Adding a new Project to the Green Acton website

Here are instructions for how editors and administrators can add a new Project to the Green Acton website.

For discussion’s sake, let’s take the example of adding Carbon Footprint.

1. Decide what issue this falls under.
In this case, Energy.

2. Create a Category for this project.
This will let posts of this category be grouped together.

• Make sure you’re on the Dashboard. If you are looking instead at the site content, click the words Green Acton in the upper left to switch back and forth between the administrative dashboard and the site content.
• Choose Posts, and then under that, choose Categories. In the “Category” field put the new project name: Carbon Footprint. In the “Parent” dropdown choose the issue category: Energy. Click the  “Add New Category” button. You don’t need to fill in the  other fields.

3.  Create an initial landing page for this project.

• From the Dashboard, choose Pages, and then Add New,  In the one-line bar on top (the title field) put the name of this project: Carbon Footprint. In the main text box put a brief description of the project, such as “We can’t measure our progress on carbon emissions in Acton without understanding how we measure our current emissions. This project team looks at how to usefully measure Acton’s carbon footprint, and publicizes any updates.” The editor there will let you do basic formatting (bold, italics, bullets, etc.) via icons on the top of the edit box.  More technical formatting can be done via html and css if you click the “text” tab. If you want help with that, Janice, Jim, or future site administrators can help.
• In the Categories box to the  right, find the new category you added, and check the box next to it. It will be under “Issues,” and then under the specific issue of that project. In our case, the new “Carbon Footprint” category is one of the categories under “Energy.”
• Click the blue Publish button on the right.

4. Create at least one “background” post for this new project. 

• Creating Posts is very similar to creating Pages. From the Dashboard, choose Posts, and then Add New. In the one-line bar on top (the title field) put a title for some background material such as “Marlborough’s model for how to measure a town’s carbon footprint.” Then add text to the main box, select the same category as you did for the Page; also select the category called “background” and click the blue Publish button on the right.
• A useful button for formatting posts is the one that looks like a horizontal dotted line between two thicker lines. This creates a “read more” link when the post is displayed, with the text above the “read more” link available as a teaser (so folks will know whether they want to continue in order to read the whole post). I recommend adding this in near the top of most posts, unless the post is very short.
• You can use the “Add Media” button any time while editing a Page or Post to insert a photo, diagram, or other graphic element. It will allow you to upload a picture from your local  machine, or pick an image that is already available in the media library.

5. Create at least one “update” post, with more-recent news. 

• Use the same procedure as creating a “background” post, but this time do NOT click on the “background” category. If  there are other projects to which this update also applies, it’s fine to click on other project categories.
• Using the “read more” button to separate the intro from the rest of the text is useful here, as well; don’t forget to consider adding an image or picture for visual interest.

6. Add the new landing page to the menu.
This last step can be done only by Administrators. As of now, that’s Janice Ward and Jim Snyder-Grant; there may be others in the future.

• From the dashboard, choose  Appearance, and then Menus.
• Click the checkbox for the Page you just created in the column on the left (it will usually be the top entry), and then click the “Add to Menu” button. This will add the menu item to the bottom of the menu structure (the column on the right). This shows the menu items in order, with sub-menu items indented under their parent items.
• Now we have to put the menu item in the right place. Go to that column of menu items, hover over the new item, hold the mouse down, and drag the menu item to the right place, under the menu item for the issue for that project. In our sample case, that would be under “Energy.” Moving it left and right will make sure it’s on the correct level of the hierarchy, indented from the parent issue, and at the same level as any other projects under that issue.
• Hit the  Save Menu button up top and you are all done.

7. Test the changes

• Go back to the live site (hit the words Green Acton in the upper left if you are in the Dashboard). If you were already at the live site in another window, it’s safer to refresh the view before any testing (Command-R on a Mac, F5 on a Windows machine).
• Hit the Issues main menu item, and see if your project now appears under the correct Issue area. Select it.
• Your landing page should be visible. In the right column you should have a “More On [your issue area]” section and a “More On [your new project] section. The new project section links should both work: the “background” link should show your background post(s), and the “News and Updates” links will show your update post(s), including, at the bottom, your background post and your landing page.