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APC ActionApps User Manual

APC ActionApps Manual Credits:

Developed in a joint project of APC Central European member organizations, with generous help from other APC members and staff.

Project coordinator: Ágoston Nagy, Green Spider Network, Hungary.

Additional writing: Michael de Beer, Mark Surman, Karen Higgs, Ann Tothill, Mitra

Original project editor: Linda Lee.

Project partners: BlueLink, Bulgaria; StrawberryNet, Romania; ChangeNet, Slovakia; Econnect, Czech Republic.

Manual Version 1.3 Software Version 2.0.0 April 2002

A Quick Overview of the APC ActionApps

Background

The idea for the ActionApps came from years of APC and our members helping activists and NGOs publish their information online. Unlike newspapers and television media, where it is difficult for a small social change organization to compete with multinational corporations, Internet publishing affords NGOs an equal opportunity to present their messages and to share information. To effectively harness this possibility, non-profit organizations need easy-to-use tools for publishing and sharing information. Indeed, a common complaint from activists worldwide we kept hearing was: “We need affordable Internet tools that will make it easy to run campaigns and work together." ActionApps are the APC's response to this need.

The Association for Progressive Communications' (APC) ActionApps help non-profit and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) reach a broader audience by allowing them to easily publish their information on the Internet. Features include easy forms-based publishing of news information and Usenet-like sharing of articles between sites. Groups use APC ActionApps to publish content items like news, events, resources, contacts, and more. See section 1.2.5 for examples of [#_What_APC_Action Websites that use the APC ActionApps].

A common need of non-governmental organizations is an easy and efficient way to share information with their members, staff, and the general public. Non-profit groups typically face two dilemmas in sharing their messages:

They do not have the people and time needed to post new information on an existing Web site
It is difficult to obtain publicity for important issues, actions, and events

ActionApps are designed to help organizations solve both of these problems. By using simple Web forms, ActionApps allow anyone within your organization to publish news and other content on your Website. Advanced technical skills are not needed. They also provide “Content Pooling" features that help you to automatically share your content with other organizations of your choice. This kind of content sharing arrangement can dramatically increase traffic and publicity for your information and save you time.

What Are APC ActionApps?

In this section you will learn what ActionApps are, their advantages, reasons why ActionApps may be appropriate for your online publishing plans, what organizations use them today, and how those organizations benefit from ActionApps.

Benefits of Using APC ActionApps

Activists and NGOs get many benefits and advantages by sharing information over the Internet through APC ActionApps. These include: Easy to update: In APC ActionApps, you can update any news item in a few minutes, without any special expertise or affecting other published content. Ease of use: Users add content to a site using APC ActionApps' user-friendly forms, so your non-technical staff puts your information online. Searchable content: The ActionApps includes its own database. You can make your own searchable archives very quickly and easily. There is no special search-engine software to install. Content Pooling: If you want to share your information with other progressive organizations, APC ActionApps allows you to publish your information on your own Website, then have it appear on automatically on additional thematic portals and other Web sites of your choice.

APC ActionApps Features

The main features of the current version of ActionApps include:

Complete Web publishing system: No HTML skills required
Full online service: All you need is a Web browser e.g. Netscape Communicator, Internet Explorer
Item manager: All features are included in one browser-based control panel, including the ability to cut and paste information from other programs
Automatic expiration of content items
Configurable output: Easy integration into existing Websites
Moderation tools: Share the load of posting articles online
Content Pooling: Share content with other ActionApps users on same server
Classify articles using built-in or custom categories
Search engine included
Multilingual support: Currently English, Czech and Spanish included (it is easy to add new languages)
Open source software: ActionApps are powered by "open source" software, which generally results in a superior product at a fraction of the cost of a commercial one, as well as the ability to develop additional features you need
Statistics: Online summaries of audience activity

New features introduced in 2001/2002

Content pooling: Exchange articles between different ActionApps servers
Content pooling: Share headlines with other Websites using RSS (Rich Site Summary) format, to get potential news items from partner sites hosted on other servers, or to publish your news items to news lists?
Offline editor: Java client for editing articles while not connected
Threaded discussions

See the ActionApps FAQ for instructions on using these features: <http://apc-aa.sourceforge.net/faq/>

How Do the APC ActionApps Work?

APC ActionApps are a set of Web applications that runs on your provider's server. You perform all publishing, editing, and administration locally through your Web browser, via user-friendly forms. ActionApps facilitate online publishing because they are “plugged in" to your existing Web site.

ActionApps integrate your content items into a larger database on the server, making it possible -- if you choose -- for your news to appear on other Websites that cover similar or related issues, on other thematic Websites or on APC portals. You have full control over what organizations you allow to select and republish your news, and vice versa. This sharing of information is called Content Pooling.

How Organizations Use ActionApps Today

NGOs use ActionApps to publish daily news and other regularly updated information on particular topics. Larger organizations that regularly produce a significant amount of information can set up several applications for different projects.

Other organizations use ActionApps to collect news items automatically from Websites of APC users from all over the world, then post the content on their thematic portal site.

Some organizations use ActionApps to create databases of theme-based links.

What APC Action Apps Look Like -- A User Perspective

Here are some examples of how APC and the organizations it works with are using Action Apps:

Econnect <http://globalizace.ecn.cz/monitor.shtml> posts daily media monitoring on its globalization page (in Czech).

The Econnect Web site File:Image

Intercom Nodo Ecuanex <http://www.ecuanex.net.ec/portal/biblio/biblio.html> publishes a bibliography on the Internet in a database structure. (in Spanish)

The Intercom Nodo Ecuanex Web site File:Image

[1]APC <http://www.apc.org/english/news/index.shtml>uses ActionApps in its News section to post news from its members and projects. ActionApps automatically feed news on certain themes (e.g. Internet Rights, Women and ICTs) directly into other sections of the APC Website, keeping those areas up-to-the-minute without any additional effort on the part of the Website manager (in English and Spanish).

The APC Networks news page File:Image

Rabble.ca<http://www.rabble.ca>uses ActionApps to run all aspects of its progressive news and online community service (in English).

The Rabble.ca Web site File:Image

What Action Apps Look Like -- A Content Manager’s Perspective

The ActionApps content entry and management interface looks different depending on who is accessing. The Website administrator sets the level of access.

Here is the basic screen that someone would see if s/he was creating or editing an article:

The Edit Item page File:Image

Here is the screen content editors use to administer multiple articles:

The Item Manager page File:Image

Getting Started: Planning Your Approach

For your organization to optimally use ActionApps, there are many issues that you need to consider before you get started. In this section, you will learn about these issues.

What You Need to Get Started

You need the following:

An Internet account with an APC network that offers ActionApps or have the ActionApps running on your own Website server. See <http://www.apc.org/actionapps/english/general/get.html> for a list of APC-related providers.
A Web site
At least one designated person responsible for your organization's content
A plan for how you want to use ActionApps, which is covered within this section.
A Web browser: e.g. recent versions of Opera, Mozilla, Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator

If you have your own Web server and system administration staff experienced in Linux, you can also download ActionApps and run them yourself. Find out more at: <http://www.apc.org/actionapps/english/dev/index.html> The source code for the ActionApps can be found <http://sourceforge.net/projects/apc-aa>

How Will You Use ActionApps?

Before you set up ActionApps, you should determine some basic information about how you plan to use the system:

What sections of your Website need to be updated frequently?

This question will help you determine which sections (ActionApps calls them “slices") you want to automate or introduce into your Website. APC ActionApps can help you automate news, events, lists of links, book lists, job listings, and other Website sections. Most organizations will want to incorporate more than one slice to help you update diverse Website sections quickly and easily.

If you have very different kinds of content items, or if you want to use ActionApps with different projects, consider setting up separate slices for each Website section. This will allow you to customize the online presentation of your information for the specific needs of the projects. If your items are different in topic but have a similar structure, you can use thematic categories to organize them.

Do you want to use ActionApps to share information with other groups?

APC ActionApps allow your organization to share information with other thematically related Websites through Content Pooling. You should make a list of organizations (or types of organizations) with which you would like to exchange pieces of news, or that you would like to republish your items. In the current version of ActionApps, Websites which share information must be hosted on the same Web server. By the end of 2001, it should be possible to share information with any other Website also running ActionApps hosted anywhere on the World Wide Web. If your preferred partners are not using ActionApps, why not suggest they look at using ActionApps too?

