Agile ICT Website Guide V1.0 1 Agile ICT Website Starter Guides
2 The purpose of this guide is to show you how to edit some of the basics of the website you have purchased through Agile ICT. The website is based around a system call Joomla. This is a free-to-install system but can be fairly complicated to set up. What we have done is to install the site and configured it to your requirements as much as possible. The majority of the updating will be simple and this guide should help you with that. Some elements are protected and will need to be unlocked before they can be edited. We can do this for you if you wish. Useful Terms There are two ways to log-in to change elements of your website. Front-end This means clicking log-in after visiting your site. So you log in to the website that is public facing, for everyone to see. Back-end This is when you will visit the admin element of your site, for example www.yourwebsite.co.uk/ administrator This is covered on Page 3. User Access Throughout the site, every element can be assigned to 1 of 3 different groups of user. This is useful for hiding certain sections from public view or having a governor-only area. Levels of access: Public This can be seen by anyone visiting your website. Registered This can be seen by anyone logging in to your website, e.g. all staff, governors etc. Special This is reserved for the top-level, usually admin only. This guide relates to the default layout for the website. Some things may have been changed or renamed on your site, so please bear this in mind when using the guide. If there is anything missing, or you would like further help, please do not hesitate to contact us. Agile ICT Website@agileict.co.uk
3 Logging in to admin and Admin Overview To access the admin screen, visit www.yoursite.com/administrator (Replace with your school address) 1 2 3 6 4 5 This is the home page or Control Panel of the Admin screen. Some parts you will not need to edit. 1 Add a new page or article to your website. 2 Article Manager shows you all of your articles and allows you to edit the pages of your site. 3 Front Page Manager will take you to the article on your front page, usually your welcome screen. 4 User Manager is the place to edit your password, add and remove users. 5 Global Configuration allows you to change the settings of your site. The file that stores the settings is locked for protection, but email us if you wish to make changes to this. 6 This shows you how many users are logged on and how many messages you have as admin. You will be sent a message on certain occasions when documents or articles have been added by other users.
4 Editing Front Page and Adding Users To edit the front page welcome screen of your website, click on the Front Page Manager in the Control Panel. Click on Welcome, then you will be able to edit the text within the welcome screen. Clicking on User Management will show you a list of registered users. You can click a user to edit them, or click new to add a new user. You will see a user called Agile ICT, this allows us to log in and make changes or solve problems if we need to. Adding a new user to your site brings you to this screen. 1 2 3 1 This section allows you to put the name and username of the new user. They will also receive an email when you register them. 2 Here allows you to decide on the level of user account. Super Administrator allows you to edit everything about the site. Most teachers would require Publisher level. Publisher allows users to edit and add articles. Author allows users to create articles. These will then need to be approved by someone with Publisher rights or above. 3 There are two text editors to use within Joomla, ensure that JCE is selected. This is a much better text editor and gives you more tools.
5 Editing Contacts and Global Check-in 1 2 Depending on how your contact page is set up, you can either edit it via the article manager, or via the contact page. This can be found by going to Components-> Contacts. 1 The details on the left are for address, name, email etc. 2 Then you can choose which of the details get shown and which don t. So you could hide the fax number if you wanted to. Occasionally some articles can t be edited because someone has open it and not closed it or saved it correctly. You will need to check-in these articles. To do this, go to Tools and then Global Check-in.
6 There are a number of steps to follow to add new pages (these are called articles) to your site. Firstly, log in as administrator and click Article Manager. The Article Manager shows you a list of all of your web pages or articles. You can filter them by category or section, search for them by name, edit them and create new ones. Click New to create a new article. Adding new pages On this page, follow the steps to create a new article. 1) Give it a title. 2/3) Choose which category and section the article fits into e.g. Curriculum, Parents etc. 4) Create your text, add pictures and make your page 5) Choose publishing dates if necessary. This is useful for a news item that you want to disappear and turn off after a certain time. Or leave the dates as they are to make it easier.
