Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Threespot Support
Below you will find a list of some of the questions we receive most often at the Support Desk, along with the answers (naturally). We've arranged the questions topically (as much as is possible) to help you find the answer you need most quickly.
Creating and Launching a Site
Managing a Site
Creating and Launching a Site
Q: How do I get a site?
A:
Send us an e-mail. We'll create a site for you and get back to you with credentials and login info.
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Q: I pasted in content and it looks weird. Why, and how can I fix this?
A: There are a lot of things that can cause text to look "weird" but most commonly we've found that the strange things people see are the result of artifacts from text pasted into the editor from Word documents. The way Word tells text to be bold or underlined, blue, etc. is by putting little invisible codes into the body of the text that denote the start of these properties. There are also matching codes (also invisible) that tell the text to stop being bold, blue, etc. HTML actually works the same way, but, unfortunately, the codes it uses are not the same as the ones that Word uses.
Consequently there are several kinds of "paste" available in the SWEB content editor:
1. Paste (Ctrl+V) - this pastes whatever is in the clipboard and, as such, brings over content in a raw MS Word format. Doing this introduces all sorts of Word-specific CSS and other extraneous (non HTML) codes.
Text pasted this way can, however, be cleaned post-paste by using a succession of clean up tools in the editor's Format Stripper
2. Paste From Word - This pastes in Word content, and seems to remove a good deal of the non-HTML codes that word puts in, however some tags, such as < o >, still remain. Additionally, pasting using this option leaves Word's font sizes hard-coded as in-line CSS.
Text pasted this way can be cleaned post-paste by using a succession of clean up tools in the editor's Format Stripper.
3. Paste from Word Cleaning Fonts & Sizes - This seems to do what it says it does, generally. However, it occasionally has a strange property. When one pastes in something from Word that is, say, purple text headline in the Word doc, the text shows up initially in the editor window as purple, even though in the HTML it appears as merely bold (using the < b > tag, not the customary < strong >). Flipping back & forth between the HTML and the WYSIWYG modes will reveal this. When one saves or publishes and returns to the article, the text will merely be bold and not purple (unless you've subsequently made it purple in SWEB's editor, that is).
Text pasted this way can be cleaned post-paste by using a succession of clean up tools in the editor's Format Stripper.
4. Paste Plain Text - this seems to work the best at getting Word content into your SWEB site. It may seem counter-intuitive to use a tool that wipes out all of the Word formatting, forcing you to reformat the text, but ultimately we've found that user will spend more time trying to selective clean up Word code, than they would just stripping it all down and rebuilding the formatting using the SWEB interface. Occasionally some paragraph and span formatting appears in the text that is possibly undesired. Spans can be cleaned up using the Format Stripper.
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Q: I'm done with my site, now how do I get it launched?
A: Contact us at
lolv3help@threespot.com and request a launch. Please give us 24 hours notice on all launches so we can assure that we have the appropriate staff available to make your launch happen.
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Q: How long before my launch do I need to contact you?
A: 24 hours is preferred. That allows us to schedule the appropriate staff to make your launch happen and verify that we have all of the credentials needed to move ahead.
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Q: Why do I have to use the long dev URL for 2 days?
A: The short answer is that we do this so you can continue to edit your site during the time that the new address is being recognized by the servers around the Internet.
The long answer is that when you ask us to launch your site we make a change to switch the domains for your old site (presuming you're migrating, otherwise we use new domains) to point to your new site. Although the servers here that are authoritative for your domain (meaning other servers in the Internet look to them for info on your web addresses) know about the change relatively quickly (within the hour, generally), other servers in the Internet may not learn of the change for some time.
The reason for this is called 'network caching'. Whenever you type a web address in your browser, your computer asks your network to go out and request files from a server wherever in the Internet the site you want to see is located. You can imagine how many searches this makes. So in an effort to reduce how many times your network has to go searching for things you look for frequently, most networks do something called 'caching'. This means they save the results of frequent searches so that you can get the answers quickly. It's not saving what's on the page you want to see, it's just saving the map of how to get there. Servers generally save this info for anywhere from 30 minutes to 72 hours.
