This article is designed to tell you everything you need to know about submitting an article to the web site.  The steps are basically as follows:

1. Log in to the web site (only AAQ Members can submit articles).
2. Click the "Submit Article" link on the User Menu.
3. Give the article a title.
4. Add the text.
5. Allocate it to publishing categories.
6. Save the article.

I assume you already know who to log on, so let's start at step 2...

Starting the Submission Process

To start, you need to click the "Submit Article" link.  This is in the User Menu which appears on the right hand side of your browser window. Note that only registered members can submit articles, so you must be logged in to access this feature.

Using the Editor Window

When you have done this, you will be shown the article editing window, as shown below.

The article editor has several key parts, working down the page:

1. At the top is a field in which must type the title of teh article.  Try to key this concise and yet interesting enough to attract people to read the article.
2. On the right, there are two buttons, Save and Cancel, which are pretty self-explanatory.  More on saving later.
3. There is then a panel which contains all the editing controls.  You can hover your mouse over a button to see what it does.
4. Then comes the panel into which you can type your text.  There are lots of special items that you can put here, which will be discussed later.
5. Lastly, there are a number of special links which allow you to add specific items to the content.  Once more, these will be discussed later.

Below the main part of the window are a number of other fields that describe the article you have written, as shown below:

This part of the window controls how the article is published and defined information about the article that can be used to find the article later.  These fields include:

1. The Section and Category - these must be selected from the lists provided, and alolow you to place the article into the most relevant part of the web site.  Note that in our case, the term "Section" does NOT mean an AAQ Section!!
2. There is an option to mark an article as published or not.  This will tend to be controlled by Publisher members.
3. You can also mark an article to be published on the Front Page of the site.  This shoudl be reserved for special articles.
4. An author alias can be used when you want to show the name of a Council position rather than your own name, or if you have more than one person responsible for writing the article.
5. Publishing dates alolow you to control when an article can be seen.  You can set a start date on any article that you want embargoed until a particular time, and also an end date for event related articles.
6. The access level allows you to restrict the visibility of an article.  Normally, articles will be Public, but if an article is only intended for AAQ members, use Registered.  "Special" means that only administartors can see the article.
7. Finally, you can add a short description about the article, and a couple of keywords.  These are used by search engines and other parts of the site to automatically create links.

The Content Management System used by the AAQ has been designed to allow lots of things to be done by users of the system, without necessarily requiring them to be "web gurus".  This article lists some of the special features you can use when writing an article.

Adding "Read More..." Tags

"Read more..." points allow you as the author of an article to provide a "teaser" to get people interested in reading the full article.  See the image below, which shows the effect of clicking the "Read more" link below the text area.

Inserting Page Breaks

For long articles, it can be useful to insert page breaks.  This allows you to split the article into more manageable chucks, each with their own page heading.  You also get page navigation at the bottom which can help readers move through the article.  To insert the page break, click the "Page break" link below the text area.  You will be prompted for the title of the new page, as shown below:

Note that the button to actually create the break is below the "Table of Contents Alias" field, so you need to scroll the small window down.  Once you have done all this, you will see the page break, as shown below:

Adding a "Go to Top" Link

Sometimes you will have a very long article.  When the reader is finished, they will want to go back to the top of the page, which involves them scrolling up the page you have written.  However you can save them time by using this little trick.  When writing your article, insert the "code" shown in the image below:

When this is displayed, you will see a link as shown in the image below.  When the user clicks this link, they are sent ot the top of the page.

Linking to Documents

Frequently when writing an article, you will want to refer to a document that has been loaded into the AAQ's document management system.  For example, you might be referring to an application form or something similar. The CMS provides an easy way to do this.

To create a link, type in the text you want to use, and select it using your mouse.  Then click on the "Insert/Edit LInk" bgutton (highlighted in the image above).  When you do this, a new window will pop up as shown below.

The list in the middle of the screen allows you to select different targets for the link.  Open the "DOCman" item and navigate through the folders until you find the document you want to open when the user clicks the link.  Select the target document and click the (green) "Insert" button.  Your text will now be underlined and the user will be able to open the document by clicking the link!

