For Editors

Table of Contents

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Managing Events

  • Add “event” tag to posts that are future events.
  • Set the post date to be an “acceptable” lead time before the event
    date.
  • Old events should have an expire date set 1 to 7 days after the
    event. Enter the date in the post’s Expire Date field.
  • Verify that the “announcement” category is set. And verify the “event” tag is set.
  • Publish
  • When an event expires, it will be changed to “draft” status. Expired draft events should be set to “private” status, and the “is_submission” custom field should be deleted so it does not appear at the bottom of the Submitted form.
  • See also: Creating and Using QR Codes
  • Add a “feature” tag to posts to be shown when the “Featured Posts” menu is selected.
  • Removed “old” feature tags from posts you don’t want to feature.

Edit Draft and Pending Posts

Note: the custom_fields can be used when the draft is created with the User Submitted Post form.

  • Click on the Left panel, Posts, All Posts
  • Look for a “draft” post to edit. You can list only drafts by clicking on the “Draft” link that is above the “Build action” button.
  • Click on a draft title to bring up edit view
  • Click on some text in the post
  • At the prompt, click on “Convert to blocks” (if not already blocks). If that looks too “messy,” undo that, then edit the text in the classic visual editor.
  • Clean up the copy to match the typical style for the media type (book, article, etc.)
  • Look for the editor, not the Custom-Field, for the user’s notes on this post.
  • Title – fixup, if needed.
  • All of the custom_fields are put into one Short-Code block
  • Subtitle – get this from a custom field. Use a short-code and make it italic
<p><i>[custom_field field="usp-custom-subtitle"]</i></p>
  • Author – get from custom field. Short-code:
<p>by [custom_field field="usp-custom-author"]</p>
  • Other Authors – if custom-field-other-authors is not empty, use this short-code (and remove the </p> from the Author short-code):
and [custom_field field="usp-custom-other-authors"]</p>
  • Date Seen – if there is a custom-field-date-seen, add this short-code:
    <p>Date seen: </p>
  • Publisher – get from custom field. Short-code:
<p>Publisher: [custom_field field="usp-custom-publisher"]</p>
  • Recommended by – get from custom field. Short-code:
<p>Recommended by: [custom_field field="usp-custom-rec-by"]</p>
  • Date – can be deleted, but the post’s date should match the custom-field post-date. (See Post settings below)
  • Cleanup any format issues with the text
  • If you have made many changes, you will want to click the “Save Draft” link occasionally.
  • Links to YouTube or Vimeo videos can be pasted into the body of the post, and the video will automatically be embedded.
  • Links to Instagram videos are added as follows. Go to the Instagram link, click on the triple dots to get a menu, select “Copy Embedded” (include the caption or not), then go to the WordPress post, add a “Custom HTML” block, and paste the copied text.
  • Email links follow this pattern: “mailto:EMAIL?subject=SUBJECT TEXT&body=BODY TEXT” For example: “mailto:cindisearsipv@gmail.com?subject=I would like to attend&body=Please send me details for the next meeting.”
  • Make a “Buy,” “Read Article,” or “Review” link, if not there already. Make it an H3 heading or a button. If there is no Buy link or other link in the content, then look for the usp-custom-link. The link can be added with one of the following short-codes:
<h3><a target='_blank' href='[custom_field field="usp-custom-link"]'>Read Article</a></h3>

<h3><a target='_blank' href='[custom_field field="usp-custom-link"]'>Buy</a></h3>

<h3><a target='_blank' href='[custom_field field="usp-custom-link"]'>Go to site</a></h3>
  • If the post is an article, is there an Internet Archive link? Look for the custom field archive-link
    • If no, it might change or become unavailable; get an archive link. See: How to make links that last
    • If yes, make the text “Archive” a link, which can be plain text, an H3 heading, a button, or use the short-code:
<h3><a target='_blank' href='[custom_field field="usp-custom-archive-link"]'>Archive</a></h3>

Categories and Tags

In the editor-note custom field, a user could have requested additional categories or tags. Add those as needed.

If you have added categories or tags, the form settings must be updated to allow the new items. See: Plugins, USP Pro, Settings. (A site admin user should do this.)

  • Post Categories – Select which categories may be assigned to submitted posts. Show/Hide Categories
  • Post Tags – Select which tags may be assigned to submitted posts (see next two options). Show/Hide Tags (Note: Most Author tags are not enabled, because there are so many of them.)

Images

Does the post’s feature image have a 4:3 or 16:9 ratio?

(Look at the image in the post or in the Media Library.)

  • Yes, continue to “Set the featured image”
  • No, save the image to your computer and use a graphics program to edit it.
  • For changing graphics, see: Sizing Graphics
  • Save the edited image to a jpg file with a descriptive name. (Note webp images are not supported by WordPress.)

If a post is a video-only post, a featured image is not needed. Put the video link after the title line. Then put all other text after the embedded video.

  • Right panel, Post tab, “Set Featured Image”
  • Select the image from the Media Library.
  • If not in the Library, select “Upload” and get the edited image from your computer. (The image on your computer can now be deleted.)

Post settings

  • Right panel, Post tab
  • If there is “Excerpt” text in the post, review it.
  • Set the “Publish date” to the actual date of the book, article, video, etc. See also the custom-fields: post-date and date-seen.
  • Set “Discussion” (comments) to “Open” or “Closed”
  • Review Categories: select all that are relevant, from the existing list. (Categories can be added, but it would be best to first use tags for “missing” categories.)
  • Tags
    • Add any important tags. Use ‘-‘ between words, not spaces.
  • To preview the post, click on the “Preview” button at the top of page.

If you mess up editing a post

  • If you haven’t published or saved, you can leave the post (click on “W”), then start over.
  • You can use the undo left arrow button at the top left
  • or you can click on the “Revisions” link in the right panel. Then you can go back to the previous version and restore the post to one of the saved versions.

Publish

  • You can have another editor review the post. Set the “Status” to “Pending” then let them know. (Note: a published post’s status can be changed back to “Draft”)
  • If all is OK, publish the post. Top right button. You’ll need to do it twice.
  • If you are editing an already published post, click on the “Save” button.
  • Click on the “W” at upper left to go back to the post list.