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The NewsBox Publisher is a simple yet powerful Web browser-based
tool that any MCPS webmaster or editor can use to easily
and quickly make brief announcements on his or her Web
site. Anyone can use the tool — knowledge of HTML
is unnecessary!
- Announcements or other text is
entered by the school or office representative who
maintains and updates the content for display on the
Web site.
- The school or office webmaster
updates the Web page to include the text created by
the NewsBox Publisher application. This is a one-time
event.
- The Web visitor enjoys the dynamic
and up-to-date content on the Web site.
The NewsBox Publisher enables any MCPS webmaster to
update a box of news content to any Web page on his
or her site using only a Web browser. The webmaster
or news "editor" simply goes to the NewsBox
Publisher login page, enters his/her userID and password,
enters the news items, reviews them, clicks a button,
and the news is published to one text file in a folder
in your school's Web site folder. Code you've inserted
in your home page (named index.shtm) pulls the contents
of the text file into the box you see in your browser.
Since technical expertise is unnecessary, the school
webmaster can assign an editor to be responsible for
publishing with this tool.
Contact webmaster@mcpsmd.org.
Web Services will get you started and assign you a userID
and password. It also helps to attend webmaster training,
where you'll learn to use this and other tools that
Web Services has made available for webmasters.
Go to this URL: http://coldfusion.mcps.k12.md.us/cfms/newspublisher/publisher.cfm
Enter your assigned school userID and password for the NewsBox Publisher application.
The NewsBox Publisher is divided into three areas:
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Use the fields in this area to tell the publisher
what kind of box you need — how long, how
wide, what color background, and whether you want
to show all the news items at a glance.
- Number of news
items to display: You can limit
the number of items to, say, five. Keep
in mind that
the more items you allow, the longer the box
will be. The maximum number of items is
10.
- Width of your
NewsBox (in pixels): You can specify
the width of your box from 100 to 999 pixels;
250 pixels
is a narrow box; 500 pixels fills the content
well next to a navigation bar in the MCPS
template.
- Background color
of your text box: You can choose the
background color for your text box from the
radio buttons or specify the hexidecimal color
value in the custom background color area.
- Use Style Set: You can select
from three predefined style sets or set up
your
own custom style set using cascading style
sheets. See online documentation within the
NewsBox
application for specific class names to use.
- Use drop-down blurbs?
Enables you to hide content of news items under
a headline. Users click on a + or - sign to
expand and collapse the content blurb.
After you make your selections, click on Save Preferences. Blue
text "Preferences Saved" at the top of
the page confirms this action.
If you don't like how your
NewsBox appears, you can always come back and
make changes until you find the presentation that
works for you. When making changes, always remember
to finish by clicking on Save Preferences
to save your choices and click on Publish
at the top of the page to implement the changes
with your news items.
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Use the fields in this area (green) to create a
news item. To publish an item, you must first click
on the Add this item button to
save the item, then click on Publish
at the top left of the page to include it in the
published NewsBox.
Headline:
Write a short, punchy headline that will appear
in bold above your news item.
Link: Optionally,
you can make your headline into a link. This
link
can be to a Web page within your site (e.g.,
list of staff members), or to a page on another
site
(e.g., MCPS Annual Report). In the example below,
"Fundraiser for Band Trip" becomes
an active link to the Sally Foster giftwrap
site
at www.sallyfoster.com.
Blurb: Enter
the text of your news announcement here. Be sure
to check your spelling and punctuation. Don't
include line breaks (returns) as the preferences
you choose will determine line length and may
change the final look from what you might expect.
Advanced user tip:
You can also incorporate links within the blurb
to direct users to a Web page or another site,
but you must know the HTML code to use this option.
Here's how a link to CNN might look:
Headline: School Recognized
by CNN
Link: < leave blank
>
Blurb:
See our news story at <a href="http://www.cnn.com">www.cnn.com</a>
On the Web this entry would
appear as:
School Recognized
by CNN
See our news story
at www.cnn.com |
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You can change any pre-existing news item (pink areas). You'll find the date and time the item was last published underneath the blurb field.
You can edit any of the text
fields, click on Save, then click
on Publish at the top
of the page to publish your changes.
To delete an item, simply
click on the Delete button.
You'll be asked to confirm that you want to
delete this item.
Click Delete again, then click on Publish
at the top left of the screen to remove the item
from your NewsBox.
If you've made changes to
the item and you want to start over, click the
Cancel Edit button and you'll
be restored to the state of your entry when
you
last used Publish at
the top left of the screen.
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After you click the Publish
at the top left of the screen, a message will be displayed
in blue above the preferences box: "Your NewsBox
has been published." Click on View
Box,
also in the upper left of the screen. A new browser
window will open and you can view your NewsBox as
it
will appear on your Web page.
This is how the NewsBox with the
drop-down blurbs option would appear within your Web
page. For this example, the 500 pixels option was chosen
with the light gray background.
You can "drop-down" or
open the individual news blurbs by clicking on the "+"
graphics. When opened, it looks this way. Clicking on
the "-" sign closes the blurbs again.
This is how the NewsBox displays
without the drop-down blurbs option selected. Note
there
are no borders.
TIP: If for some
reason, your browser can't open a second
window successfully to display your NewsBox, an alternative
to clicking
View Box is to open a second
browser window manually and go to this URL: http://www.mcps.k12.md.us/schools/schoolnews/userIDnews.txt
where
your custom userID is used in place of userID.
Mac users may need to use this option to preview
their
NewsBoxes.
After you click on Save
and Publish, refresh
your browser to see your changes. When you're satisfied
with your selections, be sure to Logout
of the application.
We strongly recommend you put the NewsBox on your home page. That's where your
visitors look for news. Your "refreshed" content will make your home
page come alive! Be sure to save the page as index.shtm instead of index.htm
or index.html so that the "#include" function (see below) will work in your browser.
Add one line of code where the box should be. Copy and paste this code into your page:
<!-- #include file="/schools/schoolnews/userIDnews.txt"-->
...replacing userID
with your school's userID (e.g., woodacreses or woodms).
You can put this line of code within alignment
tags or inside a table to position the text box on
your Web page. Note, that the "#include" command
is within
comment tags
so older browsers will skip, rather than try to print
the command.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Your page
name must have the .shtm suffix in the name rather
than
the usual .htm or .html suffix. Otherwise the "#include" will
not work (e.g., index.shtm or about.shtm). There are
other considerations when changing file names. See
also Redirects
and Using
SSIs.
This is how a page might look when
the preferences chosen are 250 pixels with blue background
and drop-down blurbs.
Robert Day, a talented recent graduate of Montgomery
Blair High School, and Elaine Keagle, Web Service Team's
Tech Lead are to be thanked for creating this new tool.
Robert created the core of NewsBox Publisher during
the summer of 2002 before starting his freshman year
at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Elaine
guided his work and applied finishing touches to his
Coldfusion code and the user interface. Thanks to both
for making it easier for anyone to publish to the Web!
Contact the Web Services Team at webmaster@mcpsmd.org.
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