The Webmaster’s Guide

For the website to function it requires

• Domain name – www. https://www.doncasternaturalhistorysociety.org.uk/
• Web Hosting
• Maintaining & back-ups.
• Allowing access for the webmaster (and others as necessary)

Tim Proser, on behalf of the society, is responsible for registering the Domain Name as well as providing the hosting facilities. The treasurer reimburses all associated costs.

The webmaster is elected by the society to administer the website on behalf of the society.

The webmaster’s duties include the following.

• Displaying a list of current officials of the society
• Advising of upcoming events and notices
• Publishing the current Programme of Events, and any changes incurred
• Publishing all society meeting reports, including the AGM
• Publishing a Member’s Blog for the current year
• Providing an identification support for members
• Providing details of the society’s publications
• Maintaining an archive
• Various other topics

The Webmaster’s Guide

The website is built using the facilities provided by WordPress.com and by selecting one of the available themes. The current theme is ‘Ascent’ by HyScaler. This theme determines how the website is set out.

Access to the website’s dashboard is password protected (pw set by Tim Prosser).

The website consists of pages that are assemble using a menu to be found on the dashboard under the heading ‘Appearance’.

To add a new page, go to the dashboard, click on ‘Pages’ then ‘Add New Page’.

At the top of the page as displayed on the dashboard is a space for the page title.

Below is a line entitled ‘Permalink’ with the internet address for the page. This address is to be used for creating links from the menu or hyperlinks (more details later)

The next line displays two boxes: ‘Add media’ and ‘Add Gallery’ This will be covered in another section.

The next line contains editing tools. At the extreme RH side are two tabs labelled ‘Visual’ and ‘Text’. One or the other tab is always selected.

The ‘Visual’ tab displays the page as it will appear on the website (except for Gallery items)

The ‘Text tab’ tab displays the page contents with HTML codes that enable the content to be manipulated to suit the layout of the page.

The HTML codes are added automatically if, for instance, the page contents have been first cut then pasted onto the page when in ‘Visual’ mode. It will be necessary to have knowledge of HTML in order, at times, to adjust the page layout and/or appearance.

Once the page is complete, it can either be saved as a draft, if more work is to be progressed, or it can be published (using the tab at bottom right).

A Preview tab is also available so one can inspect the work prior to publishing.

Give the new page a meaningful title, add the contents to the page, and publish.

The new page will now appear on the Menu on the website and at the bottom of the menu list on the dashboard.

On the Dashboard, select ‘Appearance’ then ‘Menus’ from the dropdown list.

‘Menu 1’ is the title of the menu used for this website.

Scroll to the end of the list of menu items, here you will find the new page.

The new page can then be manoeuvred to a suitable position in the menu list.

Each page will contain, when displayed, the Menu at the head of the page, Recent Posts on the right of the page, the contents of the page in the body of the page, and a footer containing a Gallery of random photographs stored on the website, the Societies email address and a link to the societies Facebook page.

The Home page is the first page displayed to any visitors to the website. This page contains details of the society, the list of officials, and a map showing the area covered by the society. There are also links on the page to the Constitution, reports of past AGMs, plus links to other items of interest. This page will need updating annually to reflect any changes made following the AGM, etc.

Posts

Posts are used to display on the website notices of upcoming events or any topic that members need informing of.

To create a new post from the dashboard is simple.

On the dashboard’s left-hand menu, click on ‘Post’ at the top of the list, then select ‘Add a New Post’.

Give the post a title and add the message and publish.

The ‘Post’ Menu also allows one to view all published posts by clicking on ‘All Posts’.

Here, existing posts can be edited or deleted (not recommended)

Adding Photos

To add photos to a page is creating is convoluted process.

All photos must be added to the sites Media Library before that can be used.

It is a requirement that any photo added to the Media Library is limited in size to 2MB or less, otherwise it will not be accepted. They can be .jpg or .tif

When a photo is added, if it does not have a title, then a title must be added.

When a photo is displayed on the website a title can be viewed in two ways. Initially, the title will appear under the photo when it is selected, but it can also be viewed when a mouse is hovered over the photo.

The Media Library has three methods of naming the photo.

‘Title’ is the description that accompanies the photo when uploaded, or the name given if no naming is included.

‘Caption’ is the name that is displayed when a mouse hovers over the photo.

‘Description’ is the name that is displayed when the photo is selected.

‘Alternative Text’ is not used.

‘File URL:’ is the unique address given to each photo.

The Media Library has a search facility, so naming a photo in a meaningful way will facilitate the search facility. This is only available via the dashboard.

Adding Photo(s) to a page.

It is possible to add a photo directly on to a page.

The method adopted for use on the website is by utilising the ‘NextGEN Gallery’.

This facility is designed to enable one or multiple photos to be displayed as a group on a page at a reduced size, thus saving on space.

However, once the group of photos are displayed on a page, when each individual photo is selected it is displayed at full size until the selection is cancelled. One can also scroll through the group of photos once a selection is made.

The order in which the group of photos are displayed is also adjustable.

Each Gallery is given a unique name. In the list of gallery items, they can be sorted by ID (a unique number) or by the Gallery Name. By providing a meaningful name will help when searching for a particular gallery.

Creating a Gallery

From the Dashboard Menu, select ‘NextGEN Gallery’ followed by ‘Add Gallery / Images’

Here it is important to first select ‘IMPORT FROM MEDIA LIBRARY’

There are now three boxes.

The first box is prefilled with ‘Create a new gallery’. Leave this as is.

The second box is for the title of the new gally. Enter a Title.

The third box, ‘SELECT IMAGES’ once clicked will show the Media Library.

Here one can select the images required to fill the new gallery. Simply tag each Photo required and upload.

Adding a Gallery to a Page

From the Dashboard Menu select ‘All Pages’ to display all pages so far created.

Open the page in which the gallery is to be installed.

Position the cursor at the point where the gallery is required.

From the menu at the top of the page, select the gallery symbol.

This page is named ‘INSERT INTO PAGE’

‘CHOOSE DISPLAY’ is automatically selected.

Of the two boxes below, the first shows ‘Galleries’. Leave as is.

The second box entitled ‘Select a gallery’ is used to find the gallery required for this page.

Once the required gallery is selected, the name of the gallery is now displayed confirming the correct choice has been made.

There is now an option to rearrange how the photos are displayed on the page.

Select from the top of the page ‘SORT OR EXCLUDE IMAGES’

The photos can be dragged into the position required, or any image can be removed from the group by ticking the box entitle ‘Exclude?’

Then click box ‘INSERT GALLERY’