If you plan to use ActionApps to collaborate with or share information with other organizations, you will need to consult with these other organizations about the Website sections they intend to automate with ActionApps. This knowledge may affect your own planning.

APC ActionApps Basics

This section provides an overview of the basic concepts of APC ActionApps: the different user roles, technical terms, and the flow of information. This information is intended for the users who will provide and administer Website content.

User Roles

There are three types of users in ActionApps. Each is allowed different levels of access to the software, according to his or her role.

Author. A person who sends content to be included on a Website. An author has permission to add and publish items and to edit or remove her own items, e.g. your newsletter editor.

Note: There can be multiple authors.

Editor. This person can publish, edit, approve, and remove (expire) any item, as well as import items from other ActionApps slices. An editor has full control over published items but cannot modify the text of items imported from other applications. A typical editor is your project manager who wants to edit and/or approve all articles before they appear on your public Web site.

Note: There can be multiple editors.

Administrator. This person can set or change the configuration of your Website using the ActionApps. The administrator can design the layout of pages containing ActionApps slices (including information selection and layout, definition of content categories, and configuring of Content Pooling). She also sets which content parameters are predefined and which authors and editors can modify. Ideally this person works closely with the principal editors to ensure optimum administration of your material.

Note: There should be one administrator, plus a designated backup administrator.

It is possible that one person could perform all the above roles, or the roles can be shared across a number of people. How your organization determines roles depends on the skills and number of people involved. In general, you will have more authors and fewer editors. Ideally, you should have only one administrator, plus a designated backup administrator.

Day-to-day maintenance of ActionApps does not require administrator expertise; only the initial setup requires this technical skill. Generally, configuration happens only during the initial setup of an ActionApps slice. Once an application is configured, you need an expert only if you decide to make a major change to your Website. You can also do this job yourself if your organization's webmaster has expertise in HTML design and working with online forms.

Important Definitions

This section explains the terms used to name the various functions and features in ActionApps.

APC ActionApps “Slices”

The part of ActionApps that your organization creates to publish content in a section of its Website is called a slice, e.g. APC News slice, APC Press Release slice, GreenNet News slice.

All these slices are hosted on the same server, which makes it possible to exchange content between slices, even slices from other Websites. (Access permissions are carefully defined to make sure that unauthorized access does not occur.)

Content Pooling

ActionApps allow items published on one Website to appear on other Websites and thematic portals and vice versa. This sharing process is called Content Pooling and is a deliberate and organized process of exchanging information between Websites. For example, two NGOs - one large, and one small -- are working together on a toxics campaign. They both have Websites with press release sections, and the large NGO also includes an events listing and news articles related to the toxics campaign. Using ActionApps, the two organizations can set up an automated sharing so that press releases from both appear on both Websites.

The slice administrator controls to which -- if any -- other slices her content can be exported. In the above example, the administrator of the large NGO can specify that content (other than the press releases) can be exported to the small NGO's slice. Similarly, an administrator can also define from which other sites she wants to import (feed) items into hers. Of course, she can pick only items from those slices that allow exporting into hers. In our example, the administrator of the small NGO's Website can import items from the large NGO's Website.

Deciding How Information Should Appear in Your Slice

Options

The aim of the ActionApps is to help you automate online content management without forcing you to go back to square one in terms of Web design. You can easily insert slices into your current Website, without having to redesign pages. And voila! you are substituting static HTML pages for a new database-driven format.

The ActionApps allow you to create Website sections (or slices) based on two customizable pages -- an index and a full text page. Indexes are simple lists of the items e.g. a list of the latest news articles from your organization. Full text pages include the complete contents of the article, event, or other item that you have posted. You click on a link in the index page to read the full text of an article (displayed in the full text page).

This is what an index page looks like. Note the fourth news item below “ActionApps set to launch". The index page displays all the latest articles and shows the title (“ActionApps set to launch"), author (APC), publishing date (25-May-01) and an abstract of each item:

An example of an index page File:Image

This is what a full text page looks like (now we can see the complete text of the article called “ActionApps set to launch", including the title, author, location, and author contact details):

An example of a full text page File:Image

So how do YOU get started?

To create dynamic Web pages that look just like your Web site, you need a blank HTML template page from your site (i.e., just navigation bars, site logo, etc. with no article-specific content). Then you insert a simple line of code into the template (ActionApps will give you the code) where the content should appear. The indexes and articles are then automatically formatted to look exactly like your original Web site. However, the content is pulled onto the page from a database.

See [#_Designing_APC_ActionApps Section][#_Designing_APC_ActionApps ][#_Designing_APC_ActionApps 3.4 “Designing ActionApps Output”] for detailed instructions on customizing the look and feel of yourActionApps.

Create Web Page Templates

The first step in customizing your ActionApps is to create a blank HTML template that looks like other pages on your site. This page will act as a container for the dynamic content created by the ActionApps database. It should be a simple HTML page that includes all the toolbars, buttons, colors, and other standard elements used throughout your site.

See [#_Creating_A_Template Section 3.4.1 “Creating a Template File”]for detailed instructions on creating blank templates for ActionApps.

Indexes and Lists of Articles

The next step is to tell ActionApps how you would like to format the index of articles that you post to the site. This task involves telling the ActionApps which fields you would like to display on your index page (e.g. do you just want to show headlines, or do you also want to include an abstract or summary?). It also includes defining what HTML coding will be used to present your content (e.g. should you make the headlines bold?).

See [#_Working_With_Aliases Section 2.4.2 “Working with Aliases and Views”] for detailed instructions on defining the formatting for index pages.

How Full Articles Are Displayed

The last step in customization is telling the ActionApps how to format full articles. This involves choosing the order in which the fields are displayed for users (e.g. do you want the author's name to precede or follow the headline?). As with index views, it also involves defining the HTML coding used to present your articles.

See [#_Fulltext_View Section 3.4.4 “Fulltext View”] for detailed instructions on defining the formatting for full text pages.

Publishing Process

If your organization publishes information in either print or online format, then you probably already have a routine for getting information out to the public. This section discusses which parts of an existing information workflow will be replaced by using ActionApps, and which will not.

A Sample Current Routine

Though each organization's publishing process has it own peculiarities and unique features, there are some basic steps that are common in most environments. Here is an example of how an organization's content normally make its way to the public:

Source. The content item is picked from an external source (a newspaper, a news agency, a Web site, a mailing list, an Internet newsgroup, etc.), or it is created by an internal source (a reporter, the organization's own news, an interview, a press release, a news alert, etc.).
Editorial process. The news goes through one or more of the following steps: writing, editing, and approval.
Publishing. There are many different ways that an organization can publish an approved news item. These include publishing it on an organization's own Web site (by the Web editor or computer specialist), on a mailing list, in a newsletter, by sending it out to news agencies, or by sending it to other organizations to be published on their Web site.

The editorial process File:Image

Within your organization, you should identify the source of news items, who is involved in the editorial decision-making process, and what their role is.

APC ActionApps Publishing Routine and Roles

When you begin using APC ActionApps, the basic process of gathering, editing, and publishing content will not change. The technology that facilitates certain elements of the process will change, though.

People may have different roles when publishing information using ActionApps , and each role affords the user different permissions. The roles are:

Author. A person who can publish items and edit his own contributions. For instance, an author can be someone who writes the organization's press releases, monitors newsletters or mailing lists, puts news on the organization's Web site, or reports from events.
Editor. A person who can approve or edit items of all authors and can approve items that come from other ActionApps slices. An editor is often someone who is responsible for the organization's or project's Website content.
Administrator. A person who can define the Website layout and structure, available categories, Content Pooling, users, and the permissions of authors and editors. The administrator is usually the person who is ultimately responsible for the Website structure and content.

The editorial process using APC ActionApps File:Image

The Structure of Your Items

To best fit your content into the ActionApps database structure, consider how your content can be organized and standardized using the following elements. This format makes it possible to search and share your information:

Headline. A one-line title that introduces the content.
Summary. A brief paragraph that summarizes the content.
Body text. The full text of the item to be published.

Also think about how you can use the following fields:

Date. The date when the news is written. (There are other places to define the starting and the ending dates when the news is displayed on your Web site.)
Place. Where the news happened or is produced, if relevant (e.g., a city and/or a country).
Source. The source of the news, if relevant (e.g., an organization or news agency).
Source URL. The Website address of the original material, if relevant.
Language. The language in which the item is written, which can be particularly useful for searching.
Category. The dominant thematic category in which the item belongs, which can be useful for searching.

