Editing an article
The appearance of the Edit article page depends on the article type you are working on. Below, the default "News Article" type is shown. At the top right are the Edit and View buttons, the Save All and Save and Close buttons, and the Actions, Status and Language drop-down menus.
Edit, View and Save buttons
There may be times when you want to view articles rather than edit them. In this case, clicking the View button speeds up the page display process. It also enables you to view an article when it is locked by another user on the server. Once the article is published, there will also be a Go to live article button here.
Save All saves the fields in the edit area without closing the page, whereas Save and Close both saves the page and closes it, unlocking the page for other authorized users to edit further.
The Actions menu contains short-cuts to commonly used functions:
- Unlock: When you begin editing an article, you automatically "lock" it to prevent conflicting edits from other users on the server. Using the Unlock option means that other authorized users can edit the article again
- Delete: Removes the article permanently from the Newscoop server
- Duplicate: Copies the article to any publication, issue, or section on the same Newscoop server
- Translate: Creates a new copy of the article for translation into another language
- Move: Moves the article to another publication, issue or section on the same Newscoop server
The status drop-down menu indicates the copy flow state of the article. There are four states that the article can be in:
- New: The article is still being written. Once the contributors are ready for the article to be seen by the editor, they should change the status to "Submitted"
- Submitted: The article is under review by the editor or editors. Once the editors decide that the article is ready for the public to see, the status should be changed to "Published", or scheduled for publication at a later date and time
- Publish with issue: The article will be published only when the issue it belongs to is published
- Published: The article belongs to a published issue, and is now viewable by the public
If multiple languages have been configured for the publication, a drop-down menu will enable fast switching between translated versions of the article. If not, the language of the article will be displayed here.
The editing area
To the left of the Actions and Status drop-down menus is the editing area for the article.
The "News article" type has the following fields in the editing area:
- Name: The title of the article
- Author: This drop-down menu enables you to credit multiple contributors, including Author or Writer, Photographer, Editor, and Columnist. Type the contributor name in the box to the right. Click the + icon to include additional contributors, or click the x icon to remove them
- Date: Since this field can order the way your articles are displayed to readers, you can change this date if you choose
- Deck: a sub-heading or article teaser
- Lead and SMS: a short version of the article, suitable for sending via a text message gateway to phones which support the Short Message Service. The length of an SMS text message depends on the alphabet used, from a maximum of 70 characters in Chinese or Cyrillic alphabets, up to a maximum of 160 characters in the Latin alphabet
- Body: the main section of the article
Beneath the editing area, there's a box in which you can set reader comments on the article to be enabled, if you wish. Your templates must be designed to allow this feature. The radio buttons can have one of three values: Enabled, Disabled, or Locked. "Locked" means that no one can post comments, but any existing comments are still shown. Click the blue Comments link to minimize the box, saving space in your browser window.
Individual comments can be Approved for publication, Deleted or Hidden, using the radio buttons immediately above. Beneath the displayed comments is a form which staff members of your publication can use to add a comment of their own, perhaps in reply to a reader question.
On the right side of the editing area is a vertical bar containing further options for the new article, in a series of boxes. Like the Comments box, all of the boxes in the sidebar can be minimized by clicking on the blue link in the box name.
Schedule the article to be published or unpublished at a certain date and time. Click the Add Event button to open a window with a calendar and publishing options, such as showing the article on its section page, or the publication's homepage.
Clicking the Edit button in the Locations box opens a pop-up window which enables you to set a geolocation (map reference) for the article.
Keywords & Topics
- Keywords: Enter words that describe your article to search engines
- Topics: Select from a list of topics and subtopics defined by your Newscoop administrator by clicking on the Edit button, which opens a pop-up window. Topics allow you to set attributes for the article, which may be used to display the article in a certain way
After clicking the Save and Close button, the Topics you have selected are displayed in the box in the sidebar.
- Show article on front page: Check this box if you want the article to be displayed on your publication's homepage
- Show article on section page: Check this box if you would like the article to be displayed on the relevant section page
- Visible to non-subscribers: Check this box if you want to make the article visible to readers who have not yet subscribed
- Reads: A number indicating the popularity of this particular article. An article which has not yet been published will display N/A here
- Type: Refers to the "article type", i.e. the format of the article. You cannot change this field once it has been assigned
- Number: The article's unique identification number
- Created by: the name of the Newscoop user who created this article. You cannot change this field
The Media box has two tabs, Images and Attachments.
- Images: You can attach images to your article which can be included directly into an article body field, or used in the template. Clicking the Attach button opens a pop-up window with a tab for attaching a new image, which you can upload from your computer. Another tab in the pop-up window enables you to attach an existing image from the Media Archive.
- Attachments: You can attach any kind of file you wish to the article. The article template must be set up to display these files, if users are to have access to them
The Polls box enables you to add a specific reader voting poll to a specific article. Clicking the Attach button opens a pop-up window in which you can select the poll that you require. You can also create a new poll there.
Other article types may contain different fields. Whenever you edit any of the fields, you will need to click either the Save All button at the top of the edit area, or any of the Save buttons in individual boxes.
Note that date fields have a fixed syntax of YYYY-MM-DD (four year digits, two month digits and two day digits, in that order). If you enter dates in any other format, you may get incorrect results.