Plone: Working with News Items or Links

You should use News Item when you are adding a news article with original content that you have created.  You should also use a News Item when referencing an article on another site.  Never duplicate the full text of an article on another site on your site.

News Items can be announcements or news releases about your office happenings or your local programs. Think of these as the individual articles of your newsletter. Each article is a News Item. They should be time sensitive.

A News Item can also be a link to another website, such as a news article from another source or a blog post. You will need the entire web address to make the link. You will also provide a title and a short description about the link. The title will automatically be linked to the web address you provide.

News Items need to be either entered from the main homepage or from the 4-H or Master Gardener News area (in the case of County websites). These News Items will be displayed on the homepage of your site or the homepage of the subsite (4-H or Master Gardener), and are sorted by date, with the most recent articles first. Approximately five (5) News Items will appear in the center area of your homepage. If local News Items become too old or you do not have any local News Items on your website, the local news area will temporarily be replaced with state-wide extension news.

The topic of the News Item you are about to create will determine where in the site you will create the item. A News Item could be county specific, program specific or for a particular blog within the site. The process for entering the News Item is the same regardless of where in the site you are creating it.

Adding News Items

1. Log into your Plone website
2. Navigate to your News folder
   
3. In the right column, under Archive, click the current year
   

Add a News Item to your site

1. In the toolbar, click the "Add new..." button, choose News Item
   • An Add News Item window will appear
2. Enter a Title (required)
3. Enter a short Summary (1 or 2 sentences)
4. Optional (but recommended), in the Lead Image area, click Browse to include a picture in the News Item
   • Images should be roughly square in dimension. Plone will automatically resize an image to fit into the box provided! Please no long, skinny images or short wide images. See the image on this site for an example.
   • When a visitor to your website clicks the image, they will be shown the original, larger view. TIP: For best viewing of the larger image, images should be sized to approximately 800 x 600.
5. If you included an image, provide a short description of the image in the Lead Image Caption box
6. Enter Body Text
7. Text in this area can be formatted by selecting it and using the toolbar options. For more detailed information about the buttons on this toolbar, see the Using The Text Box Toolbar How To.
8. Add Contact Information (optional): to add contact info for the article, click the "Ownership" tab at the top of the page.
• In the "Contact Information" box, add the user ID of the contact (if they exist in our faculty/staff directory), or add them in the format "Name|Job Title|E-mail." Note: the pipe key (|) is Shift+Backslash (the key above Enter/Return).
• This format must be exact.  If you do not want to include a job title (not recommended), it should be entered at "John Doe||john@university.edu"
  
9. Click Save
• NOTE: The News Item is created but it does NOT appear anywhere on the website
10. To publish, click "State: Private" on the toolbar, and select Publish.

Go to the home page to see this News Item. If the change does not appear, you can press Shift+Refresh.

Add a Link to an External News Item

1. In the toolbar, click the "Add new..." button, choose "News Item"
   • An Add News Item window will appear
2. Enter a Title (required)
3. Enter a short Summary (1 or 2 sentences)
4. Do not add body text (it will not be seen)
   
5. In the Article URL box, enter the entire URL, included the http://
   
6. Click Save
• NOTE: The News Item is created but it does NOT appear anywhere on the website
7. To publish, click "State: Private" on the toolbar, and select Publish.

Go to the home page to see this News Item. If the change does not appear, you can press Shift+Refresh.

Edit a News Item

1. Navigate to the News Item that you want to edit
2. Login to the site adding https:// before the URL
3. On the toolbar click the Edit tab
4. Make changes to the News Item
5. When you are done, click Save
6. Confirm that the page/link is published

Delete a News Item

1. In the left navigation, click the News button
2. In the right navigation, under Archive, click the current year
3. On the toolbar click the Contents tab
4. Check the box beside the News Item you need to delete (do not click on the title)
5. At the bottom of the screen, click the Delete button