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A short introduction of how to use Mir for publishing on the global indymedia site

This is a short introduction in the main features, specially for the use of www-features. Other introductions on specific issues will follow later. There is also some detailed information that was written specifically for the use of IMC UK, that largely applies to the global site too.

Where?

The admin interface is at https://publish.indymedia.org/earth (note the "s" in https). This interface is only for the features posted by us (see MirArticleTypes), and not for the newswire.

Login

• The logins are all individual.
• If you don't do anything in the admin interface for a while you will be logged out automatically.

A general look around

• Once you are logged in, the admin interface gives you access to all articles, comments, media and to some actions only administrators can do from here. On the right hand side is an internal notice board for internal communication.
• Every article has the same information, but depending on the article type it is displayed with different layout on different places on the website. If you click on any link in the box "articles" you get a list of all articles with this article type.
• For us "features" is the most relevant article type. All old features are under "imported features". "Not (yet) published articles" can be helpfull if somebody already wants to put a feature in the database before the 6 hour discussion period is over.
• If you click on "features" you get a list of all published features with some information and some links. Relevant for us is mainly "edit". Under comments you will find all comments that were given on that article.
• if you click on edit, you get an online form with all information that is part of this article. I suppose most of them are self-explaining. The easiest is to look at a few features that are already there ("imported features") to see how it is working.
• From the admin interface you can also access lists with all images, videos and audio files (I come to them later.) There are also links to some (super)user functions, but right now you should only use the button "generate all new". (I'll explain the anti-abuse functions another time, and then we have to decide if we want to use them, and under which conditions.)

The article form

Click on any feature or imported feature to get to the online form that contains all information that belongs to an article.

• "Language" is relevant with translations.
• "header" is for adding a link to the IMC that is covering the issue and the topic of the feature.
• "html" needs to be turned on, if there is html code in the text. If you turn it on, html tags are necessary in the abstract and in the content
• "abstract" is the part of the text that appears on the start page, "content" is the rest of the feature.
• Every article now has "read more" written under it with a link to the rest of the article. It is therefore not necessary to post the complete feature in the newswire, and it is also not necessary to put "Read entire feature" under a feature.
• "internal comments" is for internal communication. Sometimes comments are also generated automatically. They appear in the overview list of all articles as well.
• "children & parents" has to do with translations and this still needs to have an explanation written here...
• "attachments" are the images and other media files that go with the feature ( give more details about that later)

On the top of the page are 3 buttons:

• "comments" gives a list of all comments given on the article
• "hide" turns on and off wheater the article is published or not. You will see that on the right hand side as well where you can tick the box "publish" with the same effect. Note that in contrast to other software "hide" really means hiding and not deleting, so it is safe to use. The article still stays in the data base and in the list of articles, but it is not displayed on the website.
• "save" to save. (When you make a new article this button displays "insert")

You can return to the start page by clicking on start in the right hand corner on the top.

How to make a new feature

• Click on "new article" in the box ADD/EDIT. You'll get an empty form where you can fill in the complete text of the feature.
• Please set the article type on "feature" because otherwise it will appear in the newswire or so.
• Don't try to put up the image at this moment, there's not even a button for it, but click on "insert" first.
• If you now look at the bottom of the page, you'll see that you can add or upload images. "add" is for images that are already in the data base, "upload" for new ones.

Putting up an image with your feature

All images need to be in our database and all images are resized automatically when they are displayed on the start page. Currently they are set to 160 pixels wide, but we can change that if we want to.

• To upload an image you need to save it on your computer. With most browsers you can just click with the right mouse button on an image on a website and then choose "save image".
• If you are putting up a feature you can click on "upload" and then you get a small form to fill in the information about the image, like a title or from which site you picked it. Someone suggests keeping images in a special media folder like "features2003".
• Don't forget to turn the checkbox "publish" on.
• If you want to use an image that is already on the server, you can click on "add" and then choose it from the list.

The rest

That's it. Now check whether the box publish is turned on the top. And click on "save" and the feature should be there soon....

• If you leave "published" turned off the feature will not appear on the site. This can be quite helpful if you want to make the feature ready already, so that you only need to click on "publish" after 6 hours. If that is done, people who have comments or found spelling mistakes could do those changes themselves, but we have to see how that works out. (In future there might also be a preview-function for unpublished articles.)

• The feature will / might not appear immediately on the site. Click on "generate all new" to get it there. This might change in the future depending on the set up.

A few things to know about amending existing features

• All features are listed chronologically Under "feature".
• You can also just type in the ID-number of an article in the field "open article #:" in ADD/EDIT and go to the article directly. The ID-number is given in the URL of an article like in http://www.indymedia.org/en/2003/12/110180.shtml it's 110180.
• If you've done any changes, like correcting a typo or so, click on "generate all new" afterwards. This means that everything that has been changed will be updated on the website.
• It is good to note when you make any changes. There is an internal comment field inside each feature article at the bottom of the page. Just write your login name and whatever you changed.
• If you are changing anything on a feature that has been translated you must change each translation... which can be difficult, so it isn't recommended. It is usually easier to just add a new comment about whatever it is that you, or someone else, wanted to change.

Adding a Translation Internally

Okay, so you have just uploaded a feature and you have a translation to accompany it. You can either post it externally using the "add a translation" link from the feature on the global frontpage, or you can add it internally, there is debate to which is easier

• After you have saved and generated the new feature, go back to the "admin start" and select "new article" again
• Fill out everything as a regular feature, however choose the correct language from the language drop down and from the "article type" drop down choose "translation"
• After you have filled in all fields, save the article
• Now scroll down to the bottom of the page and there should be a box to the left "children and parents"
• click to select a parent
• this takes you to another page with a search function at the top, search for "article type = feature" and the top article should be the one you want, click attach/select
• it will take you back to the original article, choose save and then go back to "admin start" and generate all new

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-- ClarA - 15 Dec 2003
-- BenHadTue - 16 Mar 2004
-- GarconDuMonde - 01 Jun 2004
-- GarconDuMonde - 30 Mar 2005 - minor changes, but this article does need to be updated!
-- BradleY - 10 Aug 2007 - minor changes, see comment above!