Raven for Dummies part 1

Regular Joined: Jan 27, 2008 Posts: 99

O.k. experts here is part 1 of my how to and I wanted to run it past you guys first. This part govers logging in to admin, and using the news modual for basic entrys. Please tear it apart so that it can be the best it can be. If anyone wants to use it to modify please feel free.

I am going to cover sutff like adding graphics in a later part btw.

O.k. guys now that the site is up we are ready to add information to the site. First we need to log into the admin panel. The platform I use is called Raven Nuke. This is a version of a program called PHP Nuke. The origonal PHP Nuke was good but was a major target for hackers that have nothing better to do than to crash sites. The Raven Nuke version fixed many problems with the programming and also installed a seperate securtiy program called Nuke Sentinel. This program checks to make sure you are allowed to access the admin of your site before you are allowed to log into the Admin section.

O.k. Now that you know more than you wanted to know lets log in to the admin. Go to your browser bar and enter the web address YOUR SITE.TV/admin.php (Joe you need to enter YOUR SITE.TV/HTML/admin.php) This will cause a pop up windo to come up that looks like this:

Picture of the security log in

Enter the name and password that I gave you here then hit enter. (I will have another section on how to change your passwords later) You will now be taken to on of 2 screens. depending on how long ago you loged into your Admin you may go directly to your Admin screen. If it has been a while or if this is the first time you will be prompted to now enter your Site Admin log in information (I sugest that you keep your Securtiy log in and password and admin log in and password the same to avoid confusion) If you are directed to the Admin log in it will look like this:

Admin Log In Picture

Enter your name and password then enter the security code that will appear below your password entry box. Now hit enter and you are finaly into the brains of the site.

Picture of the Admin interface

You will see several Icons but for the most part you will only need to worry about a few of them. In the top set (Administration Menu) the ones that will be of use to you right now are:

1) Blocks (these are the boxes on the right and left side of the home page and the bottom where the track logos are)

2) Messages (this is where the "Welcome to ......" message on the home page comes from)

In the second set of Icons (Moduals Administration) the major ones to worry about right now are:

1) Content (This is your Regional UAS Information section where the race schedual and rules can be edited)

2) News (This is where your points report and race report come from)

3) Topics (This is where you can add new News Topics. You can add topics easy but will need me to up load the topic icon from my end. uploading graphics takes me about 1 minute to do so it is not a problem. We will talk about that later on though)

4) Edit Admins (If you have someone that is willing to help maintain the site you will want to give them accessto the Admin and here is where you do it.I will do a section just on edit admins)

THere are a few moduals that will be helpful later and I will do how to's on them later. These are:

1) Advertising (This is how you will get your series sponsors some coverage)

2) Forums (This is a message board. Currently I have the Forum buttond directed to 4cycle.com but you may want to have your own message board in the future)

3) GCalendar (OneEye gave an initial thumbs down to this modual so we are currently going with the schedual listed in the Regional UAS Information section. After you get more comfortable with the basics you may want to activate the calendar though.)

4) Survey/Polls (curently this is the "What do you think of this site?" poll on the right side of the home page. You can change it to ask anything you wish. I can see EmpUAS doing a poll this year on how should Beef and Bobby pick on Ben.)

5) Web Links (Ummm .... Yea you got a web links system. kind of self explanitory but will go in depth on using it in a later section)

6) HTML News Letter (After you get your members to register at your site you will have a generated mail list. When you want to send out information you can do an e-mail from your usual e-mail account as you do now or you can use this to send out your information.)

7) Users (Here is where you will manage the registered user accounts. Bobby you can but probably should not ban Ben for the hell of it.)

O.k. Now that I have confused you lets get back on track. You have just logged into the Admin. On this first page scroll down to just below the Moduals Administration Block. This is an overview of the site with some short cut links to edit some of the information. the first 3 are fine the way they are. If you look at the 4th section titled LAST 20 ARTICLES you will see the list of news articles. The blank one in the list is your regional Points. Lets start here.

O.k. you have just run a race and you have your results. Click edit next to the blank title. This will take you to the edit screen for the regional points. This is a simple matter of entering the names and total points (I have set it up to only have place, Driver Name and total points) If you need to add another row for another driver put your cursor on the graph/table in the last row then right click. This will bring up a list. Chose row then chose insirt row from the drop down this will add another row. There are other ways to do this but this is the easiest for now.

After you enter the information hit save changes at the bottom and you are done with the points.

Now to write your race report. Click the News Icon in the Modual Administration box. scroll down to the Ad New Article section.

1) Enter you title (Maybe somthing like Race at XYZ Raceway June 12th)

2) Click the Topic Box and chose Race Report.

3) You might want to click Points report in the Associated Topics also but this is not needed.

4) Catagory is Articles.

5) Publish in Home Click Yes.

6) Activate Comments for this Story? it is up to you. If yes readers can put comments about the race below your report. these comments will not show up on the home page but if visitors click on the story to read on its own page the comments will show up.

7) Story Text. Now you have a choice. you can either do your full race report here or you can type in a few comments then do the full race report in teh extended text section.

In the demo race report I did a Table where you can list the nightly finish order. It is easy to do this. Put your cursor where you want the finishing order table then go to the top of the text box and click the table Icon. this is the 6th from the right (If you roll the arrow over the icons it will tell you what it is. you are looking for Insirt/edit table. When you click the table Icon a pop up box will show up . enter how many rows you need (I sugest 1 more than the number of drivers so you can have the top say Place and Drivers Name but it is up to you) for Rows chose 2, Enter Finishing order in the Caption line. If you want the table to be wider change the width number (defult is 200)

Leave the rest as is then click ok. the table will now appear and all you need to do is fill in the info.

Now go to the botom of the text entry section and click ok next to preview story. If everything looks ok go down to preview story again and click the down arrow. Chose Post Story and your race report will now be on the home page. Now go back to the Administration home page and scroll down to the last 20 articles section again. Click edit on the prior race report and go down to the publish in home option. change this to no then go down and click save changes. This will keep old race reports in the Archive so others can view them if they wish.

Posted: Sat Jan 17, 2009 3:43 pm

Wrecit: you seem to have several purposes in mind for this documentation -- which makes it difficult for us to interpret and comment on. On the one hand it appears to be intended to be general documentation for software in the *nuke family, including Ravennuke. On the second hand it appears intended for sub-administrators on your own site. I'm really not sure what you intend.

Second, you really need to use and pay attention to the spell checker and to basic grammar. Informal can be good. But careless never is. I don't mean to be critical of what is an enthusiastic first effort but you need to slow down a bit and proof read your own material before you can expect others to comment on it seriously.