What this means is that when you change where your site lives, the directions on how to find it need to change too. But because the server holds on to information for up to 72 hours, it could take that long before the server forgets the old info and goes and gets info on how to get to the new site. Ironically it's usually a website's most frequent visitors whose servers will have a site's address cached. So your members who don't go to the site very often may see the site even before you do.
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Q: I'm migrating from a v2 site, can I still get to my old site's info after launch?
A: Yes, provided your v2 site has not been taken off line already, you should be able to access your old site via the site's original dev URL. These follow the syntax
http://seiu4321.localsonline.org/admin where seiu4321 is your local name.
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Q: I need a banner for my site. How do I get that?
A: The banner for all SWEB sites are made by a team of designers at the International. Please contact
Matt Browner Hamlin and request your banner. He will work with you to develop a banner to your liking that works inside the framework of the site template. Once you and he have found a winner, he'll pass it on to our team for implementation.
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Q: When I first logged in, I was never asked for my password reminder. Now I need to change it, but I don't know where to go to find this. Where is it located?
A: You can go to http://<
your_site_name >/Admin/MyAccount/ChangeReminder.aspx to change your password reminder question.
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Managing a Site
Q: What are the standard image sizes and where can I use them?
A: Standard image sizes and usage areas are:
- Quote/Callout (53x53)
Primary use: headshots in the "Quote" HTML snippet.
Secondary uses: body of content types (Article, Blog, Event, et.al.), any time a thumbnail image is needed.
- Small feature (124x69)
Primary use: For Articles when displayed in "Small Feature" mode.
Secondary uses: body of content types (Article, Blog, Event, et.al.).
- Photos within article text small (100x100)
Primary Use: inside the body of an article.
Secondary uses: ditto
- Photos within callout area (130x130)
Primary use: inside the "Callout" HTML snippet
Secondary uses: body of content types (Article, Blog, Event, et.al.).
- Medium Image (242x155)
Primary use: For Articles when displayed in "Large Feature" mode.
Secondary uses: body of content types (Article, Blog, Event, et.al.).
- Photos within article text large (200x200)
Primary Use: inside the body of an article.
Secondary uses: ditto.
- Homepage billboard (570x244)
Primary use: For Articles when displayed in "Billboard" mode.
Secondary uses: body of Article content type when used in two-column page layout.
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Q: How do I embed a YouTube video into my site?
A:
Read how in this tutorial developed by the Support Team.
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Q: I want to add more content to a content area, but the content selectors aren't appearing. Why?
A: This happens when you've reached the limit on content items in the content area. Each portion of the page has limits assigned to it.
Here are the content region limits:
- In the left hand column, the content item limit is 4 items.
- In the right-hand column, the content item limit is 5 items.
- In the center-well, the content item limit is 10 items.
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Q: I can't seem to insert a press release or press release index on my homepage. Is something wrong?
A: No, this is by design. It is because neither content type is designed to be inserted on to a page that uses the page type 'homepage'. Press releases and press release indexes can only be inserted onto pages using the two or three column templates.
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Q: How do I find my RSS feed?
A: Any published content that you tag with RSS-enabled tags is made available in your site's RSS feed. The feed is accessible via the following syntax:
http://< website_URL >/rss.ashx
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Q: I have created & published several pages that I want to appear on the "Vertical Nav" of my site, but it seems that only some of them are appearing on the webpage. How come?
A: There can be up to 8 items appearing in the Vertical Nav, so that might be the reason that they are not appearing.
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Q: I click on 'Go To Site' but when I'm there I can't edit anything. What's happening?
A: Usually when folks are unable to get into edit mode, or see the gray admin bar, it's because they've got an expired cookie. This is most often solved by logging out, clearing your cookies, and logging back in.
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Q: You say I need to clear my cookies and cache. How do I do that?
