Guided tour

Contents

1. Introduction

2. Preparation

3. Making a page

4. Adding the guestbook

5. Adding entries to the guestbook

6. Managing the guestbook

7. To conclude

1. Introduction

To successfully do this guided tour, we assume you have installed Site@School in the demo version, either on your own server at school or at an ISP (Internet Service Provider). When you do not have an installation of Site@School, you can use the sandbox at http://wyxs.net/daily/. This site is renewed every day at 04.00 GMT. We also assume you have a username and password to enter the installed Site@School.
This guided tour will show you the basic operations in Site@School. When you have finished the tour you will be able to:

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2. Preparation

Site@School is a content management system. The content you make in the management part of Site@School is visible on your site. Most times, when you work in Site@School, you do something in S@S management, and after that, you examine what you have done on the site. To work as easily as possible, we advise you to open two windows on your browser;
- one for Site@School Management, and
- one to see the results of your work on your site.

Opening two browsers

Open your browser (Firefox, Netscape, Mozilla or Internet Explorer). Go to this URL (Universal Resource Locator) of your school. For example: http://www.yourschoolsite.org/index.php (fictional URL, replace it with the real URL of the school) and you will see your site:


guidtour_basic_site.png

This is your schoolsite. What is visible is the Site@School editable template. Every aspect (colors, fonts, etcetera) can be set to your preferences. See the Template Editor chapter on how to make a template that is apppriate for your school.

Now open a new browser window (click again on the browser icon) and go to:
http://www.yourschool.org/starnet/index.php. This is a fictional example, replace it with the real URL of your schoolsite.

NOTICE: It's the same URL, but /starnet/index.php is added.
You will see the login screen that gives access to Site@School Management:


guidtour_login.png
Explanation:
  1. Username: Enter the login name you used during the installation of Site@School or is given to you by your administrator. Press the [Tab] key on your keyboard to go to the password field.
  2. Password: Enter the password you used during the installation of Site@School or is given to you by your admin. The password is not shown but asterisks. This is a security measure. Press the [Enter] key on your keyboard or, with your mouse, click once with the left button of your mouse on the 'Login' button to login into S@S management.
  3. Forgot password?:
    On pre 2.4 sites when you have forgotten your password and you have given a valid email address in step [7] (during the installation of S@S), , the password will be mailed to you when you click on the link.

    On 2.4 sites passwords are encrypted in the MySQL database and therefore a different procedure is followed:

  4. Login: With your left mouse button click once on the 'Login' button. Tip: it's faster to hit the [Enter] key on your keyboard to login.

When you have entered a valid username and password and clicked once on 'Login', you will will see:


guidtour_sas_management.png

This is the 'home' screen of Site@School management. From here all functions are accessible. The red numbers refer to:

  1. The horizontal row of icons: These icons give access to the main functions of Site@School when you click on them once. When you move your mouse over the icons, their meaning will be shown in text, next to the most right icon.
  2. Username; The name of the current user of S@S management.
  3. Public Area/Logout: the 'Public area' link gives direct access to the site. You return to S@S management by clicking the left arrow in your browser.
    The logout link brings you back to the login page.
  4. The vertical row of icons: These icons give access to the various help topics, provided you have installed the manual pages. Click on an icon to see where to download the manual pages.
    The row may be longer than the screen so try scrolling down to see all the topics.

NOTICE: You will make us happy by sending the e-mail to us so we know you are using Site@School.

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3. Making a page

You start with something that will soon be a daily routine in Site@School: Making a page with text and adding an image to it.
The steps you take are:

Create a page

You have created a page. The next step will be adding content to the page. All details of the Page Manager are discussed in the Page Manager chapter.

NOTICE: from now on 'click' will mean:
Click once with the left mouse button.

Enter text on the page

You are at the Page Manager:


guidtour_mypage.png

You have added the page 'Mypage' and you can see its name. The next step is adding content:

You now have entered some text. You can save now, or continue. In the guided tour we immediately add the picture.

Add the picture

Go to http://yourschoolsite.org/index.php (fictional URL, replace with your URL), click on 'Mypage' and admire your first result.

All details of the useage of the editors can be found in chapter Editors chapter.

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4. Adding the guestbook

One of the great features of Site@School are the modules. A module is a program that, once it is on a page, can do things, i.e. send e-mails, show a calendar, etc. See the module list for the available modules.
For this guided tour you will install the 'Guestbook' module. Doing this is a four step process:

Making the page

Adding the Guestbook

5. Adding entries to the guestbook

Now go to http://yourschoolsite/index.php (fictional URL, replace with the URL of your school) and click on the Guestbook link in the left row and you are in the Guestbook:


guidtour_site_guestbook_page.png

Click on 'Sign our guestbook' and you will see:


guidtour_site_guestbook_sign.png

Fill in the guestbook to see how it works. Please put in a few entries so you can manage the guestbook. Put a valid email address in the email field. Otherwise the guestbook will not work properly. This is a feature to prevent unwanted entries.

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6. Managing the guestbook

Go to Site@School Management, click on the 'Module Manager'   icon. You will see:


guidtour_module_manager.png

Click on 'Guestbook' and you will see the entries you just made:


guidtour_manage_guestbook.jpg

Now you can delete the entries you do not like by clicking on the [Delete] link at the entry. Please try this and return to the schoolsite to see the results.

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7. To conclude

That's it. You have made a page, added a text and an image to it, added the guestbook module to a page, put some entries in the guestbook and managed them in Site@School Management.

Here ends your guided tour. We hope we have convinced you about the ease of use of the Site@School Content Management System.
In the other chapters we will explain, step-by-step, richly illustrated and in depth, the various possibilities of the Site@School CMS.

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Author: Dirk Schouten <schoutdi (at) knoware (dot) nl>
Last updated: 2006-04-01