Plan Your Transition

Changing your current routine to using ActionApps will not instantly happen. You need to think about both the design and people's roles, and allow for a testing period before you can launch publicly.

As noted previously, you must consider which steps of your current process will be replaced, which will be modified, and which will remain the same. You may find that there are valid reasons to continue publishing in traditional ways, and ActionApps can complement those traditional approaches.

= Author and Editor’s Guide: Using APC ActionApps For Online Publishing = This section guides you through the typical author and editors tasks of using ActionApps. Here you will find step-by-step instructions for how to perform these tasks.

Before you can publish any content features or slices (e.g. a news section) on your organization's Web site, your Website administrator must configure the relevant sections (see [#_How_to_Set Section 3.2 “How to Set Up a Slice”]).

How to Log In

Before you can add or edit any content items, you must first log into the ActionApps interface. Your slice administrator will give you the URL, username, and password you need to access ActionApps.

How to log in to ActionApps:

Open a new browser window (e.g. Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.X or later or Netscape Navigator 4.X or later).
In the Address box, type in the URL provided by your slice administrator.
Type in your username.
Type in your password.
Click Login now. If you successfully log in to ActionApps, you will see the Item Manager view.
If you have access to multiple slices,select the appropriate slice from the drop down list at the top.

How to Navigate APC ActionApps

After successfully logging in, the first screen you will see is the Item Manager. Your content items will appear in a table format, as shown in the screen shot below. If you are an author, you will see only your own content. You will not see content that other authors have added.

The Active bin page File:Image

If you are an editor, you see the same folders as the author, which are described above. In those folders, however, you see all the content items in your slice, not just your own items.

Note: To see content from other authors, you need to have editor or administrator permission.

Top and Left Navigation Bars

You will notice that there are two primary navigation bars.

Top Navigation

Across the top of the screen, immediately under the Item Manager title, you will see a list of links, including View Site, Add Item and Item Manager. This is the top navigation bar, and it remains the same throughout your use of ActionApps. Clicking one of these links will change the view.

View Site: Used to see a preview of your ActionApps slice. This is what your site's readers will see.
Add Item: Used to add content to your site. Clicking this link will take you to an Add Item form. To add content items, complete this form. You will learn more about this in [#_How_to_Add Section 2.3 “How to Add a New Item”.]
Item Manager: Used to edit and move content items that have been added to your slice. This view allows you to manage one of several folders of articles.

On the far right of the top navigation, you will see a drop-down list of all slices to which you have access (see screen shot). Depending on your organization, you may have access to only a single slice. To change from one slice to another, select a slice name from the Switch to: list.

Changing to a different slice File:Image

==== Left Navigation On the left side of the screen, you will see another navigation tool. This navigation will change depending on what section of ActionApps you are using. ====

Folders: Where Items Appear

In the Folders section of the left navigation bar, you will see a list of five folders.

Active: Contains the items that have been approved in your slice and are currently displayed on your Web site.
Pending:Contains items that have been approved in your slice, but have not yet been published to the site.
Expired: Contains items that were approved in your slice, but have already expired and have been removed from your site. These items still appear in a search.
Holding Bin: Contains items waiting to be approved. Items here are either fed from other slices, or have been edited in this slice but not yet approved.
Trash Bin: Contains deleted items. These items will be permanently deleted when the slice administrator clicks Empty Trash. To recover deleted items, select the checkbox and then choose Move to Holding Bin from the drop-down menu. These items are never visible from your Website and do not appear in a search.

Select the name of the bin you want to work with in the Folders section in the left navigation.

Selecting a folder File:Image

Authors will see only their own items in any of these folders. Editors will see items by all the authors of the slice.

Editors will see new items posted by authors in the Holding bin. If Content Pooling is enabled, items published from other slices will also appear in the Holding bin. If the administrator has set up the Feed parameter, items from other slices will be marked with a hand icon.

Navigating Items and Folders

Each item in a folder is a line in the Item Manager. Below the list of items is a drop-down menu that you use to choose an action for the selected items. You can select several items by clicking the checkbox next to the item, and then perform an action on all those items by choosing an action from the Selected Items menu. Actions that you can perform include moving an item to another folder, exporting the item to other slices, and previewing the item in its fulltext view.

The exact appearance of the Item Manager depends on how the slice administrator has set it up. The items will appear in a list with the more recently added items at the top. Depending on how the view is set up, you can sort the items by clicking any column header.

The number and content of the parameters which are displayed in your article manager depends on how the administrator has configured the slice. The appearance of the page can vary widely, but you will usually see Post Date and Headline. Generally, to edit an article, click on the headline or title.

To move an article to a different folder:

Select the checkbox next to the name of the item you want to move. To select all items, click Select all from the Misc. section in the left navigation bar. (Take a look at the accompanying screen shot to see how Select all works. All item will be moved to the “Holding Bin" when the editor clicks the “Go" button.)
Choose the destination folder from the list at the bottom.
Click Go. This will automatically move the selected items.

How to move an item to a different folder File:Image

Some of the optional additional parameters you may see on this page include:

An exclamation mark ('''!''')indicates whether the item is highlighted (light bulb) or not (no light bulb), to create a selection of the most important content items.
Feed indicates if your item was imported from another ActionApps slice (identified with a hand) or published in this one (no hand).
Posted By displays the author; if you have only author privileges, you will see only your own name.
Category shows the thematic category assigned to the item.
PUB indicates the status of the item: a red apple means the item is active (i.e., it appears on your slice's web page), a green apple is waiting for its publishing date, and an eaten apple means expired item.

Viewing Additional Details

You may see a link for More details or Less details in the left navigation. If you click More details, you will see the items listed with additional information. The abstract or summary is displayed together with a direct link to the full-text view of the item.

To view the items without the additional details, click Less details. This will take you back to the condensed listing.

How to Add a New Item

Both authors and editors will add new content items to your slice. This is the most basic and important task of publishing content to your site using ActionApps.

Note: Your item edit window will likely look different from what you see in this guide, as some of the fields may have been removed by your slice administrator.

To add a new item

Log into ActionApps using the URL,username, and password that your slice administrator provided.
After you successfully log in, you will see the Active folder of the Item Manager.
Click Add Item in the top navigation bar. This will open the editing window. Depending on how your slice administrator configures this view, you may see many fields, or only a few. Even if you see many fields on this page, you can generally leave many blank and still publish an item.
Complete all required fields marked with an asterisk (*). You must enter information in these fields before you can publish content items. Fields that are not marked with an asterisk are optional.
Click Insert to add a record for the item to the database.

The Add Item page File:Image

The next section explains how to add information to some of the most common fields you will see. If you have any questions about what fields you need to complete, ask your slice administrator.

Common New Item Fields

The exact fields you will use to enter information for your new content items will depend on how your administrator sets up your organization's slice. Below the text box for each field you may see Help text that provides useful instructions.

Common fields include:

Headline. The title or headline of the content item. This is almost always a required field.
Summary. A short abstract of the content item. This is almost always a required field.
Formatting.Radio buttons allow you to include HTML code with your text or just enter plain text with no HTML code. This field affects the format of content placed in the News or Full Text field.
Fulltext. The complete text of the content item, in either HTML or plain text.
External Link. The URL of the content, if it comes from an outside source. If you write a URL in this field, when your site reader clicks on the link on the index page to read the full text of the item, he will be taken to the web address here.
External News. A checkbox that indicates the content is from an outside source.

Note: External News and Fulltext are mutually exclusive. If you check this field, ActionApps will link to the External Link URL and will ignore any text in the Fulltext field.

Highlight. Checkbox used to create a selection of the most important content items in a slice, e.g., top news stories of the month, or content item relevant to a specific issue.
Author. Creator of the content item.
Source. Where the content item came from.
Source URL. External Web address of the source of the content item.
Category. Thematic group to which an item belongs. Select the category in which your item belongs from the list. You can choose only from the categories enabled for your slice by the slice administrator.
Publish Date. Date an item is published on a site.
Expiry Date. Date an item disappears from the slice index. However it remains archived and will appear in a search result.
Status Code. Indicates whether an item is approved, held, deleted, etc. This sets the folder in which the item initially appears.
Editor's notes. Notes from the editor that appear with an item. These will not be displayed on the Website but will be shown to those who use your item in their slice.

You may see many other fields that request other types of information. If the field is not clear, contact your slice administrator.

Formatting a Content Item with HTML

If you include the full text of the content item, you can use HTML code tags to format it. This feature gives authors and editors more control over the appearance of the item, which allows them to include italic or bold text, for example.

