Austin Burbridge: Style Guide

Guide to posting stories, and Help

Tue, 19 Sep 2006 00:50:13 GMT

How to make the Write page work like Microsoft Word

Thu, 03 Aug 2006 20:47:15 GMT

If you prefer the look-and-feel of Microsoft Word and its "What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get" interface, you can change the interface of the Write/Edit page in Cinema Minima's Content Management System to work like it. Here is how —

You will need a modern, standards-compliant Web browser, such as Mozilla Firefox. It is free-of-charge. It is available for nearly every modern operating system, including Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.
Login to Cinema Minima.
Click on the Profile link (this may say "Users" instead).
Scroll down to the bottom of the Profile page, to the "Personal Options" section.
Select the "Use the visual rich editor when writing" option.
Click the "Update Profile" button.
Go to the Write page. You will see the Visual Rich Editor toolbar which will let you compose stories as you would in Microsoft Word.

How to publish a story with Cinema Minima's Content Management System

Thu, 03 Aug 2006 20:03:40 GMT

A step-by-step guide to posting a story to WordPress is an article which explains the the Write/Edit feature of Cinema Minima's Content Management System, which is called "WordPress."

Tools to publish your story

Thu, 03 Aug 2006 07:55:35 GMT

You have several options to post your story to Cinema Minima's news feed and Web site.

Drafts. You can save your story as a "draft," and continue to work on it until you will be ready to publish it. A story will not be published until you click the "Publish" button. There is no limit to the number of drafts you can save.
Comments. You can permit readers to post comments about your story. Fear not — no comments will appear without first being approved, either by you, or by an editor.
Categories make your stories easy to find. Choose the one category which best describes your story. The default category is "Trade," which is movie-business argot for "the business of making movies." After you have selected a relevant category, you should de-select the "Trade" category, if it does not apply.
Status. You can change the status of your story from "Draft" (unpublished) to "Published," or from "Published" to "Draft." However, if you wish to schedule a story to be published at a later date, designate it as "Published" and use the Post Timestamp tool to assign the time and date you wish it to appear.
Date (Post Timestamp). You can choose when your story will be published. If you do nothing, the story will be published as soon as you click the "Publish" button. However, you can schedule your story to appear at a later date. This is particularly helpful if you post several stories at once — you can arrange for each to appear at intervals, say, one or two days apart.
Link Tool. Select some text, click the link tool button, and add a Web address or an email address — this tool will create an HTML link.
Image Manager. This tool will: upload a picture from your computer to Cinema Minima's server; create a large "thumbnail" image from it; and insert that image into your story. Information about size, alignment, etc. will be added automatically. When a reader clicks on the image, your original picture will be shown in its original size.
Amazon Tool. Use this tool to find a link and an image of a DVD or book at Amazon.com. The link can be inserted into your story. This tool works best in the "standard" Write page. (If the "Visual Rich Editor" toolbar has been enabled, it would be necessary to click on the "HTML" button to insert the Amazon link.) The commissions on purchases made through this link contribute to the Reporter Rewards™ program.

Comments OK

Wed, 19 Jul 2006 07:33:59 GMT

Now it is OK to accept comments on Cinema Minima stories. Hitherto, comments had been discouraged at Cinema Minima because readers' comments have been lost in storms of comment spam. Recently, anti-spam software has been installed on Cinema Minima's site. It appears to be effective in blocking comment spam, while letting readers' comments through.