Nov 22 2010

Upload and edit content Posted 1 years 178 days ago ago by sooz     0 Comments

Thank you in advance for contributing to the Bikegirl site and helping to make this a huge and invaluable resource for female bikers.

You don't need to be technical to contribute, but there are some basic things you need to know to get going.

As a contributor, you can upload and edit ‘content’ within the 'Riding Guides' section, the  'News & Events' section and the 'Products' section (‘content’ refers to any items uploaded to a web site).
If you would like to add product reviews, or news and events, then please contact Admin (that's just me, Sooz for now) and I can add you to those user groups too.
Your contributions are moderated. This means that your content will not be available to view on the site until a moderator or Admin has approved it.
Print this help section out before you start - you'll find a print icon in the bottom right of the page.

Creating a guide, article, news piece or event report (referred to as 'content' from now)

Preparation:

• Have a photo ready. Don't worry about resizing this as the software will do this for you. Make sure you're not going to be in breach of copyright.
• ALWAYS create your content in a simple editor such as Notepad or Textedit. This is because browsers are really good at freezing and losing everything you've typed - you might have noticed that when using forums. Be safe and keep a copy saved to your hard drive. You can then cut and paste it into the upload area.
• Please do your best with spelling and punctuation to make the moderator's job easier.

Uploading:

• Make sure you are logged in (you have to be logged in to view this help page!)
• Hover over the Home menu button and you will see a submenu which is only viewable by contributors and moderators 'Add Content' - click on that, you'll be taken to the editing page where you'll see all content on the site listed
• Click on 'Submit an Article'
• Give your content a title. This needs to be concise and accurate – it will be displayed in the news feed
• You can save your article by clicking 'Save Draft' at the bottom. To view and edit it again, follow the 'Edit content' guide at the bottom of this help page
• IMPORTANT - Tick the 'Featured' box. Once your article is approved it will appear as a feature on the home page:

• IMPORTANT - Select a category - you need to pick a category and click 'Add Category'. Only pick one - if you're doing a product review for leather, for example, you only need to add it to the 'leathers' category, not 'Products' too. If you see the selected category appear beneath the drop-down box with an 'X', you've added it correctly:

• You can't insert a picture into the text as you'd expect (using the usual method on a forum, for instance), instead use the 'Media' adder below the content editor box:

• You can embed the image anywhere you want to in your text by typing - this is detailed just below the comments box. For example, if your photo is really big, and you only want to put a small version of it in your article, then something like will make it 150x150 pixels - I suggest 150x150 is a good size to use if you're not sure. The reader will be able to click on the photo for a full-sized view.
• You can chose to show all your images in a gallery at the bottom of your article either as well as, or instead of within the article body. To remove the galley (if you've embedded them all with then de-select 'Show image galley':

• In the ‘Article summary’ section you should aim for a small summary of your content, just a sentence or two. This will show up in the article list. It will also appear in the news feed, and will show when visitors browse the pages.
• The meat of your content should be pasted into the ‘Article text’ section… keep reading

Filling in the ‘Article text’ section:

• Cut and paste your content from your Word (etc.) document into this area. Use the format stripper (pink arrow) to remove any formatting if you've used an editor like MS word:

• You can use the Rich Text Editor to make it look nice. Try out some of the title styles by selecting your text then trying out different styles from the Paragraph Styles drop-down box (in German for some reason!):

• Try to avoid smileys – they don’t look great outside a forum really. I’ve used one in over 20 guides.

Publishing

Click on today's date to get a published date in (it'll put a time in for you automatically, so don't worry about that.
Click “Publish” at the bottom. You’ll be asked to confirm, then you will be taken back to the ‘Guides & articles' or 'News & Events' page.

Well done, you have now submitted your content.

Admin will receive an email when you have submitted content for review, but if you don't get a confirmation of approval for a while, then feel free to chase. You won’t be able to see it on the site until it's approved, but don’t worry – it’s not been lost.

Editing your content

To look at your content, before or after it's been approved, make sure you're on the 'Add content' page, and click on 'My Articles' (pink arrow):

Then select 'Needs Approval' or 'Published' from the drop-down box (pink arrow), and your articles will be listed. You can view and edit your article:

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