Greenford Baptist Church and GBC WEB TV

Using the Website Text Editor

Written by Andy Wilson

Saturday, 06 January 2007

If you are a Community Member (and WebAuthor has upgraded your basic Registered User status to the Author or Editor level) you will be able to add articles to certain areas of the website, such as the blog page. You do this via the website text editor in your web browser window. Please print out the following instructions (and refer to them constantly!!) while creating your website articles.

Enter a suitable title in the Title box.
Select a "Category" from the drop down menu e.g. Blog
There are three ways to writing articles for the website.
1. The most simple and therefore foolproof way is by composing your text in a simple text editor such as Windows Notepad (click the Start button, Programmes, Accessories and then open Notepad). Don't forget to save your Notepad article every few minutes in (in case of mishaps) and when you are ready to transfer your article to the website Copy and Paste it into the two text boxes in the website text editor as explained in 4. and 5. below. Note - by using Notepad you won't cause any formatting problems that may otherwise have happened if you had used used a word processor like MS Word.
2. If you prefer to use MS Word or another word processor (perhaps because it has a spell checker) you can do so but it is a little more fiddly. The procedure is similar to method 1. above until you get to the Paste command. After Copying the text in your word processor to the Windows clipboard, transfer your article to your computer by clicking the "Past as Plain text" button on the top row of the website text editor (this removes all the unwanted word processor formatting). You will then need to read through your article and format it so it looks like the rest of the text on the website. The following instructions must be carried out in this order: 1) Insert new line spaces after each paragraph and after any headings. 2) Apply "Heading 5" from the Format drop down menu box to any headings in your article and apply any bullet points or numbered lists.
3. If you are only writing a short article (or feeling very confident) you can write directly into the two text boxes as explained in 4. and 5. below, pressing the "Apply" button every few minutes (before the website text editor times-out and closes after exactly 15 minutes, thus loosing any unsaved work.
Paste (or write) the first one or two introduction sentences of your article in the "Intro Text (Required):" box at the top of the page and press the blue "Apply" blue tick button.
Paste (or write) the main part of your article into the "Main Text: (optional)" box at the bottom of the page and press the blue "Apply" button.
After every few minutes of writing press the “Apply” button to do save your work-in-progress. Don't press the "Save" floppy disk button until you are completely finished and have proof read your article as it will not only save your article but it will also close the website text editor and send it to the WebAuthor to approve/edit your article before it appears on the website.
If you must create your article in the website text editor, rather than in your PC’s word processor, please be aware that after exactly 15 minutes of not pressing the "Save" or "Apply" buttons the website text editor will time-out (stop working) and you will loose any unsaved text. Note that just typing text will not keep the website text editor alive - only pressing "Apply" or "Save" does this.
When you have finished writing don’t forget to spell check your text and apply any required formatting, such as headings and bullet points.
Finally, press the floppy disk button labelled “Save”. As well as saving your article it will also close down the text editing window and return you to the Home Page. You will not be able to re-open your article again (unless you have Editor rights).
Your article will not be published immediately as it has to be approved by WebAuthor or any other Community Member with Publisher rights first (which can take up to 24 hours).