If the Formatting switch is set to HTML tags, the text will be displayed formatted. If it is set to Plain text, ActionApps will publish the tags in your web page itself!.

Note: It is not enough to save your '''.'''doc file in HTML format in Microsoft Word or another word-processing software, then copy and paste it from your screen as it appears in Word. To make HTML formatting work, you must include the HTML code tags -- such as and , and -- in the Full text field.

If you save your .doc as an HTML file, you can then open it in a text editor and copy and paste the content in the Full text field. Note that in this case you must remove the HTML heading and paste onlywhat is between the <body> and </body> tags.

'Tip! Don't include paragraph tags (
….
) around the text of the first 'paragraph of text in “Article body text". It creates an additional paragraph break on your page, leaving an overly big space between the title and the body text.

Setting the Language Encoding

ActionApps allow you to select the language of a content item. This allows the database to recognize and correctly process particular characters in a language, e.g. n in Spanish.

You should set the language in the Language field, then set the appropriate encoding table in the Encoding field. If you do not set both, the characters may not be display properly.

If you have any questions about what to select in these fields, contract your slice administrator.

Publishing an Image with an Item

If your slice administrator allows you to do so, you can publish one or more images with your content item. If you have an image to be published, enter the image URL and dimensions (in pixels) in the appropriate fields.

How to Edit an Existing Item

As an author or editor, you may need to change or update an existing item, modify an item's expiry date, improve its appearance, or correct spelling errors. An editor may want to modify the text or settings of items written by authors, or change the headline or summary for a 'fed' article. It is easy to edit a content item in ActionApps.

If you are an author, you can modify only items that you added or published. If you are an editor, you can edit any item in your slice.

To edit an item:

Select the item you want to edit in the appropriate folder. To do this, either click Edit, which appears before its title, or click the title name. The method you use will depend on how the slice administrator sets up ActionApps.
You will see the same editor window that appears when you add new items. Many of the fields will already contain the information previously entered.
Make the changes to either the text, formatting, or other settings.
When you have finished your edits, click the Update button.

Note: If you make changes to an existing item, the “last modified by" field will be automatically updated to reflect the last person to make changes.

How to Export Content Items to Another APC ActionApps Slice

To export your organization's content items to another ActionApps slice, there must be an established sharing relationship with the target slice. Two conditions must first be met: Your slice's administrator must have already enabled exporting to the target slice, and the target slice's administrator must have enabled importing content from your slice.

If these tasks have occurred, your news item may be exported automatically, or you can manually export it.

To manually export an item to a target slice:

Choose the articles to be exported by selecting the checkboxes in the Item Manager.
Under the Selected Items menu, select Export, then click Go.
Your browser opens a new window that lists the slices to which you have permission to export content. Select the slices you want to export your item(s) and click Export.

How to Import Content Items from Another APC ActionApps Slice

Similar to the process to export content, you can import content items only if four conditions are met.

You must have editor permission; the administrator of the origin slice has enabled exporting to your slice; the administrator of your slice has enabled importing from the origin slice; and the origin slice is on the same server as your slice. In future versions of ActionApps, you will be able to share content items with slices located on other servers. Visit the APC ActionApps Website regularly for updates.

If the above conditions are met, the items published in that slice will appear in your Holding bin. You can select and edit these items, then modify any field exceptFulltext.

If your administrator has set up automated import, then new items will appear in the Active folder. If not, a designated editor must approve the item, before it will appear on your Web page.

Webmaster’s Guide: Customizing and Configuring Your APC ActionApps

This section guides you through the typical administrator tasks of using the APC ActionApps. One of the primary tasks of the slice administrator is to configure how your slice appears on your organization's Web site, and how ActionApps appear to staff members and volunteers. Here you will find step-by-step instructions for how to perform the most common tasks. For more detailed information and advanced features see the ActionApps FAQ: <http://apc-aa.sourceforge.net/faq/>

To customize your ActionApps slice, you must have slice administrator privileges and be skilled in HTML editing. If you do not feel comfortable customizing the look of your application, ask your APC member to do this work for you.

How to Navigate the Admin Link

Clicking the Admin link in the top navigation takes you to the administration view. You will know that you are in the Administration section because the title across the top of the pages changes to Admin - Main settings - Slice. From here, you can access several control panels, each for configuring a different aspect of the slice.

The control panels are:

Main Settings: Slice
Main Settings: Category
Main Settings: Fields
Main Settings: Email Notification
Permissions: Assign
Permissions: Change
Design: Index
Design: Fulltext
Design: Views
Design : Item Manager
Content Pooling: Inner Node feeding
Content Pooling: Inter Node Import
Content Pooling: Inter Node Export
Content Pooling: Filters
Content Pooling: Mapping

Setting Up a Slice

You will need to follow this process any time you add a new slice to your organization's Website. If you have any problems, contact your APC Server Administrator.

To setup a new slice:

Have the Server Administrator create your slice and send you the login information for administrating your slice (see [#_How_to_Log Section 2.1] for more information about how to log in).
Configure your slice in the administrative interface. When you are first configuring your slice, refer to these sections of the manual:
[#_Designing_APC_ActionApps Section 3.4: Designing APC ActionApps Output]
[#_Creating_Input_Forms: Section][#_Creating_Input_Forms: ][#_Creating_Input_Forms: 3.6: Creating Input Forms: Working with Fields]

Note: Remember, if you are not skilled in HTML, ask your ActionApps provider to help you configure your slice.

Add some data and test your new slice.
Further configure your slice. Once you are comfortable adding items and like the Web page output, you are ready to think about organizing the workflow and categories of articles. Look especially at these sections in this manual:
[#_Setting_Categories Section 3.6.1: Setting Categories]
[#_How_to_Configure Section 3.8 How to Configure Content Pooling]
[#_How_to_Manage Section 3.7 How][#_How_to_Manage ][#_How_to_Manage to Manage and Modify User and Group Permissions]

How to Control Your Slice’s Attributes

The Slice Attributes function allows you to define the general characteristics and notification information for a slice. For example, the name attribute sets the name of the slice. Other slice administrators will see the name of your slice if you select their slices to be a Content Pooling partner.

You control your slice's overall attributes in the Main Settings: Slice control panel. When you click Slice in the left navigation, the title changes to Admin - Slice settings.

To configure your slice's settings, you must fill in information for a number of fields.

The Admin - Slice settings page File:Image

Title Field

The Title of your slice is the name of your slice within the administrative interface. This name appears in the top right hand corner of the screen. If other organizations feed content to your slice, this is the name they will see when they select your slice. Choose an obvious name for your slice, such as the name of your organization and the slice feature (e.g. News - Your Organization).

URL Field

If you are delivering your slice using Server Side Includes (SSI) encapsulated within an .shtml page, then you should put the URL of your slice into this field (e.g. http://www.yourorg.org/news.shtml) This will ensure that the View Site preview function in the Item Manager works properly.

Note: If ActionApps deliver your whole page, you do not need to complete this field. You will only need to complete this field if your slice is embedded in an .shtml file.

Owner

The Owner of your slice should be the name of your organization. Although this field is not used in the current version of ActionApps, in future versions it may be used for a variety of purposes, so it is best to set this field now.

Listing Length

The index page will have a certain number of content items on the front page. In ActionApps, this is the listing length. If a slice has a listing length of 20, for example, and the slice has more than 20 items, the Index page will show only the first 20 items, then it will display a More Items link at the bottom of the page. If you want to display all items on a single page, then set this to a very high number, for example 10,000.

Anonymous Posting of Items

Normally, only people with Author or Editor permissions can contribute content to your slice. However, you can set up a form which allows for items to be submitted via a public Web site; this is called Anonymous posting.

Enable anonymous posting

The first step is to permit anonymous posting from web, using the drop-down selection on the "Admin" -> "Main settings - Slice" for "Allow anonymous posting of items". Select to which bin the anonymous posted items should go. If "Active" is selected anonymous submissions will be published automatically. If "Holding bin" is selected the editor will have to approve or reject the item.
Create the form

To create a form for anonymous submissions via the web, view the source code for the "add item" form of the slice concerned, and copy the code between the <form ...> and </form> tags. This code can then be pasted into the html page you create for anonymous submissions.

