June 2009 – How To Do Stuff on the Learning Commons

Top 5 Reasons for Page “Warps”

We’ve all had occasion to edit or create a new page only to find that there is some warped weirdness in the way that it looks when it is published. Here are some of the reasons for this:

Forgetting to close a tag in your HTML. HTML tags need an opener like < > and a closer like </> . If your page doesn’t display a side bar or looks funky in some way – check for this error in your html view.
Forgetting to select a page parent from the drop down list on the left side of your editing screen called Attributes: Parent. Select the drop down and scroll to choose the page that is one level above yours (the page that yours fits directly under in the navigation).
Including comment code. For example—if there is any “comment code” in your post <—something like this—>, it can create a problem. If you see a comment like this, just delete it or ask us to have a look.
Importing heading tags from another source like <h2> </h2>. These heading specifications will be different for our CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) and may display too large and ugly. Just remove them if your text looks weird.
No line breaks <br> </br>. WordPress tends to strip out the line breaks. This can be problematic when you need space between an image and text. If you are having a problem with this. Please post a message in Basecamp and we’ll come up with a fix.

There is a difference between author and contact attached to each page of content.

Page author is the public name (as selected in the User Profile in the back-end) associated with each post/page. It is very important to select an author for each post/page, as this is who will moderate comments on the post/page. When a new comment is posted, the author will get an email notification to the email associated with their User Profile, asking them to approve, delete or moderate the comment. This is why it is important for students to use an email that you regularly check is associated with your user profile.

Each author’s public name should be a nickname that indicates where that author is situated (for example OLT1, sdasst2, etc.). To update your profile to include a name associated with the unit you are working for:

1)    Go to Your Profile under Users on the left navigation bar in the back-end Dashboard.
2)    Under Name, fill out your First Name, Last Name and a Nickname.
3)    Click the Update Profile button at the bottom of the screen.
4)    Now select how you want others to see your name from the drop down menu for Display name publicly as…
5)    Once your nickname is selected, click Update Profile again and you’re done. You will see your nickname reflected in the drop down Author list on the editing screen for each page or post on the site.

Contacts are typically staff or faculty members associated with the site. They will respond to any queries about the content of a particular page, including information about projects or services provided. Contacts appear on the top of the left section of each page on the site. Contacts are managed inside something called “widgets”.

You’ll need to select an appropriate contact or contacts for each page. You’ll decide who to select based on what the page relates to – who developed the content and oversees its’ revision.

Click here for more info on how to appropriately enter a contact using custom fields.