Electronics and Software
Engineering Innovation

Tandem Club Website - Regional Officer Administration

Introduction

This help provides a brief overview for regional organisers on using the  TC website.
The goal of the site is to provide an easy way for people to provide information to club members and others as well as help attract members to the club. The site has been designed so that Regional Organisers and other members can easily add information without in-depth web site operating knowledge. Most information is added using simple form based entry.

Regional Groups have the ability to edit their own What's On entries as well as the facility to add their own news and pictures. Regional organisers: Please contact The Tandem Club Web Group for a login on the site. Also we can set up your Region if it is not already present.

Facilities

  • Group web page area with editable text and pictures. You can edit these pages using a Microsoft Word like on-line editor. The main page also contains listings of news items, showcase items, documents and the What's On events for the group.
  • News. Allows news snipets to be added to the website and optionaly emailed to the group and posted to our Facebook group.
  • What'sOn system. Allows TC regional events and others to be added and edited by RO's or other administrators. These will be listed on the website and in the Tandem Club journal.
  • Showcase system for pictures with descriptions.
  • Documents system for upload of documents.

General

In order to administer the groups information you will need a login account for the site with permissions to edit your groups information. More than one person from your group can be setup with the ability to edit the information (adminGroup<Groupname> role). Contact The Tandem Club Web Group to set up an account for this.

Once setup you can login to the system using the Username and Password fields in the Account section in the left hand menu area or from the "Home" menu.
Once logged in goto your groups web page using the "Groups/My group" meny entry. The left hand menu area provides links to functions that can be performed for regional group administartion.

Group's Web Page

You can add any number of WEB pages to your regions WEB site area including sub directories (Folders). Each page can be simply edited on-line using the simple Microsoft Word like editor provided.

This page editor presents a word processor like interface with a set of toolbar entries along the top. Normal word processing features such as paragraph style, bold, Italic, bulleted or numbered lines etc can be used. The system can also create hyperlinks to other website pages or off website pages.

The groups main page can be edited using the "Edit page" link in the left hand menu. Simply type in the information and format it as required using the menus at the top of the editing area. Note that using tables are useful to columnate or block the content in an easy way. There is a table icon in the menu. Table borders can be set equal to 0 to eliminate these. Right clicking on a table brings up a menu. The "Table properties" entry allows the border and other parameters to be configured. It is normally worth setting the table for 100% width (Set to "100%"). this helps when users view the pages on a mobile phone as the pages will resize to the width available.

There are some special "script" entries on the page that include the RO's information, News, What's On, Showcase and Documents live information. Be carefull not to delete these (they look like a gray bar). To edit/move these you will need to edit the page source with the "Source" button and have some understanding of using HTML tags.

Pictures can be inserted with the "image" menu button. You can either use a picture existing on the web system or upload new pictures using using the "Browse Server" button. The "Browse Server" button pops up a simple file browser with an Upload area in the bottom left hand corner. To select a picture simply double click on it. By default the File Browser will be located in your groups directory on the web system.
When uploading images, the images can be resized prior to sending to one of a set of sizes using the size field. By default they will be resized to 1024x768 when they get to the server. Also make sure the orientation is correct before uploading them. Once uploaded, selected and inserted into the document they can be resized to the exact size required if needed by clicking on them and using the resize handles at the image corners. Inserting images into table cells is usefull for including multiple images.

As well as images, links to onsite or offsite information can be inserted using the link button. Also maps, videos etc can be inserted.

If needed, and if users have an understanding of HTML formatting, the "Source" mode of editing can be used for more control over the page layout and contents. Use the menus "Source" button to access this.

Make sure you click on the Menu's save button or the "Submit" button at the bottom of the page to commit your work before moving off this page.

The "Add Page" button can be used to add a new webpage. A link will be added at the bottom of the current page to link to it. Once you have edited the new page you will probably want to edit the parent page and move/format the link as desired.
The "Add Directory" button can be used to add a separate directory (folder) with an inital page. this is useful to structure your additional information.

Special, website generated, blocks can be included using the following code entered in "Source" mode:

<script language='php'>whatsOnList()</script>

There are a few functions that can be used. These currently include:

groupContact() The groups contact
newsListAdd(height, "news")
This shows the recent news in a window 300 pixels high
whatsOnList(3) The next 3 entries from the What's On list
documentList(3) The next 3 entries from the documents
showcaseGroup(3) The next 3 entries from the showcase
picturesRandomImage(width=30%) A random picture from the system with given width as a percentage of the page width

News System

This is designed to add news "snippets" to the system including information on rides etc. to provide communications with your regions members and non members alike. Any member can add a news item to your group. The news items are shown on your groups WEB page and a selection is shown on the main Tandem Club home page.

There are two ways to add news, a simple Facebook like single line text entry with optional picture and an Advanced form entry.

The Advanced form entry can be accessed with the "Adv" button on the news list. Just fill in the fields as desired. The only field that needs conten is the message text area, but you can also add a title and a set of pictures if wanted. Pictures can be uploaded using the "Add File" button.

As well as adding a news item to the website, it is possible to send an email to all members of the group using this system. The "Send email to group" checkbox allows this. As well as the email going to those who are in your local region, it will be sent to all those who have listed your group in their "Groups of Interest" set in their WEB sites "User Preferences".

It is also possible to post this news item to the Tandem Club's Facebook page if the "Post to TC Facebook group" checkbox is set.

The news items can be created, edited or deleted using the "Edit news" link in the left hand side by the RO or a site administartor.

What's On System

The What's On system is designed to allow regional group and other events to be added to an events database and be displayed to site visitors and your members. It also provides the facility to list these events in a suitable form for direct inclusion in the TC Journal. Regional Organisers can add and edit entries for their group. General site administrators or whatsOn administrators can add and edit any of the entries.
The system automatically displays only those entries that are in date.
To Add and entry:

  1. Click on the "Edit What's On" link in the left hand menu. This will bring up a page listing your entries and provide a means to add or edit them.
  2. You can now use the "WhatsOn" functions in the left hand menu. There are also V - View, E - Edit and D - Delete buttons for each entry.
  3. The events form is simply filled out. Please keep to the formats described on the form.
  4. Click on the Save button to save the entry.

For the TC journal there is a "Journal List" link that allows the journal entries to be displayed in a form suitable for a simple copy/paste action into a word processor.

Showcase Pictures

The system arranges pictures in named showcases. These have a group name as well as a title and description. Pictures can be uploaded one at a time or as a batch using the "Add pictures" link.  It also pre-scales the pictures to 1024x768 resolution for speedy upload.

Titles of the pictures can be edited by selecting the showcase and using the "Edit showcase pics" link. As well as titles and descriptions, the picture can be marked as good. When so marked it will be show by the random picture display system.

Documents

The documents system is designed for PDF, OpenOffice/LibreOffice or Microsoft Word text and spread sheet type documents. It allows the documents to be uploaded with automatic conversion to PDF format. Multiple versions of a document can be uploaded.

Website Style

Please see the Website Style Guide for information on style.

Technical Information

More detailed technical information is available: help/index.html