categorize your stories and virtually create sections within your website. The default installation of Geeklog includes the topics "General News" and "Geeklog". These topics can be renamed or deleted, and new ones can be added.

Stories are the main way you can add new content to your Geeklog-powered website. Traditionally, they are used much like news-articles and are used to provide new and ongoing information to visitors of a Geeklog-powered website. Please read the Administration section for other content options.

The following instructions are for administrators' use with the Advanced Editor which comes with Geeklog 1.4 and is integrated into the Professional theme. You must be a member of Root or Story Admin to be able to add a story this way.

Adding A Story

1. Log into your site.
2. In the Admins Only section on the left, click the "Stories" link.
3. Click the "Create New" link near the top of the page.
4. Wait for the page to load the toolbar for editing.
5. Complete the "Title" field
6. Select a Topic.
7. You may change the text in the "ID" field if desired (it defaults to the date and time).
8. By default (i.e. unless you have changed the setting in the configuration file) the "Show Topic" icon is selected. Change this if you do not want the topic icon to show.
9. Select the "Draft" box if you are creating a draft only.
10. Complete the "Intro Text" and "Body Text" fields. The text in the "Intro Text" field will show on your main page. The text in the "Body Text" field will show with the intro text after someone clicks on the "read more" link under a story.
11. If you are using the advanced editor and want to preview your story, you must click the "Preview" button at the bottom to save a temporary copy of the story on the server, then click the "Preview" button at the top to view the preview.
12. When you are happy with your changes, click the "Save" button.

Publishing Options

When editing your story, you can access the publishing options by clicking the "Publishing Options" link at the top of the screen. Your options are to change:

• the publishing date (future-dated stories will not be published until that date)
• whether the story is "featured" (the default is "not featured"; a featured story will show at the top of the list of stories, even if a newer story is added, until another story is flagged as "featured")
• whether the story will show on the "front page" (i.e. home page) of your site, or whether it will only show in the topic subsection
• whether comments are allowed
• whether trackbacks are allowed (this is defaulted to "disabled"; trackbacks are links to sites which link to yours; use trackbacks with caution, because much trackback is now found to be spam)

Adding Images

Option 1: Click on the "Images" link at the top of the story editor screen. Use the "Browse" buttons to look for the images on your computer for uploading. The "Images" section of the story editor has more notes on how to integrate the images in your post. You will need to insert the [image1] etc tags into the story manually.

• To increase the number of images you can upload (available only if you have access to uploading files directly to the webserver):
  1. log out of your site
  2. open your config.php file in a text editor
  3. search for $_CONF['maximagesperarticle']
  4. change the number "5" to the maximum number of images you want to be allowed for a story
  5. save your changes
  6. upload the changed config.php file (overwrite the existing file) onto your web server

Option 2:

1. Stay in the "Editor" screen (if you have left it, simply click the "Editor" link at the top of the screen).
2. Click the arrow button in your editor toolbar . This will open the editor in a new window.
3. Click on the image icon . A new window will open.
4. Click on the "Browse Server" button. The window will change to the Resource Browser window.
5. To upload a new photo:
   • click the "Browse" button at the bottom
   • find the image on your computer, and double-click it to select the image
   • click the "Upload" button and wait for the upload to complete
   • if the window goes blank, right-click in the window and select "Reload" or "Refresh" to update the list of photos.
6. If you have already uploaded your photo, you can click on it to select the photo.
7. Other options (changes will show in the preview area):
   • Type a number in the "Border" field if you want a border (0=no border; 1=thin border; 2 and up correspond with the thickness of the border)
   • HSpace is the space on the left and right of the image
   • VSpace is the space above and below the image
   • The Alternate Text is what will show if you "hover" your mouse above the image, or if your visitor's web browser is set to block images
   • The "Link" tab allows you to make the image a link. You can either type the web address in the "URL" or click the "Browse Server" button to activate the Resource Browser window (this works the same way as it does in the "To upload a new photo" instructions above). The "Target" drop-down allows you to change the target window of the link.
   • Advanced Features - ? (please edit this page and add info on the Advanced Features tab if you have used it)
8. When you are happy with your changes, click the "OK" button. This will close the small window.
9. You can continue to edit your story here, or return to the main editing window. To close the large editing window, click the arrow button

Archive Options

The archive options allow you to set whether the story will be archived or deleted on a particular date. The default is for no archiving or deleting. To change the setting, click on the "Archive Options" link and make the desired changes.

Permissions

Permissions indicate who is allowed to read and edit the story. The default is that anyone can read the story, and only the owner can edit it.

The possible permission options are:

• Anonymous visitors (not logged-in) - read-access on or off
• Members (logged-in) - read-access on or off
• Group members (must be logged-in) - read-access on or off; edit-access on or off
• Owner (must be logged-in) - read-access on or off; edit-access on or off

To allow only members to read the story, de-select the check-box under "Anonymous". Members must log into the site before they can read the article.

To prevent members from reading the story (e.g. if you have a story about creating a user-account and don't want it to show once they have logged in), de-select the check-box under "Members".

Geeklog also has permissions set by groups. By default, the Admin account and any account with Root access is a member of all groups except Remote Users. Members can also be assigned selectively to individual groups (e.g. "Story Admin"). By changing the group showing in the drop-down box and selecting the check-box "E" under "Groups", you will allow anyone in the selected group to be able to edit the story.

You will want to retain read- and edit-access to your story. De-selecting those options does not seem to remove your read- and edit-access, but you are advised against changing that because you may lock yourself out of the story.

Show All

The "Show All" link allows you to see and edit the story, publish options, images, archive options and permissions on one page.