NAWCC CHAPTER WEBSITE EDITING INSTRUCTIONS
Every NAWCC Chapter has its own website on our Community site. If you don't have one and would like to create one for your chapter, simply contact us at webmaster@nawcc.org and we will activate your site.
In order to do that, we need the following information:
Chapter Name
Chapter Location
Chapter Theme (if any)
List of Chapter Officers (and their email addresses, if they want to be listed on the site)
An accurate chapter roster (if you want all of your members to be able to use the Chapter eMail Group feature)
The name and email address of the chapter member (or members) the chapter has assigned to edit and maintain the chapter website.
Don't worry about having to write complex code for web pages-- anyone can edit and maintain an NAWCC microsite. It's easy, and requires no special website experience.
THE PARTS OF YOUR WEBSITE
Your chapter website can be identified by the name of your chapter just above the gold navigation bar. Everything below the gold navigation bar can be edited or customized. The green links above the gold bar can't be edited by you.
The basic Chapter website template has 8 items on the gold navigation bar. They are:
CHAPTER HOME - If a user clicks this, it takes them to your chapter home page
ABOUT - this page, and any sub-pages you add to it, is where you display the information about your chapter. A list of your chapter officers, your mission statement, where you are located, where you meet.... that kind of info.
NEWS - this page, and any sub-pages you add to it, is where you display the latest news about your chapter, chapter events, what's going on, and generally anything you want to tell your members (and the world) about your chapter's activities.
CONTACT US - This is a handy form that enables viewers to contact someone in the chapter. You can decide who you want your chapter contact to be. This contact form hides email addresses completely, so no one can see who your contact person is.
RESOURCES - This is your chapter's personal file library. Your members can upload files here which are of use to the chapter so other chapter members can download them and view them. These can be digital copies of the chapter newsletter, photos of watches or clocks, or anything which your chapter chooses to share.
DIRECTORY - This is your personal contact center. Use the links here to locate other NAWCC members and friends and add them to your Contacts list. You can also use this page to keep track of your messages (in your inbox) and the groups to which you belong.
DISCUSSION - This is the NAWCC Group for your chapter. This is where you post messages that are sent out to fellow chapter members or to everyone in the chapter, where you can have discussions via email, and just generally keep in touch.
CALENDER - This is your chapter calender. It contains all of the NAWCC events from the main calendar, plus you can add your own chapter events to it. You can filter the results so that you only look at certain kinds of events at a given time, for ease of use.
Almost all of the editing you will be doing will be on the first three pages: Chapter Home, About, and News. You can add as many new pages as you like under those categories.
SCREWING UP
Relax! The worst thing a web editor on this system can do is lose a file or erase some data, and that's not too hard to fix. Just be sure to keep back-up copies on your own computer of the files you plan to use, in case you need that information again.
There's nothing you can do to your site that can't be corrected. If you mess up, have a problem, or want to try something that isn't covered by these instructions, just email us and we'll help you work it out.
We can always be contacted at webmaster@nawcc.org
EDITING YOUR WEBSITE
One or more of your chapter members will be designated "website administrators." These are the people who have the ability to edit the chapter website when required. You can assign this ability to as many people as you want, but we advise you to limit this access only to people who are responsible and trusted by the chapter.
Once someone is added to the website administrator list, whenever they visit their chapter site they will now see two small text links at the top of each page.
They are:
Edit this Page
and
Add to this Page
By clicking on either of these two links, a control panel will open up that enables the user to edit that page.
"EDIT THIS PAGE"
We'll start at the top. The top info field contains the name of the page or "item." You can set whether or not you want the title to show on the page by selecting the "Show?" check box. (You may want to add the page title further below, in the editing box, formatted to match the rest of the web page. If so, then make sure this "Show?" check box is NOT checked, otherwise you'll have more than one title at the top of the page.)
Under that is another check box - "Hide this content item." Select this ONLY if you want the page or item to be invisible, and not show up on the site navigation. You probably don't ever want to check this box.