A: Depending on the browser you are using, you will go about this one of two ways:
If you are using Internet Explorer:
1. On the menu bar in the browser, go to “Tools: Internet Options”
2. Select the “Delete” button under the Browsing History section
3. When prompted, tell it you want to clear the following:
- Temporary Internet Files
- Cookies
- Form Data
4. Select “OK”
If you are using Firefox:
1. On the menu bar in the browser, go to “Tools: Clear Private Data”
2. Select to clear the following:
- Cache
- Cookies
- Authenticated Sessions
3. Select “Clear Private Data Now”
When this process completes, close your browser completely. Restart the browser and try to log-in again.
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Q: I want to upload an asset, but it's asking me for a topic. I don't see a place to add a topic. Where is this?
A: Whenever you want to add a document, an image, a movie, etc.--any asset--you'll need to create a "Topic" to hold it first. To make new topics, go to Manage | Assets | Documents (or whatever asset type you want to add) and towards the top of the main content area, above the search box, you'll see a link to add new topics. You can then proceed with uploading new assets and the topic you've just created will appear in the list.
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Q: I made a link to a PDF and now it's not working. I used the link tool though, and I know the PDF is there, so why is a link the system made broken?
A: What's most likely tripping the system up is that the filename of the PDF file has an apostrophe in it. This is fine for saving a file on your local machine, but for files that are referenced over the Internet, special characters such as the apostrophe, comma, quotes and other punctuation marks have special meanings, and sometimes (actually often) these can cause errors.
What you can do is to find the document on your hard drive and remove the apostrophe from its name. Also, it wouldn't be a bad idea to remove any space characters from the name and replace them with underscores _ just to be safe.
Then, go to your site's Document section of the Asset Library and find the document in question. Click on its name in the list and then, when the info appears on the right, click the "More Info" button. That'll reveal some further property options. Once that has happened, look for the link above the properties that says "Replace Asset". This should allow you to replace the current file with a file of a new name, but at the same time preserve any links to the original file that had been made throughout your site.
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Q: How do I change out the photo in the "Quote" HTML snippet?
A: First, crop or resize your new image to the quote/callout size.
Then, go to your article and dropdown the HTML snippets menu from the editing bar (it's the icon in the lower right of the menu bar of the editor and looks like a sheet of paper with <> underneath it).
From this menu you can select the quote/callout snippet. This will drop the boilerplate of the quote onto your page.
To change out the image, you'll need to click on the image of the man that is in the boilerplate quote so that the image gets the little squares around it. Then click on the Image Manager icon in the menu bar (the one with the mountain and the sun). This will bring up the Asset Library and you can find the new image you wish to use in there. Press "Insert" to put it in place.
When you are taken back to the editing pane, you'll see there are now two images in the quote. Click once on the old image and drag it outside of the purple area and release it. It will copy itself there. Then click on both copies of the stock image in turn and press the delete key to remove each. Your new image should snap into position and you should be good to go from there.
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Q: What's the yellow border around my form element for?
A: The yellow border on the form fields is normal – it just highlights which field you’re working with.
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Q: I was working in a form and clicked on "Save" but the button just faded away. What happened?
A: When the save button in the form manager is doing its job it will just fade out and come back – that’s to let the admin know it saved, but without dumping you back to your list of forms every time.
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Q: When I save my form I'm getting an error "Warning: Unresponsive Script." If I cancel or ignore, nothing seems to work. What's happening?
A: This generally happens on very old computers with not as much memory as is common these days. In Internet Explorer this message will read "Stop running this script? A script on this page is causing Internet Explorer to run slowly. If it continues to run, your computer may become unresponsive."
We've noted this problem in circumstances where the form being edited has a large number of fields (particularly with option group fields), where the computer being used to edit the form has only a modest amount of memory (RAM), and/or where the bandwidth or connection speed is limited. It seems that some constellation of these three factors causes the scripts that run the underlying form builder tool to take longer than the browser expects them to.