One change to the code is required in order for the new form to function: the script for the URL to which the form is posted must be changed to filler.php3. Change it from (for example)

<form enctype="multipart/form-data" method= post action="/apc-aa/admin/itemedit.php3?AA_CP_Session=2bbb85e9205239910a222b4c59cee2fa">

to

<form enctype="multipart/form-data" method=post action="/apc-aa/filler.php3">

The layout and appearance of the form can be changed. Any field except the slice_id field may be deleted from the form.

For a more detailed description of anonymous submission forms see the ActionApps FAQ section on "How to create a form allowing anonymous posting from a public Web site" <http://apc-aa.sourceforge.net/faq/>

Offline Item Filling

Offline Item Filling allows you to enter information items offline and submit them to your ActionApps slices in a batch when you connect to the Internet.

See "How to set the off-line filling up" in the ActionApps FAQ for details: <http://apc-aa.sourceforge.net/faq/>

Designing ActionApps Output

As described above, ActionApps let you control how your content appears on your organization's Web site. This involves two steps: First, you create a 'blank' .shtml file, then you customize the output from the Action Apps database. You can customize the output in the Design - Index View, Design - Fulltext View, Design - Views, and Design - Item Manager control panels.

Creating a Template File

ActionApps can be delivered one of two ways: directly from the database or via a Server Side Include (SSI) that calls your content into a customized .shtml file. Although it is simpler if you deliver content directly from the database, it does not provide much flexibility with formatting. Using the SSI gives you much more control over how your page looks because you use straightforward HTML to code everything except the dynamic content from ActionApps, so that the web page displaying the information from the database looks just like the rest of your site.

Most users will choose the SSI / .shtml approach. If you plan to use this approach, you must complete the following steps.

To create a template file:

Create an HTML template page with all of the normal elements from your Web site: your toolbar, logos, background colors, etc. Leave the area you want to fill with content from the database blank.
Find the SSI code that will be used to call your ActionApps content. You will find this at the bottom of the Item Manager page. It will look something like this:
Cut and paste this SSI code into the blank area of your HTML template page. The inclusion of this code will make the ActionApps content appear in the page.
Save the file with an .shtml extension and name it. For example, you might call you news page template news.shtml.
Upload your file to the server where the ActionApps software and your Website are located.

After you upload this file, an index of your content will be viewable. The URL for your ActionApps will be server name + directory path + .shtml file name. For example, APC's news slice is at <http://www.apc.org/english/news/index.shtml>.

Working with Aliases and Views

Once you have created a template file, you will then design the 'views' that will dynamically generated from the ActionApps. These views are simply the different formats that are used to present your content. For example, the 'Index View' is a list of the articles in your ActionApps slice. The Fulltext View is the format that is used to show an individual article from the ActionApps database.

Views combine HTML tags with ActionApps aliases in order to format your content. Aliases are simply text strings which represent a field in the database. For example, the headline field might have the following alias: _#HEADLINE.

To control the formatting used when your headline is output from the ActionApps database, you would simply need to put the appropriate HTML text around the alias. For example, the code _#HEADLINE would make your headline Bold.

The sections listed under Admin - Design on the left-hand navigation panel allow you to design four types of view:

Index: this allows you to design the way ActionApps-generated content will appear in your index page. If you need greater control and flexibility over the display use "Views"
Fulltext controls the appearance of single full text items
Views: "Views" offer additional functionality over the basic Index and Fulltext views, such as controlling the order in which items are displayed within categories, or displaying only those items which meet certain criteria
Item manager allows you to make changes to the design of the Item Manager page

Specific instructions on setting up each view are contained in the following sections. Information on how aliases work can also be found below.

Index View

After you have uploaded your template file, you should apply the design parameters that you want to use for the Index View of your Action Apps. This is the view that provides a list of the items in your slice. In the Design - Index control panel, you design the Index page. There are several parts to the control panel.

The Admin - Design Index View page File:Image

Top HTML

Top HTML is the HTML at the top of the slice. If you embed your slice in an .shtml page, you will probably not need to use this section of the design page.

If you display your slice by referencing the raw URL for the slice (ie not using a server side include), you will want to add at least a title in HTML to the slice e.g. “News from the APC Networks".

Odd and Even Rows

Each row in your index page will show the index listing of one item. You can have different designs for even and odd rows. Typically, people do this so that they can have alternating color schemes, making it easier to read the rows.

Odd Rows is where you combine HTML and aliases to display to produce the look you want. Aliases are placeholders for items' fields.

Here is a sample value for Odd Rows:

_#PUB_DATE - <a href=_#HDLN_URL>_#HEADLIN2</a>
_#PLACE###(<a href="_#SRC_URL#">_#SOURCE##</a>) - _#ABSTRACT

Notice that there are HTML elements (such as setting the color to 808080), and there are aliases, (such as displaying the publish date of the item _#PUB_DATE).

Even Rows functions just like Odd rows. To use Even Rows, be sure to select the Use another HTML for Even Rows checkbox.

Bottom HTML

Bottom HTML is just like Top HTML, except that this HTML code is placed after the very last item in the index. This row is often used to add a footer to the page.

The Admin - Design Index View page continued File:Image

Sort Items by Category

You can group the rows of items by category. To do this, select the Sort items by category checkbox.

If this is checked, then the items will be grouped by category. Each group of items will have Category Top HTML and Category Headline above it. Whatever you want to appear after the last item in a category should appear Category Bottom HTML, for example a footer for the category.

Remove Strings

In Remove Strings, you specify strings of characters that you want to hide from your users.

When mixing HTML and aliases, sometimes you see HTML code that you don't want shown to users. For example, say you have code like this (_#AUTHOR##). Normally, this will display as:

 (Michael Jackson)

But when an item has a blank value for 'author', it will display as

()

To avoid confusing users with empty parentheses in your list of items, type () in the Remove Strings field, and ActionApps will take away all empty parentheses.

Fulltext View

When people click on a link to an item, they will see the fulltext page for that item. This page generally shows all the information about that item. In the Design - Fulltext control panel, you design the Fulltext page.

The Admin - Design Fulltext View page File:Image

Top HTML

Top HTML is the HTML that appears at the top of the slice. If you embed your slice in a .shtml page, you will only have a little bit of HTML set in part of the control panel.

If you display your slice by referencing the raw URL for the slice, you will want to add more HTML. Typically people put their logo or site navigation bar in the Top HTML.

Fulltext HTML Code

The Fulltext HTML code area is where you describe how the Fulltext view of your item should appear. You can mix Aliases and HTML in this field. Scroll to the bottom of the page to see the list of available Aliases. When a user views this page, the aliases will be substituted for the real values from the database.

Bottom HTML

Bottom HTML functions just like Top HTML, except that this HTML code appears after the last items, e.g. a footer for the page.

Remove Strings

Use this section for any text patterns that you do not want to appear in the Fulltext HTML code.

Item Manager View

The Item Manager is the page that your authors use to edit the items in your slice. This is the center of your administrative interface. Your slice editors will scan the list of items, moving items from one folder or bin to another as needed. Each item is a row in the Item Manager interface.

In this control panel, you customize how the Item Manager will look. You specify what is above the row of items, what is below the row of items, and what fields appear.

The Admin - Design Item Manager View page File:Image

Top HTML

Top HTML is the HTML at the top of the item manager, above the list of items. This could be, for example, your organization's logo. This function is not normally necessary when embedding an ActionApps slice into an .shtml file using SSI.

Item Format

Item Format is the main part of the control panel. Here you mix HTML and Aliases to set how each row of the item manager is displayed. The list of available Aliases appears at the bottom of the page.

Bottom HTML

Bottom HTML functions like Top HTML, except that this HTML code is placed after the last items.

Remove Strings

Use this section for text patterns that you want removed from the Fulltext HTML code.

After you have editing these attributes, click Update to save your changes.

Views

"Views" enable greater control over the display of ActionApps-generated content than can be achieved using the standard Index view. For example, you can control the order in which items display on your web page, or display only items meeting criteria which you specify.

Views also allow you to base many different web pages on a single ActionApps slice. For example, you could set up a single slice to capture news items on Human Rights, Environmental Justice, and Sustainable Development, and set up three different views so that Human Rights items display on one web page, Sustainable Development items on another, and so on.

Setting up views

Select the type of view you would like to create from the drop-down list on the Admin - design View page, and click on the New button. [Note: this section describes only Item Listing Views - for information on other types of View see the ActionApps FAQ <http://apc-aa.sourceforge.net/faq/>

The Admin - design view page File:Image

The Item Listing View design page File:Image

The Item Listing Admin - design View page uses the same basic parameters as the Index view design, such as Top HTML, Odd Rows, Bottom HTML etc. In addition, it includes parameters which allow you to order the display of items, group items according to specific criteria, display only those items which meet specified criteria, and set the number of item which will display on a page.

