darkmatter Wiki

darkmatter Journal uses Wordpress to publish content online. Below are some how-to's for Editors.

Creating User:

1. Login & go-to User link on left sidebar
2. Press: Add New
3. Fill in Fields: User name; First Name; Last Name; Email (required)
4. For username format: first name-initial of surname, e.g. sanjay-s (all lower-case)
5. Select Display Name publicly to: First-Name & Surname
6. Choose password
7. Uncheck: Send Password (send username & p/w in a separate email when communicating with author)
8. Role: Contributor
9. Add brief biog details and Website url (or at a later stage)
10. Press: Add User

Special Issues & General Issues:

1. For Special Issues, use the Custom Field values (Editorial, Article, Commons, Reviews) to identify the status of the post. Don't use the Category labels (on RHS post menu)
2. For General Issues, also use the Category label 'Commons' to display the post in the Commmons section on the Homepage.

Upload & Publish a Submission:

1. Login & go-to: Posts
2. Press: Add New
3. If copying article from a Word doc, use visual editor and via Word tool (you may need to press last button on menu toolbar to display 2nd row of visual editor menu)
4. Format article
5. Select appropriate Categories and Tags (right sidebar); all posts belong to an Issue, e.g. if posting a Review in a General Issue, check the following boxes: Issues; General Issue [most current]; Reviews
6. Scroll down: add appropriate text to Excerpt box (this can be displayed on homepage)
7. Add New Custom Field: select appropriate category (e.g. Review, Commons, etc) and add value of 1; press 'Add Custom Field' button. Note: if you do not see the term in the Custom field selection dropbox, then add it using the Add New Custom field (there's a bug which sometimes doesn't remember previously added custom fields).
8. If adding post to a General Issue, also select 'Image_home' custom field and add value: gen_issue_logo_final.jpg -press 'Add Custom Field' button. (You may also have to add 'Image_home' manually).
9. Post Authors: you will see your name; delete and add name of post's author and select from list; if more than one author, add to box below
10. Scroll up: Save Draft and view Preview to check post; if ok press Publish
11. After the piece is published online, inform the author with the article URL; and encourage them to link to the piece on their institutional (and blog) page - as it increases the journal's page rank
12. Publicize new content on delicious/twitter etc - see 'Social Media' section on the Editorial Team page

Insert Image in Post

1. If image is in a word file, copy and save to your computer, and then upload into wordpress
2. In the Editor (visual tab), place cursor where image is to be located
3. Upload/Insert: use the first media (add image to post) button. (Ensure image is royalty free!)
4. Upload your image; best to Scale image to approx 300 or 400 width x 200 0r 300 height - you may need to experiment (max width 550px); remember to keep aspect ratio
5. Scroll down: Left align usually works well; press 'Insert into post' & 'Save all changes'
6. Image should appear in edit page of post (no further formatting or adding borders is necessary)

Problems with Formatting and Footnotes

1. When previewing a post, if strange formatting problems occur these often are because odd tags (e.g. <H1>) have been inserted within the main body text; these can be revealed and deleted if you view the post in the editor via the HTML tab (rather than the VISUAL tab).
2. Most problems with footnotes occur when either the incorrect brackets are used, e.g. only one {, or using [[ instead of {{, or brackets are missing.
3. if large sections of text appear in a footnote when previewing it usually means a footnote has been repeated.

Adding Quotes

1. use the blockquote function in Editor to indent and highlight a quote
2. try to blockquote for quotes greater than four lines or to highlight a particular quote

Adding Pull-Quotes
For pieces usually greater than 1000 words, it's useful to highlight a section of text in a larger font by using a pull-quote:

1. In the Edit Posts page, ensure you are in HTML mode (select tab on top-right of edit area)
2. Add the <span> tags to the selected text like this:

 <span class="pullquote"> selected text here </span>

1. The selected text will be displayed as normal in the flow of the article as well as being highlighted as a pull-quote
2. You can select further text too; don't over-do it and try not to select text that is too lengthy

Featured Post - displayed on Rotating Banner on Homepage

1. Login & Goto: Posts. Click on the post you wish to edit
2. Featured Articles Lite - press 'Set custom image for this post'
3. Upload image approx 150px x 150px - you may have to experiment (need to ensure not too large; image needs to be correct size before upload. If you are uploading a new image you need to do this via the Upload/Insert button first and then select it in 'Set custom image for this post')
4. Do not check the 'Set this post as featured…'; instead scroll down and for Category check Featured.
5. Publish Post and check on Homepage (upload new image size if required)
6. Normally, three or four posts are selected to rotate on the Homepage; if adding a new featured post de-select the earliest dated featured post so it no longer displays
7. To de-select an existing featured rotating post, edit it and uncheck the Category 'Featured' and update/save post