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Snippets: What are the different types of snippets that can be inserted into a fact sheet?

A snippet is industry sector-specific content that is inserted into a fact sheet either automatically when the sheet is loaded ('auto show') or on demand ('click to show')

Snippets: How do I enter content of a new snippet into the database?

There are two ways of entering new content, depending on whether you are adding a new link or adding sector content to an existing link.

Snippets: How do I insert an existing 'auto show' snippet into a fact sheet?
Snippets: How do I insert a 'click to show' snippet into a fact sheet?
Preview: The links in the preview page don't work!

That is by design - all links on the preview page are disabled.

Core editor: How can I copy, cut and paste text to, from or within the editor?

You use the keyboard sequences of Ctrl-c (to copy), Ctrl-x (to cut), and Ctrl-v (to paste). The standard toolbar icons have been turned off - in a website editor, they are more trouble than they are worth.

What is straightforward, however, are the replacements to these icons.

Core editor: Summary

There are two ways of entering text into the summary box (in the 'Footer info' section).

  1. Use the auto-formatting feature which will create a bullet-point list. For this formatting to be triggered, you must separate the items by an asterisk. The first item will be treated as a sentence.
    Example: 'The main points to remember about the information in this factsheet are:*roses are red*violets are blue*you know the rest'
    In this example, the 3 lines of the poem will be bullet-pointed and the first item ('The main points...') will be treated as a sentence.
  2. Insert your own HTML codes (e.g. paragraph tags etc) to enter your own material.
Core editor: Acknowledgements

There are two ways of entering text into the acknowledgements box (in the 'Footer info' section).

  1. Use the auto-formatting feature which will create a bullet-point list. For this formatting to be triggered, you must separate the items by an asterisk. The first item will be treated as a title and placed in italics.
    Example: 'References*McDonald, O. 2007. Farming with chickens. Jour. American Broiler Soc. 23:11-14.*Smith, A. and J. Jones. 2008. The effect of stuff on things. Jour. Amer. Soc. Hort. Sci. 98:107-110'
    In this example, the first line will be italicised and the two references will start on new lines immediately below the title.
  2. Insert your own HTML codes (e.g. paragraph tags etc) to enter your own material.
Quotes: How do I create them?

In this context, quotes are a block of text - usually a short sentence or sentence fragment - that is presented in large font and enclosed by 'large' quotes. Its role is to highlight an important piece of information within the text.

Quotes are easily formatted within the core or snippet editor. They can appear in 200 pixel wide blocks on the left or right hand sides of the text body, or they can be full width.

  1. Create a paragraph containing the text at the position in the factsheet where you want it to start - the easiest way to do this is to have the text appear on its own line separated from the surrounding text.
  2. Left click on any letter of the text to be quoted.
  3. Left click on the Edit/Insert Attributes icon (bottom right hand side of the editor's toolbar - a hand holding a document)
  4. From the drop down list of the 'Class' attribute, select either 'rquote', 'lquote', or 'fquote' (for right, left and full width respectively).
  5. Click 'Insert'
  6. Nothing will appear to change within the editor - the quote format will be applied dynamically as the page is loaded into users' browsers.
Core editor: What is the "initiating author"?

You may or may not see this option which appears in the author info section of the core editor - its appearance depends on your security level in the wizard.  The initiating author is the name of the person who has primary control over the factsheet.  It is not necessarily the author of the factsheet - although often they are one and the same person - but it is the person who has primary access to the factsheet for editing purposes. 

The initiating author is primarily a filter, which ensures that only you - and not other people with access to the factsheet editor - can access your factsheet material.    Please note, however, that staff with full security access (e.g. the WebMaster) will also be able to access your material - their security level overrides that of the "initiating author".

Images: How big, what format is best, and how do I link to them?

The following 'rules' apply to images on this site:

Images: How do I position them on the page and create a title for each of them?

Positioning images on the page requires a class statement to be manually added to the HTML image tag. You can do this after you've inserted an image tag using the WYSIWYG editor, or directly when you enter an image tag through the HTML editor.

The HTML image tag is structured as:
<img class="___" title=' src="../images/folderName/fileName" alt=' width="xxx" height="xxx" />

In order to be positioned on the page, the class statement must take one of four values:

Text entered into the title statement will be extracted and placed immediately beneath the image in the form of a title. The title statement will be automatically inserted into the alt statement, if the latter is empty.

Note that adjacent images in the first columnn of a 2 column layout will overlap each other if they are too close (vertically) - the only solution is to alter the position of the image within the text.

Images: How do I create a zoomable image?

Zoomable images are ones which, when clicked, expand to a larger version of that image.

To create such an image, prepare the code for the image in the normal way (see the item above), with the only difference being that the class statement must take one of four following values:

Obviously, both versions of the image must be loaded into the same folder on the server. They must share the same root name; the larger version must have a "_l" added to the end of its name. For example, "sprinkler.jpg" and "sprinkler_l.jpg".

Text entered into the title statement will be extracted and placed immediately beneath the image in the form of a title. The title statement will be automatically inserted into the alt statement, if the latter is empty.

This positioning and image titling is done by javascript on the user's side only - the functionality is not currently available on in the preview tab of the editor

Note that adjacent images in the first columnn of a 2 column layout will overlap each other if they are too close (vertically) - the only solution is to alter the position of the image within the text.

Links: How to link to other factsheets
  1. Copy the name of the file of the factsheet (Utilities > Fact sheet files); it will be of the general form 'fsXX-YY.asp'
  2. In the core or snippet editor, highlight the word or phrase to which you wish to attach the hyperlink
  3. Click on the link icon and in the 'Link URL' input element, paste the filename of the fact sheet.
  4. Click 'Insert'.
Links: How are the special links made?
Glossary: how do I add a new entry to the glossary database?

The glossary is managed through the glossary check/edit utility.

Breadcrumbs: What do I enter into the breadcrumbs field?

This is a bit messy, but if you follow the information here, you should be OK.

The basic string is:

factsheets*../factsheets.asp*Name-of-section*../factsheetlists.asp?id=sectionID*Generic-title-of-factsheet

The Name-of-section and sectionID values can take one of the following pairs:

So, for the weed "Hawksbeard", you would enter:

factsheets*../factsheets.asp*weeds*../factsheetlists.asp?id=10*hawksbeard

Notice that the breadcrumbs are written in lowercase.

Why doesn't one of the sector-only factsheet categories not appear?

Check that you've entered a URL for that category in the factsheet section configuration option in the Factsheet wizard.

I've just updated a factsheet, yet the new updated date doesn't appear in the header. What's wrong?

Nothing is wrong - the sky is not falling.  You need to have changed your work by more than 10 characters before the updated stamp is added to the headers.