Using Views to Control the Order in which Items Display (sorting)

If you want to control the order in which ActionApps-generated items display on the web page, you can specify primary and secondary criteria for sorting items (ascending or descending) using the Sort Primary and Sort Secondary drop-down lists. Sort Primary determines the main order in which items display; Sort Secondary sorts within this. For example, you might choose to sort first by category, then by publication date within each category.

Using Views to Group Items

Group by allows you to group items on the web page according to whatever field you choose from the drop-down list.

Use Group title format to specify the heading which will appear above the grouped items on the web page. For example,

#Category

specifies that each group of items should appear under the relevant category heading.

Conditions

You can specify up to three conditions which will restrict the items displayed to those meeting particular criteria. In the example in the screenshot above, Condition 1 defines the parameter as follows:

The condition relates to the category group trainer/general
Only items which do not contain the specified string should be displayed
The specified string in this example is "General"

For more detailed guidelines on using conditions and URL parameters see the ActionApps FAQ section on selecting a sub-set of items: <http://apc-aa.sourceforge.net/faq/>

How to Set Up Search and Search Output

Most search engines will treat ActionApps-generated web pages as normal web pages, and index them accordingly. This means that if you are already using a search engine on your site, you will be able to use it to search the content of your ActionApps slices.

It is also possible to add Search functionality directly to your ActionApps slices.

Search Form

A search form lets users enter their search criteria. The search form could be a simple keyword search form that lets users search through all the full texts of items for a certain word or phrase (e.g. see “Fast News Search" in the left side bar of http://www.apc.org/english/news/index.shtml), or it could be more complicated and let the user search for all items published after a certain date (e.g. see: http://www.apc.org/english/news/index.shtml?bigsrch=1).

Search Results

The search results page displays the results of the user's search, or all content items that meet his search criteria. The search results page is very similar to the Index template page. It defines the format of the index of items that match the search results.

To create a simple search form, include HTML like this on the page:

<form action="index.shtml" method="get" name="sf" id="sf"> Search for items whose summaries contain this word: <input type="text" name="conds[0][summary.........]">
<input type="submit" value="Search" > </form>

Note: This is that the 'action' of the form and you also need a template file for the search results page. For more information on how to create a template file, see manual section 3.4.1: Creating a Template File.

You can also reuse your standard index template file as the search results template. To do this, just point the search form 'action' to your standard index template file, for example, index.shtml.

The main part of the search form is this HTML fragment: <input type="text" name="conds[0][summary.........]"> This creates a input form textbox where users can type in the word for which they want to search.

Note: The 'name' of the input needs to be 'conds[0][fieldname]', where 'fieldname' is replaced by the ActionApps id for the field you are searching. The [0] after 'conds' is a numeric zero, and not the capital letter 'O'. To find the list of fields and their ids, login to the administrative interface, and go to Admin - Main Settings - Fields. The field ids are the second column in each row. Typical field ids are 'headline........', 'created_by......', and'full_text.......'.

'For more information, including special options and multi-field searching, please look at: <'>'.'.'.'.

Creating Input Forms: Working with Fields

The APC ActionApps enable your organization to publish information easily and quickly online. The type of information is up to you. You might be publishing short news releases on your Web site. You might be publishing a bibliography of books related to human rights abuses, or a directory of environmental lawyers.

To give you the flexibility you need to deal with many different types of information, the ActionApps let you define the fields that an item will have within your slice. For example, to gather and publish news releases, the fields you need are the title of the news release, the author, and the full text of the story. For a bibliography, the set of required fields is different and would certainly include the date of publication and thepublisher. You can easily select which fields you need using the Main Settings - Fields function in ActionApps. You can also configure the forms that are used for inputting information into the ActionApps database (i.e., the Control Panel windows).

How to Set Up Fields

In Main Settings - Fields control panel, you control the fields that appear in the Add Item form for your news slice. For example, your slice might have only a minimal set of fields, like:

Title: The name of the content item
Fulltext: The complete text of the content item
Status: The status of the item in your organization's publishing process, e.g. Active, Approved, Published
Author: The name of the person who wrote the content item

Alternatively, your slice might have many fields:

Title
Fulltext
Status
Author
Author's Email
Location
Start Date
Language
Contact Name
Contact Home Phone
Contact Work Phone

You use the Main Settings - Fields control panel to set what fields your slice contains. The control panel will initially show a default list of fields.

The Admin - Configure Fields page File:Image

The fields control panel is set up as a table. Each field appears in a separate row, and you can set attributes for five properties of each field. The column headings that control these properties are:

Field
Type
Priority
Required
Show

To the far right, you will also see Edit and Delete in each row.

Field Attribute

Field specifies the field name. The Authors and Editors adding content to your slice will see this field name in the input form. You can use any text here, including spaces, numbers, letters, and punctuation. This field has a maximum character length of 255, but the best practice is to use 30 or fewer characters.

Type Attribute

Type specifies what type of information that field will contain. If you add a new field, a drop-down list displays the available, predefined types. Choosing a field Type sets the basic properties of your field, and then you can edit those field properties.

When you add a new field, you set its properties, which specifies almost everything about the field. For example, you determine how an author will enter data for the field: by typing into a text-input field, or by clicking the yes or no checkbox. Some fields will check to make sure input is a correctly formed email address or from a pre-defined list. There are properties to set how a field can be displayed in the Index or Fulltext view.

There are many available field types, each based on a commonly used function. When you are adding a field, simply pick a field Type that seems similar to the field you want to create. Most field types are the same: the field input is into a one-line regular text input box, it accepts any text, and it will output by printing the value of the field. If you create a new field and it should be like this standard field types, simply choose the 'headline' Type.

These are some of the non-standard Types available include:

Abstract. The form displays an 8-row text area; accepts any text (including numbers, symbols, etc).
Fulltext. Acts like “Abstract"
External Item. Displays a yes/no checkbox.
Headline URL. Displays a regular text input box; output is formatted as a link. Displayed only if External Item field is set to Yes.
Source URL. Displays a regular text input box. Output is formatted as a link. If left blank, ActionApps will default to generate a JavaScript popup box in the Web browser that says “No source URL specified".
Language Code. Displays a drop-down select box, choosing from a pre-defined list of languages.
Code Page. Displays a drop-down select box, choosing from a pre-defined list of language code-pages. Code pages define which language character set the articles are using.
Category. Displays a drop-down select box, choosing from a pre-defined list of categories.
Image URL. Displays a regular text input box; output is part of an <img> tag. If left blank, it removes the <img> tag, to avoid broken HTML.

Priority Attribute

Priority sets the order in which the fields are displayed in the Add Item page. The lower the priority number, the closer the item will be to the top of the page. If you want your new field to be at the top of the page, make its priority smaller than all other fields' priorities. If you want your new field to be at the bottom of the page, make its priority greater than all the other fields' priorities. If you want you new field to go between two fields, choose a number greater than one and smaller than the other. Fields can have the same priority; these will be displayed in the order they were added.

Tip! Set priority number in increments of 100. E.g. your first field has a priority of 100, your second field, 200, and so on. In this way, if you need to insert additional rows later, you will have a lot of flexibility in your structure.

Required Attribute

Required is a checkbox. If this is checked, then the user must complete this field on the Add Item page. If they leave the field blank, they will be told to complete it when they click the form's “OK" button.

Show Attribute

Show is a checkbox. If this is checked, the field will be visible in the form on the Add Item page. Some fields have defaults, so that you can make them required, but not display them. For example, post_date can be a required field for ActionApps, but it is not displayed. ActionApps logs when an item is posted, so it fills in this field automatically, and you do not need to show it on the Add Item page.

Edit and Delete Attributes

Edit and Delete. On the right side of each row of field attributes, there are two links: Edit and Delete.

The Edit link will bring up another page. This page lets you set almost everything about the field. See [#_How_to_Edit_1 Section 3.5.3 “How to Edit a Field”] for more information.

The Delete link will delete the field, if possible. There are some fields that you cannot delete. If it is not possible to delete an item, then the “Delete" will not appear as a link. When it is possible to delete a field, you can click on the link and it will disappear.

Tip! Generally you should not delete unused fields. If you do not want to use a field, you can simply unselect Show and Required, which will effectively hide the field from your users. This will allow you the flexibility to change your mind later and use the field.

