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These pages were created in run up to move to MIR. Now site is live much of a#waht they reffer to has changed but still usefull as much pre MIR imported content to be classified (ticked in admin). Also as it turned for scotland at least the selection of articles was lost just before site was switch maybe because of a re import of articles or maybe because removal of scotland as selection.

Regionalising existing articles and middle columns for a regional UK IMC

Regional UK IMC's have their own 'startpages' with autonomous middle columns and newswires. When we go live with the new MIR site you might not want to start empty-handed - to have content on your regional UK IMC you can sift through the existing UK database and pick and choose what you want for your regional IMC.

Playground and Preparation: the test and the preparation site

The test site is set up for experimenting and playing around - this is the site where anything can be tried on, and it is the site on which the different designs are being tried out; upload whatever you like, and play with its functions in the test site admin - familiarize yourself. The login name is "uk" and the password is the current admin password with 'the vocal replaced by a number'. If this hint is not clear please mail me your telephone number and I can call you back.

In contrast, the preparation site has the entire existing UK database up to 19 April imported. The idea is that regional collectives classify their regional newswires and middle columns before the launch of the new site, so that the regional IMC's are not empty. Any classifications made here will be preserved - this migration site will go live and that's why the upload function is disabled. Regular new dumps will be added here to keep it in sync with the actual state of the live site - so everybody can keep regionalising their recently posted stories. This update will at the same time bring over any newly developed design from the test page so gradually we should come nearer to a finished state to be able to go live. You as well can go back in time as far as far back as to 23 July 2000 which is when we used active for the UK for the first time.

Regionalising your content in the preparation site

To start classifying you need to log into the preparation site admin (the login and the password are exactly the same as for the test site admin), click on either the link "Newswire" or "Pre-MIR Feature" as in the illustration on the left. Don't worry about all the other options, the exact setup has still to be debated on the network and process lists. If you want to explore please do so in the test site admin. The purpose of the preparation site is to only regionalise the existing database, so please don't add or hide/unhide anything. The publish function on the preparation site is disabled - for the import/export scripts to work it's important to keep the article types the same.

"Newswire" articles

After clicking on the "Newswire" link you will be presented with a list of 20 of 18454 items. If you want to jump back in time better use the url in the address bar than the "next" link in the bottom. The number at the end of the address bar lets you jump back, ie changing it from 20 to 200 will send you back about 5 days... It will make sense to keep a note of the articles you want to have in your page - look them up in the current UK site and keep a note of the publishing date... To add the article to your IMC simply click on the "edit" button of an item and then select the corresponding checkbox for your IMC. You can do this even if another region is already selected. Click on save, then click twice on the "Back" button of your browser and edit the next article you want. BTW: any article you are editing here must stay to be a "Newswire" articles so please don't change the popup-box highlighted in red here.

"Pre-MIR Feature" middle columns

Clicking on the "Pre-MIR Feature" link in the admin start page will present you with a list of all the UK middle columns on the present UK site. Luckily it's not as many as there are articles, only 228... To regionalise a middle column click on the "edit" button of one, and select the corresponding checkbox. Don't change the popup-box "Pre-MIR Feature" highlighted in red here, it must stay to be the same. Click on save, then click twice on the "Back" button of your browser and edit the next middle column you want.

"Producing the pages"

This is the different bit in MIR to the old active codebase: the server you are logged in now for the admin page is a different server than the webserver itself. This will help with the upload problems as the webserving and the uploading are split on two servers - but it means that you have to go through a few more steps before your changes go live; In the admin page, return to 'Start' and go to the "Advanced page" on the right. To produce your pages = make your changes live you need to do the following:

Enqueuing the pages

- enqueue "all newswirearchive" if you have regionalised Newswire articles
- enqueue "all topicpages" if you have regionalised Pre-MIR Features
- then enqueue "regionalstartpage" to produce the regional IMC's startpages

The enqueueing will take ages as the scripts need to eat through the entire database - so don't worry if it's still saying "pending". Note: This is not something you will need to do in the future when admin the MIR site for a new article - it's only required for classifying the past database so don't worry if it takes a long time.

To check if your changes have come through look at http://uk.indymedia.de/en/.

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-- AndiE - 20 Apr 2003

Added producing the pages, changed wordings -- AndiE - 24 Apr 2003
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