Under that is a large text input field where you can enter "key words" which Search engines like Google will use to locate this page or item. You can either add some key words here or leave it blank. If you do add key words, remember to separate them with a comma and a space, like this: keyword, keyword, keyword.
Under that are three radio buttons. These determine who can see the page or item. If you want a page or item visible only to your chapter members, click "Members Only." Otherwise select "Everyone." That makes the page or item viewable by the general public.
Below that is a link called "By-line More details." Click on it to open these items. They contain info that will automatically be displayed on the page if you want-- who created the page or item, who edited it last, etc. Select the check box if you want any of this information to show. Otherwise, leave these check boxes empty.
IMPORTANT:
Sitting on top of the big web editor window are four more radio buttons, labeled "type of content."
These buttons are important. They determine the format of the page/item you are working on.
If the button selected is "html," then you are working on a web page.
If you select "Uploaded file," the web page will go away and you will be asked to upload a file. Once you do, all you will be left with is a LINK TO THAT FILE. The web page will be gone. Be careful about doing this-- if you accidentally convert your site home page to a file link, that page will go away and there won't be any way for you to reopen the page to change it back. If that happens, contact us and we'll fix it.
If you select "hyperlink," then the web page will go away and you will be asked to fill in a web address. The web page will then be replaced by just a link.
If you select "user control," the web page will be replaced by a special control code-- for instance, a Calender request, or a Contact Us request. You pretty much want to stay away from this one-- it requires programming knowledge to use correctly. Plus we've already included the user controls for the calendar, eGroup, etc., as other links.
For the most part, you probably want to leave these set to "html" for practically everything you do.
Remember-- by changing these buttons, you completely change the web page into something else.
If the button is set to "html" (the default setting) then underneath it you will find the Web Editor.
THE WYSIWYG EDITOR
WYSIWYG stands for "what you see is what you get." Basically, the web page will look just like it looks in this box. You can type text into this box, format it, upload and insert images, etc., just like you would in a word processor program. When you click the SAVE button at the bottom left of the editor, everything you've done in the box gets saved and you are automatically returned to your web page.
The tool buttons are equipped with "tool tips." Just move your mouse pointer on top of any button, and a little window will pop up telling you what the button is and what it does.
Use the text format buttons to adjust your text, making it bold, changing the font, size, and color, etc. Use the Align buttons to adjust your text and images so they sit where you want them on the page. Use the image manager to upload and insert pictures.
Linking to Other Pages: Type (or select) whatever text you want to be a link and click the Hyperlink Manager button in order to turn that text into a web link. Fill out the info in the pop-up box that appears by adding the link web address where it says "URL." If you want the link to send E-mail to an E-mail address, select the E-mail tab and fill it out. Click "OK" when you're done. It's that easy.
There are several "paste" buttons on the top row-- one of them is "Paste from Word" and another is "Paste from Word, Strip Font." Use these buttons when you want to copy some text over from a MS Word file (without bringing in a lot of weird extra characters). Use the second one of you want the original font setting from Word to be reset to default in the pasted text.
There are three editing "Views" you can choose at the bottom of the editing box. These are:
DESIGN is the default. It shows you what you're doing, with the spell check on, and shows you various other selection boxes and guidelines, depending on the tool you're using.
HTML shows you what the page looks like, as pure html code. If you want to directly edit the html code, use this setting.
PREVIEW shows you what the final product will look like on the actual web page.
You can switch back and forth among these three settings at will -- just click one of the three buttons at the bottom of the editing screen.
SAVE YOUR WORK
When you click the SAVE button at the bottom left of the editor, everything you've done in the box gets saved and you are automatically returned to your web page.
"ADD TO THIS PAGE"
When you select "Add to this Page" from a web page, it opens a set of options identical to those detailed above. The only difference is, anything one designs in the editor is automatically ADDED TO THE BOTTOM of the page you are editing, underneath the current page contents. The title of the new content appears, along with an underline separator, dividing the top (original) content from the bottom (new) content item.
