News Articles

The News tab is a place to post announcements, news, or publish timely articles. Ne ws articles are often referred to as a weblog or blog, for short. News articles can be created, edited, and deleted. Members with the role of Editor can create, edit and delete all articles, those with the role of Author can create, edit and delete only their own articles. Members who have the role of commenter can add comments to articles. News articles can be categorized and tagged, which can help keep the content of the space organized.

• Example: Content Nation blog is a public "blog" (list of News articles) using the Near-Time platform

Create a News Article

To create a news article:

1. Select the News tab
2. Click the New News Article button. A new window similar to the image below will appear:
   
   
   
   
3. Create and modify your content. The following options are available:
   • Title: type in a unique title which describes your content. The title can be changed at any time by simply changing the text and saving the change.
   • Summary: uncheck the box below the text box and type in content to specify a custom summary for the content. Summaries are displayed in various places, such as in email digests and alerts, in space search results, on the recent news list, on your dashboard and also it's used as the meta description for external search engines like Google. Note: leave the check box checked to not specify a custom summary and have one automatically generated from the content body.
   • Categories: select an existing category by checking the box. Categories help organize content in a space.
   • Tags: select existing tags, or add new tags. Tags help group content of a particular topic matter together.
   • Attachments: if there are files, such as images, documents (.doc, .ppt, etc.), etc. that need to be inserted into the content, they can be uploaded here, if they aren't already uploaded into the space. Files can also be uploaded and accessed by clicking on Insert Media or Insert Links below.
   • Advanced:
     • URL Name: by default, the title of your content becomes the file name in the URL. The file name is the last part of this example URL: last part of the URL). The name must be unique and may only contain lowercase letters, numbers, underscores and hyphens. Please note, though, that changing the name in this blank will break any existing links that point to this content.
     • Author Name: by default, the person who initially creates new content is the author of the content. There will be times when the author may need to be set to a different name. That can be done here. The name of the person does not need to be a member of the space.
4. Add your content in the editor box. The can content can be styled using the items on the toolbar. To use advanced styling, the following options are available:
   • Insert Widget: click to add a widget into the content
   • Insert Media: click to insert an image or file into the content. Files can be images, docs, pdfs, and more. They can be uploaded from your desktop or chosen from files that have already been uploaded to the space.
   • Insert Link: click to insert a link into the content. Text, as well as files can be linked to content within the space, to email addresses, to external links and to other files.
   • Table and Tools: click to add tables to help organize how content is presented.  You can also view the HTML for the article and edit content by clicking on the "HTML" link.  Additional tools for styling content are also available on the Table and Tools menu bar.  And if you have content from a Word document, you can click on the icon for inserting Word (icon of a clipboard and a "w") to get a cleaner insert of your content into the editor.
     

Edit an Existing News Article

To edit an existing article:

1. Select the article (i.e. clicking its title)
2. Click the "Edit" button that appears to the right of the title. The editor will slide into view.
3. Edit the news article, as outlined above.
4. Click "Save". You may click "Cancel" should you not want to save your changes.

Delete a news article

1. Select the article (i.e. clicking its title)
2. Click the "Edit" button that appears to the right of the title.
3. Click the "Delete" button that appears to the right of the title. A box will pop-up, asking if you are sure you want to delete the article.
4. Click to confirm deletion.

Using Email to Create New Articles

An editor and author can add content quickly and easily into a space simply by sending an email to the address provided in the space. The email address to submit content is listed at the bottom of the sidebar for the News tab. An example of an email address you might is is: news@space-name.near-time.net (your space domain replaces "space-name"). When posting via email, the subject line becomes the title for the article. You can categorize or tag a page via email by using the appropriate wiki syntax for each.

For each of the email fields, enter the following:

• To: news@space-name.near-time.net (your space domain replaces "space-name")
• Subject: type in the name of the News Article
• Body: type in the body of the article, attach any attachments and categorize and/or tag the article
  
  
  

Post to News using external weblog editors

Near-Time supports the MetaWeblog API, so you can post to the News area for your spaces using external weblog clients like ecto, and MarsEdit. To configure the external weblog client, you will need to provide the URL that appears when you select the News tab for your space along with the username and password used to access your space for editing. If working in a public space, the external client should be able to discover the other required settings.

If working in a private space, you will need to configure the weblog client manually. The information needed is as follows:

1. Blog API: Moveable Type, MetaWeblog or MetaWeblog compatible
2. Blog URL: http://yoursubdomain.near-time.net/news
3. RPC URL: http://yoursubdomain.near-time.net/blog_api/xmlrpc , where yoursubdomain corresponds to the subdomain for your space.
4. Blog ID: Enter the Space ID number in this blank (ex. 0034). The Space ID can be found by clicking on the "Overview" tab.  You will find the Space ID number in the right sidebar under the Space Stats section.  If the "Overview" tab is turned off in your space, you may still access it by typing in "/about" into the URL (example: http://test32.near-time.net/about  )