News

The fields available will vary based on the options you have chosen in the category information during the initial setup of the category.

• Author - An optional field for the story's author. The author does not display on the site, but can be used to internally track which user wrote the story.

• Headline - The headline for the story, this will appear before the story.

• Brief & long descriptions - For best results, type the content of the story directly in the text editor boxes. If you must copy and paste from another website or application, be sure to use the paste as plain text option. Using this feature will strip out any HTML leaving only unformatted text.

  • Brief description - This area contains the brief description of the story. This field can be used in many ways, but for best results it should be a short summary of the article meant to draw the reader in.

  • Long description - If enabled, this area should contain the full story.

• Publish to locations - This option allows you to publish the news story to multiple locations. This is useful if you would like to make sure this article is published to categories that are on other pages as well as any type of group pages you want to publish to. Choose the locations you want to publish to by using the arrows.

• Publish and expire dates/times -Both date and time are required when publishing news stories; this controls when the stories are posted on the site and when they are sent in email/text notifications.
  

  If the story is published to multiple locations, you need to set a publish and expire date for each location the article is published to.

• Comments - If you have enabled comments at the news category level, you can check the Allow Comments box to enable comments for this particular news story.

• Attach media - You can attach video and/or audio files to your news story.

• Photos - If it is enabled at the category level, images can be included as part of the news story. By default you will see a box with the text “No Image,” a sort order box, a place to browse and load your file and, if enabled, text boxes to enter in captions and descriptions.
  After images are uploaded you can adjust the sort order of the images for display purposes. Please note that there should always be an image with the sort of 1, if there isn’t this can cause issues displaying a thumbnail elsewhere in the system.

• Allow users to manage notification settings - Use this option to enable users to subscribe to the category via My Notifications. If the news story should be e-mailed/texted to My Notification subscribers, the Send Notification option must be selected.

• Include long description for news items -This setting enables you to enter a long description when creating a news item. If this option is not checked, any news item created within this category will not have a long description text box. Long descriptions enable you to enter more text and can be viewed on a detail page.

• Display brief description for news items - This option is very similar to the first except it is referring to the brief description. The brief description is a text box with fewer characters and will appear before the long description. If both options are unchecked, when news items are created the user will not have any where to place the article text.

• Enable RSS feed - This option allows you to enable an RSS feed (Real Simple Syndication). If this option is checked the feed icon will show on pages at the top of the news category and on the portal in the RSS feeds channel. When users see this they will be able to subscribe to that news category and when a news story is added to that category their feed will be updated.

• Allow comments - Select whether to allow users to comment on new stories in this category or to use the default settings.

• Comments approval type - Select whether comments need to be approved before they appear to other users, and (if so) who should approve them.

• Max # of images - Enter the maximum number of images you would like to upload for each news story. We recommend a maximum of 30 images for optimal performance.

• Allow captions on images - Select this to enter captions for photos. Captions appear beneath the photo, but they are limited to 1600 characters and can't be formatted with HTML.

• Allow descriptions on images - Select this to enable descriptions for photos. Descriptions appear under the photo and captions. There is no a character limit and you can enable them using HTML.

• Photo size information - By default, the "standard" size is selected. You can change this and enter your own max width and height. To do so, select which size you want to change (standard view, zoom, thumbnail) and then enter new maximum dimensions.

When you add or edit a news story, you can upload photos directly to the story. You can also attach existing photos, videos and audio albums to the news story.

The news detail pages must contain these blocks for the news content and media to appear. (Page managers can customize the news detail pages and styles):

• News detail text: This block displays the news story itself (i.e. brief description, long description) and can also display the photos that were uploaded directly to the news story.

• News detail photos: This block displays the photos that were uploaded directly to the news story.

• Photos: This block displays the existing photo albums that were attached to the news story.

• Videos: This block displays the existing video albums that were attached to the news story.

• Audio: This block displays the existing audio albums that were attached to the news story.

To upload photos directly to a news story as you add or edit the story, drag and drop the appropriate photos into the Drag images here section, or select + from computer and select the appropriate images. Then drag and drop the images into the appropriate display order. Enter a caption or description for each photo (these options must be enabled in the news category). Select Save.

To attach existing photo, video and audio albums to a news story as you add or edit the story, select + existing photos, + existing video or + existing audio.Select the appropriate albums. Select Apply and then select Save.

To remove a photo or album from a news story, select Delete and select Save.

To edit the display options on a page, edit the page channel options. 

• Archive/more link - If this box is checked a link will appear at the bottom of the channel with default text “More News.” This link will only appear if there are more stories than the number of stories shown. This text is customizable and can be changed in Archive/more link text.

• Brief description - If this check box is checked, the brief description of the article will display in the channel. If it is not, the headline of the article will be the only thing displaying. The headline will be a link to the rest of the article.

• Comments - If comments are enabled for the category and in an article, this option will allow you to display the comments on the news detail page. 

• Most recent story display - If this option is selected, the most recently published news item will display its large photo (if any). The image will automatically adjust to the width the column it is contained in or the image width, which ever is the lesser value.

• Number of items to show - You can enter in an integer here for the number of stories to display in the channel. If the number here exceeds the number of active stories in the category the archive button will not display.

• Read more - If this item is checked then a Read more link will appear under the story. This will link to the news detail page just as the headline does.

• Thumbnails - There are three options. The default on the channel options is set to not display thumbnail, so regardless if thumbnails are created, if this option is set to the default “Do not display” thumbnails will not appear in the channel.

• Display publish date - This option gives you the choice to display the publish date within the news channel. This is only for the news channel on the page and does not apply to the news detail page. By default there is no text that appears next to the date. You can add text to appear to the left of the date by filling in the next option down “Publish Date field label”.

The next set of options will only apply to your news detail page. This means when the user clicks on the headline or “read more” button on the article.

• Detail brief description - If this option is checked the brief and long description will appear on the detail page.

• Text/photo format - Assuming you have photos attached to your article, you may choose how your photos and text will display from the options listed.

A page manager or content manager must enable notifications for news categories in order for users to be able to subscribe to them using notifications.

1. Select Core or School website.

2. Select Content.

3. Choose the content type you want to work with.

4. Select Edit next to the news category for which you wish to enable notifications.

5. Select Edit category.

6. Select the Allow constituents to use on portal and email/text notifications option.

7. Select Save & exit

When adding a news story in that category, you will see an option that says "Send Notification." If this box is checked upon saving, notifications will be sent to users who have subscribed to the news category. Notifications will be sent on the publish date, and if populated, at the publish time. If the publish time is not populated, the notification will be sent at 12:00am on the publish date. If the publish date is today, the notification will be sent immediately upon saving.

Note: The e-mail notification for news can contain the headline, brief description, long description, category name, and/or a link to the news detail page. The text notification can contain the headline, category name, and/or a link to the news detail page.