This is a good way to quickly tack on some new information at the bottom of an existing page (like adding a new event or meeting notice), or to add some links to the bottom of a page (by changing the radio button to "hyperlink" for each one).
HOW TO ADD A NEW WEB PAGE
Click on "Edit this Page."
Then click the text link that says "Navigation" at the top of the page.
This opens the Navigation tree.
(Be advised-- you want to be cautious in here, because you can really screw things up if you're not careful.)
To add a new page under "About," select the file folder on the left-hand list that says "About."
Once "About" is selected (highlighted in blue), go to the toolbar at the top of the menu list and click "New Child."
A new menu item will appear under About. It will be named "New Item."
Click on the name "New Item" to edit the name. Name it whatever you want the new web page to be named.
Click the Publish Site button on the top right hand side. It will refresh the same screen.
Each left hand menu tree item will have corresponding right hand "content" objects. These right hand content objects-- web pages, add-ons, links-- are the the things you have added to the basic web pages on the menu tree.
When you create a new left hand menu item, it creates a new web page by default-- but the new page will NOT show up as a right hand content object until you open the new page, edit it, and save it.
THE LEFT HAND MENU BAR LINK LIST
If a web page is created with sub-folders/sub-items under the main file folder in the left hand Navigation list, those sub-items will appear as a list of links on a shaded menu bar on the parent webpage.
ANY SUB-ITEMS ITEMS YOU CREATE, UNDER ANOTHER ITEM ON THE NAVIGATION MENU, WILL APPEAR ON THE PARENT ITEM’S WEB PAGE AS A LEFT HAND MENU BAR LINK.
To add or subtract items (pages, files, etc.) from the left hand menu bar on a particular page, go to NAVIGATION and add or subtract the sub-items from that page’s parent file folder.
DELETING UNUSED WEB PAGES
Simply select any link displayed in the left hand Navigation column, and click the X button above that pane to delete it. All content attached to that link, and the link itself, will be removed from the site. Be careful—don’t delete pages or content you may need later. It’s a good idea to back up your data by copying it and pasting it in another program before you start deleting pages, so you can rebuild those pages later if you ever want them back.
ADDING DOWNLOADABLE FILES
Use the instructions above to create a New Item. This will create a new link in the left hand (Navigation) column.
The Content of the new link will automatically be displayed in the right hand (Content) pane. It will be a blank web page by default.
Select the new Content item, and click Edit (above the right hand pane).
This will open the WYSIWYG editor.
Directly above the editing box is a series of radio buttons. They are:
HTML (web page)
Uploaded File
Hyperlink
User Control
To change the Content attached to the new Navigation link from a web page to a downloadable file, select the radio button that reads “Uploaded File.”
The editor will vanish and you will be prompted to upload a file of your choice, which will then be attached to the new Navigation link.
I created a new web page on the navigation tree. Now how do I get back to my Website?
Click the text link "Dashboard" at the top of the page.
Under your website's name, where it says "Preview," click the link provided.
There will now be a link to a new web page on the left hand side navigation bar on the "About" page. Click it to view the new web page.
Edit the new page as desired. Once you save it, it will pop up on the right hand side of the content menu as a new content object.
You can return to the Navigation tree as needed and add as many new pages as you want. You can add them under About, News, or create subcategories of pages. You can even add new main pages (similar to About and News) to the main menu bar, but be careful not to add too many to the main menu bar.
DON'T add new pages under Contact Us, Resources, Directory, Discussion, or Calendar. These are all user controls, not web pages, and you might interfere with their function.
NOTE: If you don't feel comfortable adding new web pages or messing around with the Navigation menu, just contact us and we'll gladly set up whatever pages you feel you need, wherever you need them. We'll also set up your Contact Info (so users who visit your website can contact your Chapter web administrator directly) and anything else you need help with.
That's pretty much it. Using these basic tools, you can create as simple or complex a site as you want, with as much content as you'd like. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact us.
webmaster@nawcc.org
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