Adding  Images

We've saved the best (and somewhat more complex) bit to last!  One of the most common tasks you will want to do is insert an image into the article.  All images have to be uploaded to the AAQ server, but the process you are about to see will help you do that easily.

Say you are wanting to insert an image in an article, as shown below.  Place the curser where you want the image, and click the icon on the toolbar (which has been highlighted below).

When you do this, a large window will open (shown below).  This has 4 main sections:

1. At the top are the details of the image you are about to insert (more on this later).
2. A list of folders on the AAQ server are show in the bottom left-hand side of the window.  You need to pick a folder from this list.
3. A list of existing images is shown (in the middle) next to the list of folders.  This is the list of images available in the selected folder.  You can pick an existing image from this list.
4. Details of the image you have selected appear in the panel in the bottom right-hand corner.
   

The process for selecting an existing image is then as follows:

1. Select the folder.
2. Select the image.
3. Type in the "Alternate Text" - this will default ot the file name, but you should specify some more meaningful description.
4. Click the (green) "Insert" button.

And that's it - you will find your image inserted in the article.

Inserting a New Image

Okay, so that's fine if you have an image that is already loaded.  But what about adding new images?  Back on the main insert image window, there is a small button above the details panel (circled below).

When you click this button, another window opens (see below), which alloows you to upload a new image.

Use the "Browse" button to select the file you want to load from your computer.  You can also decide whether or not you want to overwrite any existing file with the same name.  You file will be listed in the "Queue" section of the window.  To start the load process, click "Upload".  When teh file is loaded, the name name will be shaded in green, and you can click the "Cancel" button to exit [Ed: Yes, I know, it really would have been better if the "Cancel" button was called the "Exit" or "Close" button, but such is life!!!]

Once you file is loaded, you can select and name it just like any other image.  And that's all you need to know.

Other Sorts of Links

Earlier in this article, we looked at how you add a link to a document in the document library.  You can also add other sorts of links.

The simplest form of link is to an external web site.  To do thism, you need to specify the URL of the target page, as shown below.

You can also link to articles on the AAQ web site, by using the link browser (see below).

One of the most exciting things members can do with the AAQ website is publish their astrophotographs for the world to see.  The AAQ qwebsite now has an extensive gallery feature that allows you as members to create your own gallery (or set of galleries) and load images for others to see.  This article explains how to use the website to achieve this.

Getting to Your Gallery Configuration Page

Tow ork with galleries, you need to open the Member Galleries poage.  This can be found in the menus under "Member Services" > "Member Galleries".  When you get there, you will see a bunch of galleries, as shown below.

In the top right-hand corner (highlighted above) is a link called "My Galleries".  You need to click this to create galleries or load images.  When you click the link, you will see you gallery page, as shown below.

This page tells you how many galleries and images you have already, and how many you are allowed.  It also by default lists the images in your gallery.

Working With Your Images

You now have three options available to you.

Adding New Images

To add a new image, scroll down the page, and you will see a form that allows you to specify the file and all the details about the image.

Editing Existing Images

You can edit details about existing images by clicking the "Edit" icon  for any image.  When you do this, the image details will be displayed, as shown below. This allows you to record any details about the image you want others to see (and is much like writing an article for the image).

Deleting Old Images

If you no longer require an image, you can click the "delete" icon (the red cross) next to the image name to remove it.

Working With Galleries

You can have a single gallery that contains all your images, or you can have sub-galleries that contain groups of images that are related.  For instance you might group images of nebulae in one gallery, and galaxies in another.  To work with galleries, you need to click the "My galleries" link shown previously (just under your user information area).  This will show the page below.

There are four options available to you for galleries:

1. You can create a new gallery using the form provided.  Note that when creating sub-galleries, we recommend that you prefix the name with your initials - there can only be one "Galaxies" gallery!!
   
2. You can delete an existing gallery (and all it images!!)
3. You can decide whether a gallery is published or not.
4. You can edit the details of existing galleries.