A quick guide to Scribble

Introduction

Scribble tries to make it easy to edit and maintain a website based on news and articles. You can manage your website from anywhere using a standard web browser, and you can get by using standard templates without knowing any HTML code. If you want to invest a bit of time understanding the templates, you'll be able to gain even more control over the layout and presentation of your site.

A Scribble-powered site is known as a 'blog' (short for 'weblog') and is formed of various elements:

• Articles
  As in a conventional newspaper, articles are pieces of text ranging from a few words to a few thousand words, which can contain links, styles (such as bold or italicised text) and images
• Comments
  Readers of your website can interact directly by contributing a comment or extra information to an article - a bit like the 'letters' page of a newspaper, though in Scribble, comments are attached to a particular article, and are shown at the bottom of the same page
• Sections
  You can classify your articles into sections and structure your site around them, e.g. a page of 'News' articles, and another page about 'Hobbies'
• Templates
  These files control how the pages appear to the reader: what information is shown (author, date etc) and how it looks on screen. Each blog has:
  • An article template which determines how a single article is displayed
  • A list template which is how the overall list of articles are shown - a bit like the front page of a newspaper, which shows parts of articles continued within the newspaper
• Introductions
  Whereas articles fit a template, 'introductions' to each section are a flexible way to add headings or other static features using some HTML. For some sections, you might not have any articles, and just use an introduction to present static text, e.g. a CV or contact form.

Logging in

Your published articles are publicly available to readers on the internet. In order to add new articles, edit existing ones or control other aspects of the blog, you need to be logged in.

To help manage the process for keeping the website updated, Scribble lets you set up different levels of access rights for different people. The most limited level is 'writer' which enables you to login and add a new article, but not make any further changes. The next level up, an 'editor' can add, edit and delete articles, or edit the comments left by readers. The most powerful level of access is 'Publisher' which has the control of an editor, can control user authorisations and has options for amending the design and structure of the site.

While you are logged in, a special bar of links will appear near the top of the screen. This shows who is logged in, and gives quick links back to the Control Panel, and to a view of the published blog so you can check what the published site looks like as you go.

Adding an article

Available to: Writers, Editors, Publishers

From the control panel, click 'Add article'. You will then be presented with a screen with two tabs - click on them to enter the various elements of the article including the writer's name, the article title, a short summary (optional) and the main article text. You can also file the article under a particular category, which makes it easier to group articles together if your website covers several topics.

When you have finished, click 'Publish' and the article will be added to the article list, and be published immediately (to keep an article as a 'draft', just leave its category blank when you save it).

Editing an article

Available to: Editors, Publishers. You can change any aspect of an article (title, text, summary, category or date) whenever you want.

From the control panel, click on the relevant section of your site and find the article you want to edit in the list, and click 'Edit'. You will then be presented with editable boxes for each part of the article, again under two tabs. Make your changes, and then click 'Save'. Your changes will be published immediately, though you may need to 'Refresh' your web browser to see the updated article.

Comment control & moderation

Available to: Editors, Publishers. While enabling readers to comment on your article is usually a fantastic way to add interactivity and extra information and get feedback, this facility is sometimes abused. Scribble offers a number of tools for dealing with this problem:

• Disabling comments for an article
  You can post articles with 'Comments off' so readers can't add comments at all. You can re-enable comments at any time. If you disable comments for an article with existing comments, these will be deleted and can't be retrieved
• Editing a comment which has been left
  Once logged in, find an article in the list and click 'Comments' to see an editable list of all comments. You can amend the text, then save the changes. Bear in mind the ethical issues around editing someone else's published opinion, and you're advised to use this feature sensitively.
• Deleting a comment which has been left
  Under the same editing interface, you can simply delete a comment rather than editing it if you prefer
• Pre-emptive 'blocking' of known troublemakers or keywords
  Before it is posted, Scribble checks each comment against a 'blacklist' of readers machines (by IP address) to screen out comments from known spammers. It also checks for some of the key spam words (such as 'Viagra') and blocks these comments too - you can determine which words are screened for.

To moderate comments directly, you have to be logged in as an editor or publisher (naturally, readers can leave comments without being logged in).

Managing users

Available to: Publishers

You can create, edit or delete users at any level, including Publisher, but for safety, you can't adjust your own status or delete yourself while logged in. Once you have created a new login, the details are automatically emailed to the email address specified with basic instructions on how to login.

Counting visitors

Available to: Editors, Publishers

Scribble sets up counters on each page of your site to track which are the most popular. They automatically count each viewing of a page (including several viewings by the same visitor), but can be configured to count unique visitors to the site only.

Other features

RSS Feed

Visitors to the site can use the link to the RSS feed to keep up to date with new articles on the site. For more on RSS, see Wikipedia.org's definition.

Backup

From time to time, as your site grows, you may want to store a backup copy of the raw files containing posted articles and comments in case of problems. Clicking 'Backup' will email these files, plus some of the other administrative files, as attachments to the Publisher who is logged in at the time.

Further Information

If you have any queries or experience problems using Scribble, please contact Steph at Pentri.