5 steps to publishing your blog article using Plone

Posted on fredag, januar 16, 2009 @ 00:29:42 by david

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This article along with some videos (coming later) were made for a recent customer, who has 6 employees who are looking at how to use our blogging software with Plone.

We use Plone (www.plone.org) as our web-based CMS – Content Management System and for blogging. Publishing a blog article using Plone is very user-friendly but requires a little time to get used to the way it works.

Here are the 5 steps to publishing your blog article using Plone:

1. Log into the web server
2. Add a new topic/category if necessary
3. Create a new blog entry (article)
4. Optimize your blog article with keywords
5. Change the state to “published”

Rough draft: use Paper, MS Word, or Plone CMS

Where are you comfortable writing? If you like to use pencil and paper to come up with ideas, that is great! Eventually the final copy needs to be typed into a digital format. So here are your options:

• type the article into Word first, and then copy-n-paste into a blog article
• log into the web server and begin typing your blog article

Step 1. Log into web server – Plone CMS

1. Open your browser (Internet Explorer or Firefox)
2. Type in the address: http://www.yourwebsitename.com/plone
3. Log in with your username and password

Step 2. Adding a new topic / category

Blog articles are organized into topics or categories. If you want to create a new blog article, but do not see a topic / category that fits, add a new one.

You can add as many topics/categories as necessary.

1. 1.Find and click on the tab “Blog” at the top, underneath the logo.
2. 2.In the middle of the page you will see some some tabs and menus. Click on the “Add new...” menu item and select “Folder” from the drop-down menu and a new page will open.
3. 3.Give the folder a Title and click on the “Save” button at the bottom of the page.

Step 3. Create / Edit a new blog entry (article)

You can add as many blog articles to a category as you like.

1. Click to Open the folder of the category you want to use
2. Click on the “Add new...” menu item and select “Blog Entry” from the drop-down menu and a new page will open.
3. Give the Blog Entry a Title, and a Description
4. In the Body Text section you will see a Word like toolbar and textarea for typing
   
5. Article image - if you want to associate an image with the blog article when it is listed on the blog, you will see at the bottom of the page an Image upload area.
6. Finally you can save the blog article with the “Save” button at the very bottom of the form/page.

Difference between saving and publishing
When the blog article is saved that does not necessarily mean that it is published. You can work on the rough draft of the blog article until it is finished by saving as you go along.
Remember: A blog article is not published until you select publish in the menu.

4. Optimizing your blog article with keywords

At any time you can add new keywords to your blog article, but I recommend doing this before publishing out on the internet. Try keeping the number of keywords to 10 or less.

When editing the blog article you notice towards the top a button named “Categorization” next to “Default” and “Dates”

Existing categories
If you notice the categories/keywords for this article are highlighted in grey, and the keywords that do not fit this article are not highlighted at all.

Selecting / highlighting multiple keywords from Existing categories list
Highlighting multiple keywords works the same way as with selecting multiple objects in any Windows application. By holding down the CTRL (control) key you can then select the keywords you need one by one. Remember to click on “Save” when you are done selecting keywords.

New Categories
If you need to add new keywords to the article, you can use the textarea on the right side and type in any keyword or phrase there. Phrases can contain multiple words.

5. Change the state to “Published”

You may notice that as you are working on a blog entry that it shows up in the list with a red title and in the green menu area you will see State: Private. This means that only the people logged into Plone can see the article and is not shown out on the website.

When you are satisfied with the blog article and have added the keywords, you simply click on the “State: Private” and select “Publish”. If you now see “State: Published” then you have published your blog article online.

That's all for now. Later we will cover how to work with the content and add links, photos, videos, documents and other features.