How to Add a Field

ActionApps let you customize fields and add new fields if you choose.

To add a field:

Click Main Settings - Fields from the Administration page.
Scroll to the bottom row of fields, where you will find a blank row.
Type in the your custom Field Name.
Select a Field Type.
Set the Field Priority.
Specify whether to make Required and whether to Show the field.
Click Update. Your new field is now in the list of fields.

Note: Fields in this control panel are listed in their priority order. If you create a field and set a priority, it will no longer be at the bottom of the list; instead it will appear in its proper order according to its priority.

How to Edit a Field

Generally, when you add a new field, you need only to choose the correct field type for it to appear properly in the input form and be available in the templates of your full text view and the index view. If you need to customize a field, ActionApps has many advanced features that will display a field in special ways. You customize a field with the Edit Field function.

The Edit link will bring up a page that lets you set almost every aspect of the field.

Note: Only advanced administrators should edit field attributes. It is easy for non-programmers to be confused by all the options allowed in Edit Field Attributes.

The main sections to the Edit Field Attributes page are:

Input type
Default Value
Other Attributes
Aliases

Use the Admin - Configure Fields page to edit field attributes File:Image

Input Type

In this section, you set how this input field will look in the Add Item page.

The top select box lets you choose the input type, from a list of options. These include:

Text Fields. The most common type of field. This is a long box, one row high, into which users can type a value.
Text Area. Similar to Text Field, but it is longer than one column high. Used for inputting the paragraphs of information. Use the Parameters input to specify the number of rows.
Date. Appears as a series of text boxes.
Check boxes. On and Off clickable fields.
File Upload. Allows the user to choose a file on their computer to upload (inserts a “browse…" button)
Select Box. Displays a pre-defined list of values from which users can choose.
Radio Buttons. Displays a pre-defined list of values from which users can choose.

If you use Select Box or Radio Button, you must input the list of possible values in the Constants section, which appears just below the Input Type select box. After you add these values, click Update. To return to the field you were editing, you must go back to Admin - Main Settings - Fields, click the Edit link for the field you were editing, and choose the new constant group.

Default

You can set the your slice to supply a default value for a field. This default value will display in the input form in the Add Item page. In this section, you set both the type of default value and the value itself.

Most default values are of type Text. For example, if the default value is of type the Text and the Parameter is “Middle East," then this field will have the default value of Middle East.

You can set other types of default values, including Now or Date. For example, you could have an Event Start Date field, and set the default value to Now, which will insert the current date. The Date field is similar to Now, but the Parameters allow you to set the value to a number of days from now.

Another default type is User Id. This looks up the User Id of the user logged into the administrative interface and sets the value accordingly.

Validate

You can specify that only certain data is valid for a particular field. If Validation is on, then the Add Item page will check the content, looking for data that fails the validate function. The criteria used to validate the data depends on the validate function.

If the validate function is Text, then anything typed in will be accepted. If the validate function is URL, then only correctly formatted URLs like “http://www.igc.org/" will be accepted, and text like “Website:www.igc.org" will be flagged as an error. E-mail accepts common e-mail format, such as “joe@gn.apc.org", and rejects inappropriate text. The Number validate function requires a number like 15 or 3333. Id is a system-validation function used to make sure the entered value is a user id within the ActionApps, and you can safely ignore it. Date will ensure the value is a valid date. Boolean will make sure the value is either “yes" or “no" (1 or 0), if a field requires one of these options, e.g. if a field requires a true or false response.

Insert

Insert defines how the value is stored in the database. Generally, you will use Text. Other options include: File will store an uploaded file; Now will insert the current time, no matter what the user sets, which can be used to track changes; Uid will insert the identity of the Current user, no matter what the user sets; and Boolean will store either 1 or 0, which can be for yes/no or true/false values.

Show 'HTML' / 'plain text' option

You can allow users to add data to your field in either plain text or as HTML. If you click the Show 'HTML' / 'plain text' option, then your users will see a checkbox that will let them choose whether their input should be considered HTML or plain text.

HTML coded as default

This sets the Show HTML/plain text checkbox default to HTML or defaults to plain text.

Help for this field

In Add Item, below each field is a little blurb of text that explains the field. You set the text that appears here. e.g., under the input box for a date, the help could say: “Please write your date in this way, dd-mm-yy eg 23-01-01".

More Help

In Add Item, there is an optional clickable '?' next to each field. If the user clicks on that '?', they will be taken to a page with more help on that item. In this setting, you define the URL of that page where the user can get more help on this field.

Note: Only activate this feature if you have help pages to link to.

Before HTML code

You can preface an Add Item field with some HTML. This section appears in its own table cell. Use this to add e.g. a title to a section in your form.

Setting Aliases

In this section of the Edit Field page, you define aliases that you can use when customizing the Design pages. You use aliases when customizing the Design - Index and Design - Fulltext pages. Where you place an alias, ActionApps will display the value of the field for that item.

Use the Admin - Configure Fields page to edit fields, continued File:Image

Each alias, for technical reasons, must start with a _#. Each alias must be 10 characters long, uppercase letters. Examples of valid aliases are _#HEADLINE _#AUTHOR##.

Note: Keep your aliases intuitive. Make up the number of characters to 10 by adding # to the end of a shorter word eg . _#AUTHOR##

Function and Parameters

Functions are simply different ways of displaying the value of a field. For example, if the value of the field is “http://www.apc.org/", this can be displayed either directly as text on the screen, or as a clickable link. Some functions are flexible and require additional information in the Parameter section. For example, the Abstract function prints only a certain number of characters. The parameter sets the number of characters this function will print.

There are several Alias Functions you should understand.

Print. The default function. This prints the value to the screen. There are no parameters to this function.
Abstract: Prints the field. If there is a parameter, it sets how many characters to print.
Edit Item:Shows a URL that will let youedit the item. Parameters not used here.
Fulltext Link: Shows a URL that displays the full text of the item.There are no parameters to this function.
Fulltext: Prints the field. If the field is marked as HTML, it will print it directly. If the field is text, it will convert it into simple HTML. There are no parameters to this function.
Linked field: A function used with links. A typical link will have two parts: the URL and the label that the user sees. In ActionApps, you may want to have two fields used together to generate such HTML, one field contains the URL, and one field that contains the label eg where the label is descriptive, “News from APC" and the URL is the actual URL of the news section <http://www.apc.org/english/news/>.
URL: Prints the field. If the field is empty, it will print the text of the parameter. A common parameter is javascript: window.alert('Please include a source URL')
Date:Displays a date value. Dates can be displayed many different ways, however, such as DD/MM/YY or MM/DD/YYYY. The parameter defines how a date value is displayed. The date is formatted with the php date function, so programmers should refer to <http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.date.php>. The characters in Table 1 have special meaning in the Date parameter:

Table 1: Symbols and meanings for the Data parameter

	Symbol	Meaning
	A	"am" or "pm"
	A	"AM" or "PM"
	D	day of the month, 2 digits with leading zeros; i.e. "01" to "31"
	D	day of the week, textual, 3 letters; i.e. "Fri"
	F	month, textual, long; i.e. "January"
	J	day of the month without leading zeros; i.e. "1" to "31"
	l (lowercase 'L')	day of the week, textual, long; i.e. "Friday"
	M	month; i.e. "01" to "12"
	M	month, textual, 3 letters; i.e. "Jan"
	N	month without leading zeros; i.e. "1" to "12"
	R	RFC 822 formatted date; i.e. "Thu, 21 Dec 2000 16:01:07 +0200"
	S	English ordinal suffix, textual, 2 characters; i.e. "th", "nd"
	T	Timezone setting of this machine; i.e. "MDT"
	W	day of the week, numeric, i.e. "0" (Sunday) to "6" (Saturday)
	Y	year, 4 digits; i.e. "1999"
	Y	year, 2 digits; i.e. "99"
	Z	day of the year; i.e. "0" to "365"

Image Height: Used to set the height of an image. When an Alias has the function, ActionApps makes sure that an empty value in this field does not lead to broken HTML. No parameters are used with this field.
Image Src: An alias similar to image height. If the field is empty, the whole <img> tag will not be shown. No parameters are used with this field.
ImageWidth: An alias similar to image_height. No parameters are used with this field.
Id: An alias the system uses to print a database-id. No parameters are used with this field.
None: This function will not print anything for this alias. No parameters are used with this field.
Help Text: The help that appears to your slice's users in the list of aliases.