Ultimately the message is being generated by the browser at a pre-determined threshold. It is possible to set this browser threshold to a higher level, but that doesn't necessarily 'fix' the problem, per se. Rather it makes your browser give your computer and network more time to work before it sounds the alarm that it's still waiting on this script.
Other solutions involve reducing the number of items in the form, supplementing the computer's memory, or taking steps to improve the connectivity of the computer to the Internet (i.e. using a wired, rather than wireless connection). As all of these variables are at play, your mileage may vary as to which thing in particular is proving the stumbling block.
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Q: For some reason the content selector pop ups appear off the left-hand side of my screen and I cannot get to them with my mouse. How can I fix this?
A: You may be running your screen resolution at too low a setting. The recommended resolution for the SWEB system is 1024x768 or higher. We've found that when you set your screen resolution to 800x600, the popups for the left or right content areas appear off the sides of the screen.
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Q: My content is appearing 'pushed around' in the page. Stuff from my right-hand column is appearing underneath the main content area. How did this happen? How can I fix it?
A: This is a problem unique to Internet Explorer v6. Firefox, Internet Explorer 7 and Safari users do not experience this. It is because there is a piece of content in your left-hand content area, or center content area that is too wide for the content area. This pushes the content in the right-hand column underneath the other content. In almost every case we've seen, this is resolved by adjusting the width of some content in the left-hand column or main content area.
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Q: I have a < content_type > appearing twice on the front end, but only once on the back end. What can I do?
A: Write to us at
lolv3help@threespot.com and let us know what the affected content type is, and which one is the correct one. Our developers will have a look into the matter for you.
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Q: I want to link to the full text of an article, but the article is not in my site tree. How do I do this?
A: As you've likely seen, when you display an article in anything other than full or custom modes, the short summary text is displayed along with a 'Read More' link to see the full article. When someone clicks on this, the system dynamically creates a page to hold the article. That page, however, only exists when called; it is not in your site tree. Because of this, you can't use the 'link from site tree' option to link to the dynamic page of an article. You'll need to make a custom link.
The general rule is that the link will follow the pattern:
http:// < your_site_domain > / < title_of_article >.aspx
Note that spaces in the name, as well as punctuation characters are replaced with underscores. So, if your article is entitled "News and Video from the SEIU Convention" the direct link to the page would be:
http:// < your_site_domain > /News_and_Video_from_the_SEIU_Convention.aspx
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Q: How do I make my Small Feature link to something other than the full text of an article?
A: There's no way to modify the link that occurs when you use the Small Feature display type. It's built in, so even if you have no content in your article body, if you set the display on the page to be Small Feature, it'll show a Read More link.
So what you'll need to do is to mimic the way a Small Feature looks. ;-)
To do this, create an article that has in its body all of the things one would normally associate with a Small Feature, namely a headline, an image and a bit of teaser text. Then for what you want your "Read More" link to be, type the link text into the main body of the article and link it up with the photo gallery you wish to link to.
Then publish this article and go out to your site. On the site, add in the article to your page as you would a normal article, but instead of choosing Small Feature as your display mode, pick "Custom." This will show the article in full text, but without its title. If you've replicated all of the parts of the Small Feature in the body of the article, it should *look* like a small feature, but it really isn't.
It may take some fiddling to get it to really look like a Small Feature, but with a small amount of editing you should be able to get something that looks close if not identical to an actual Small Feature. All of the text styles used in Small Features are available to you in the regular editing interface.
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Q: How can I get a Dynamic Content List to pull something other than one content type?
A: The Dynamic Content List (DCL) content type was designed to only pull in one content type at a time, however, using content tags, it's possible to make DCLs that group each content type and then use an overarching DCL to pull each of the DCLs for the different content types together into one list. This nesting works like this:
- Make DCL 1 and tag it with a tag like "homepage dcl"
- Make DCL 2 and tag it with a tag like "homepage dcl"
- Make DCL 3 and set it to pull DCLs tagged with "homepage dcl"
DCL 3 does not, itself, need to be tagged, however, if it is, it should be tagged something other than "homepage dcl" or it will try to pull itself in to itself.
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