7 Using the Text Editor 6 2 3 4 5 1 7 This is the JCE Text Editor that is used throughout Joomla. This can be configured and buttons can be added, removed or re-arranged, so yours may look different. 1 This is the detail section of the article. Published means that people will see it. Looking at (7), you will see some dates. You can choose when articles become published and unpublished. For example, news items could be unpublished after a few months. You will need to choose a section and a category for your article to go into. These will relate to the headings across the top of your website. 2 This button allows you to add a table to your article. This is useful for adding lists of teachers or staff. 3 This allows you to change the colour of your text. 4 There is a spell checker. 5 Here is where you would add links to websites. 6 This row allows you to change the look of the font using Bold, Italic etc. To configure the text editor, go to Components, JCE, Control Panel. Then click on Groups, Default, Edit Layout. You can then drag icons down onto the Text Editor or up to remove them. You might want to make it very simple. We have listened to comments and removed the more technical buttons and tried to keep it simple. If you want some buttons added or removed, let us know.
8 Linking Websites To add a link into your text, type the words that you wish to link. This is the bit that people will see and also removes the need from the user needing to see the web address. Highlight the text (below) and you will see that the link icon is highlighted. Click this to add or edit a link. In the URL box, type or paste the web address. If the site begins with www, then http:// will be added for you. But if you are not sure, make sure http:// is there before you press insert. Alternatively, you can link to another part of your site by navigating through the content and menu options in the browser. Title is what the user will see if they hover over the web link. In this example, Google would be fine. Target refers to what happens after the user clicks the link. Open in this window means that Google will replace your site when the link is clicked. Open in a new window means that your site is still there in the background once the user has finished with Google. This is much easier for most users, especially children. Click Insert.
9 Categories / Sections All articles are put into categories. The categories are in sections. You will not need to add any new sections as this has been done for you. The categories can be added to or edited though. Click New to add another category. These will then be displayed within the text editor. You can also edit articles using the front end of the site. This is much easier as you will not need to wade through articles to get to the page that you want. Go to your site e.g. www.agileict.co.uk and login. Then you will see a pencil icon in the topright of the article. Clicking this will bring up the text editor and allow you to change the text on the page. Remember to save this when you have finished.
10 Document Manager To add documents to the download section of your website, log-in via the frontend and browse to the download section. You will now see an extra button that says Submit File. Ensure that Upload a file from your computer is highlighted and press next. Step 2 let s you browse for the file on your pc. Then upload and progress to step 3 (bottom) Give your document a title. This does not need to match the name of the file, but is what people will see. Choose which category it will go in to from the drop-down list. Click the word yes to publish the file. The yes and no circles do not line up correctly, so click the word yes. Then press the disc/save icon in the top right.
11 Document Manager To add or change any of the Download categories, log in via the backend admin screen. Go to Components > Docman > Categories You can add or delete categories from here. If you wish to remove documents, you need to delete them from both the Files page and the Documents Page. To Edit an existing category, click on The Category Title and Category name should be the same. Choose which level of access to give the folder. For example, you may want it for registered users only. Publish the folder and save. This will now be visible in your download area.
12 Phoca Gallery Phoca Gallery allows you to upload pictures into different folders or categories for your visitors to view. We have setup around 15 folders and galleries for you to use as your site grows. To manage these, log in to your site using the back-end admin login. Go to Components > Phoca Gallery > Categories. You will see a list of all of the galleries that are there. The red cross means that they are unpublished and hidden from view. To use one of these galleries, click on one of the gallery titles e.g. one. This takes you to the screen below. Rename it e.g. Sports Day. Set it to published. Ensure that in the three boxes, All registered users is highlighted. This will allow everyone with a log in to upload pictures to the gallery. If you only want certain users to do this, then highlight their names instead. Do not change any other elements of this page. The User Folder name needs to stay the same.
13 Phoca Gallery To upload pictures, login via the front-end and navigate to the gallery you wish to upload pictures into. As you are logged in, you will see the browse and upload buttons. If you don t, check the user rights from the previous page. There are 4 options for the pictures that are already uploaded. The icons underneath the picture allow you to see details of the picture, download, delete or unpublish the picture. Unpublishing will mean that the visitors to the site will no longer see it.
14 Front Page Slide-show The front page slide-show uses Phoca Gallery. To upload images please follow the instructions on page 11. You will need to upload pictures into the folder called Slide Show. Any pictures uploaded into this folder will then appear on the front page. You may need to refresh the front page to view them. Bear in mind the long, landscape layout of the picture, so we would advise against using portrait pictures due to them appearing squashed.
Agile ICT Website Guide V1.0 15 Agile ICT For more help and support just email our team: website@agileict.co.uk