Using Categories

ActionApps uses categories in several places. When using Views, you can specify that items are grouped by category, or you can limit the list of items displayed to those corresponding to a particular category. Categories can be used when importing articles from another slice. You can choose to accept only articles that belong to a certain category. You can also automatically rename another organization's categories to suit your own categories when you feed items to your slice.

Setting Categories

You control the categories for your slice from the Main Settings - Fields page (avoid using Main Settings - Categories).

Include a "category" field in the list of fields for your slice.
Click to Edit the category field
Input type - Constants on the Admin - configure Fields page offers a drop-down list of pre-existing categories.

You can:
Select a pre-existing set of categories and update the configuration without any further changes, or
Edit a pre-existing set of categories to meet your needs (Note: be very cautious about editing category sets which may be shared by other slices), or
Add a new category set

Use the Admin - Constants Setting to Edit and Add Categories

File:Image

If you are creating a new category ('constant') group, give it a name.

Each category has four attributes: Name, Value, Priority and Parent.

Name: name of the category which will appear in the drop-down list of categories on the input page,
Value: what is stored in the database for this category listing. This may be either the same as the name, or a short value. Value (rather than Name) is displayed on your web pages if you use the #CATEGORY alias for item group headings). Each category must have a unique value; two categories should not have the same value. Categories must not be left blank.
Priority: sets the order of the category list on the Index page of the slice, determining which category is shown first, which is second etc. The category with the highest priority is shown first.
Parent: these are broad categories set at the network level. The Parent feature allows you to map your own custom categories according to the standard categories that come with ActionApps. This feature helps your slice share content if you choose to enable Content Pooling.

Ordering Category Display

Ordering of Categories

If you need tight control over the order in which categories display on your web page, it is necessary to set up a View parameter for each category and order them "manually" on the shtml page.

Ordering of Items within Categories

You can control the ordering in which items within categories are displayed (for example, by title, author, date etc.) using Views.

How to Manage and Modify User and Group Permissions

You can change the permissions of existing users in your slice or assign permissions to new users and groups.

User Permissions

Each user is set to a different level of permissions. You can make changes to users to give them additional permission levels or to revoke permissions.

To change permissions of existing users:

Click Users in the top navigation.
Select the User name that you want to change from the list, then click Edit.
Make the appropriate changes to the user's profile.
Click Update.

The Edit User page File:Image

To assign permissions to new users:

Request that the system operator of your provider register your new user in the server's database.
Click Users in the top navigation.
Select the User name that you want to change from the list, then click Edit.
Make the appropriate changes to the user's profile.
Click Update.

How to Configure Content Pooling

There are two methods for sharing or "feeding" content - manual and automatic.

Manual feeding

To export an item to another slice you must have at least Author level permissions in the destination slice

In Item Manager select the items you want to send to another slice. Select "Export" on the toolbar just below the item list.

Selecting an item to export File:Image

After you have clicked on "Go" a new window is shown where you can select destination slices.

Export items screen File:Image

Select the destination slice. If you have editor's permissions in the destination slice you can select Active to export the item to the Active bin of the destination slice.
Click on the Export button

The feeding is error-safe, it is impossible to feed one item to the same destination slice more than once.

Automatic feeding

Configuring automatic exporting and importing between slices

To feed content between slices automatically you need to configure the feed in both the slice where the items are entered, and the destination slice.

Select the slice where the items will be entered.
Select Admin - Content Pooling - Inner Node Feeding on the navigation panel.

The Admin - configure Content Pooling page File:Image

In the top (export) field you can set which slices you want to make available for export. The editor(s) of the slices to which you enable exporting will receive every new content item that is published in your slice if the slice administrator has enable importing from your slice.

In the bottom field you can set which slices will feed into your slice. In the left-hand column you will see those slices listed that you can export from.

Select the slices in the left-hand column, then move them using the arrow buttons in the middle. Click Update when done to save your changes.

Tip! As a courtesy, you should send an e-mail to other slice administrators to let them know you are offering a sharing relationship, or if you have taken up their offer of sharing.

Filters

Use this control panel to define how fed items get channeled into your slice. You can set specific filters for each category of each slice.

The Admin - Content pooling - filters page File:Image

Go to Admin - Content Pooling - Filters
In the Categories section, select the categories you want to import From and To. "To" should be the corresponding categories in your slice.
Select the Active box if you want items in this category to be fed directly into your Approved bin. The default setting send items to your holding bin.
Click Update to save your changes or Cancel to exit without saving changes.

Mapping

This control panel controls which fields of the source slice end up in which fields of the destination slice. This is useful if source and destination slices use different field names but still want to share content. You might, for example, want items from a field called "Abstract" field in the source slice to be fed to a field called "Description" in the destination slice.

The Admin - Content Pooling - Mapping page
inline:obrázky58.png

Go to Admin - Content Pooling - Fields' Mapping
Select the source slice for which you want to configure mapping from the Mapping from slice drop-down menu
To lists the fields in the destination slice. Use the drop-down lists under From to change the fields which will feed from the source slice to the destination slice.

E-mail notification

The e-mail notification function allows the slice administrator (or anyone else whose e-mail address is specified) to be notified by e-mail when any of the following actions occur:

There is a new item in the Holding bin
An item in the Holding bin has changed
There is a new item in the Approved bin
An item in the Approved bin has changed

To set e-mail notification

Go to the Admin - Email Notification control panel.
Complete the three fields for each action about which you wish to be notified:
Email addresses: the address/es to which the notification should be sent, one per line
Subject of the Email message: for example, "New Item in Holding Bin"
Body of the Email message: the text of the message to be sent out with each notification. Aliases may be included in this field.

Displaying ActionApps content if ActionApps is not installed on your site

There are three ways to display content generated by ActionApps on sites which do not have ActionApps installed:

Use /misc/remote/remote
Create javascript views in ActionApps
Use jsview.php3 to display existing view

Jsview.php3 is the simplest option, and the only one described here. For information about the other possibilities see the ActionApps FAQ
<http://apc-aa.sourceforge.net/faq/>.

Using jsview.php3 you can display any existing ActionApps views on sites not running ActionApps by replacing the original SSI include with a javascript one as in the following example:

If the original SSI code in yourpage.shtml was:

the javascript code to display the view on a site not running ActionApps would be:

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION VISIT THE ONLINE ACTION APPS FAQ AT <http://apc-aa.sourceforge.net/faq/>

Milhaus/User manual

Contents

A Quick Overview of the APC ActionApps

Background

What Are APC ActionApps?

Benefits of Using APC ActionApps

APC ActionApps Features

How Do the APC ActionApps Work?

How Organizations Use ActionApps Today

What APC Action Apps Look Like -- A User Perspective

What Action Apps Look Like -- A Content Manager’s Perspective

Getting Started: Planning Your Approach

What You Need to Get Started

How Will You Use ActionApps?

APC ActionApps Basics

User Roles

Important Definitions

APC ActionApps “Slices”

Content Pooling

Categories

Deciding How Information Should Appear in Your Slice

Options

Create Web Page Templates

Indexes and Lists of Articles

How Full Articles Are Displayed

Publishing Process

A Sample Current Routine

APC ActionApps Publishing Routine and Roles

The Structure of Your Items

Plan Your Transition

How to Log In

How to Navigate APC ActionApps

Top and Left Navigation Bars

Top Navigation

Folders: Where Items Appear

Navigating Items and Folders

Viewing Additional Details

How to Add a New Item

To add a new item

Common New Item Fields

Formatting a Content Item with HTML

Setting the Language Encoding

Publishing an Image with an Item

How to Edit an Existing Item

How to Export Content Items to Another APC ActionApps Slice

How to Import Content Items from Another APC ActionApps Slice

Webmaster’s Guide: Customizing and Configuring Your APC ActionApps

How to Navigate the Admin Link

Setting Up a Slice

How to Control Your Slice’s Attributes

Title Field

URL Field

Owner

Listing Length

Anonymous Posting of Items

Offline Item Filling

Designing ActionApps Output

Creating a Template File

Working with Aliases and Views

Index View

Top HTML

Odd and Even Rows

Bottom HTML

Sort Items by Category

Remove Strings

Fulltext View

Top HTML

Fulltext HTML Code

Bottom HTML

Remove Strings

Item Manager View

Top HTML

Item Format

Bottom HTML

Remove Strings

Views

Setting up views

Using Views to Control the Order in which Items Display (sorting)

Using Views to Group Items

#Category