There are just a couple of things you need to know before you can contribute an article to this magazine.

Table of contents

• Registering
• Login
• How To Create / Contribute a New Article
  • Using the Editor
• Save Your Work

Registering

You do not need to register or login to read articles in the magazine.

If you want to contribute an article, the one requirement that we have is that you register and login. This is so others can identify who in the community was the author of an article.

To register, you can use the REGISTER link in the TIPS menu or click here. You will be asked for some identifying information and sent a password. Save this information, you will need it to login to the site.

Login

To login, fill in your userID and Password in the boxes at the top left of the page.

How To Create / Contribute a New Article

To submit an new article, click on SUBMIT AN ARTICLE. Complete the information about:

• The Title Of Your Article
• Your Name (this will appear above your article)
• Choose a TOPIC and TYPE for your article from the drop down box.

You can, optionally include an image that will appear in your article and as part of the summary of your article. If you want to use your own image,

• Browse to locate the image,
• Check the "Use Own Image" box
• Check "Float Text Around Image" (optional)
• Supply the image width (x) and height (y) in pixels. We recommend an image no larger than 50 x 50 pixels in size.

You are now ready to write your article.

• In the HEADING section, write a summary of your article. This is usually the first paragraph of your article and will help users decide if they want to read your entire article.
• In the BODY section, write the remainder of your article.
• For additional information refer to the notes about the EDITOR that appear below.
• You can have your article spell checked by checking the appropriate box.
• You can specify a date and time that you want the article to be published and available.
• If you want to (and you should), specify one or more tags (called folksonomy tags) for your article. Tags are used to help people find your article when they are searching the site. Tags will make your article a bit more easier to find.
• You can PREVIEW what your article is going to look like or SUBMIT your article for review or immediately publish your article by clicking one of the buttons at the bottom of the form. If you want to publish your article right away without review you can click on the button labeled AUTO-APPROVE Article.

Using the Editor

The editor you use to create or edit a document is a Wiki Editor and may be a bit different than other editors you are used to.

Start by entering the text of your article. You can cut and paste content from other sources if you need to.

(Remember that if you are cutting and pasting from word processing programs such as Microsoft Word, you don't want to paste the special formatting characters that Word uses. To get around this, first copy your text from Word and paste it into a program like Notepad. This removes the Word specific formatting. Then select all the text from notepad and copy / paste it to the Wiki Editor.)

The editor has a toolbar that allows you to format your article by inserting special character strings before or around selected pieces of text. The buttons on the editor place character strings around text that the Wiki uses to format a document. These character strings are called "wiki syntax". You can, for example make text BOLD buy selecting a word and clicking on the B. Your selection will have the Wiki characters added before and after the text.

You can easily see how to insert wiki syntax for headings, bullets etc by simply clicking on any of the buttons and by floating your cursor over any item in the toolbar, you can see what it does.

There are very few things you need to understand about wiki syntax and, although it may seem complicated at first, using the Editor soon becomes very familiar and quick.

Save Your Work

Don't forget to save your work before you exit the editor. Use the "SUBMIT" button to save your changes.

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