ManilaNewbies: The Manila Tip Sheet

The Manila Tip Sheet

If you want to add links to you site that only members will see, add them to your Prefs > Advanced > Sign Out Members Box. For example, to link to the members list, add the following:

<a class="/stats/members">Members List</a>

Or to link to the member's preferences page, add this:

<a class="/prefs">My Preferences</a>

Use your email program for spell checks when editing a Manila Story or DG Message. Once you've entered the text, select it all, copy, then paste it into a new email message and run the spell check. When it's been checked, copy and paste the corrected results back into the Manila form and post it.

If you want to use quotation marks in a story but don't want them to trigger a Shortcut, put a backslash ("\\") in front of the first quote. For example, \"discuss".

Too lazy even to click Edit this Page? ;-) You can have an editing form built into your Home Page. Just go to Prefs -> Appearance -> Home Page and select Yes to "Do you want an editing form on the home page?". Now you can edit the Home Page without leaving it.

You can put the Calendar where you want it, instead of letting Manila place it. If you put {calendar} into your template, Manila will use that location on your Home Page.

Use a Story instead of a Discussion Group Message to create content for visitors. Why? Because Messages may require registration or may not be accessible at all depending on your site. If you want visitors to see a Message, as Managing Editor you can promote it to a Story.

Use more than one browser window for quicker authoring. Have one showing the Pictures page and a second on Stories. That way you can write new articles and add graphics with fewer keystrokes. Add another third for Preferences -> Advanced if you really like to fly!

If you'd like your Members to see more than a day's worth of Discussion Group Messages, try providing a link to the monthly Top Level Topics page.

Example: weblogs.userland.com/manilaNewbies/discuss/topics

You can use shortcuts in your Navigation XML like this:

<item name="PageX" shortcut="This Is Page X"/>

Easier to read, methinks (sorry, finally saw "Shakespeare In Love" last week).

Put an anchor just after the {body} macro or <body> tag in your template. Add a Shortcut named Top - or whatever you like - with a destination of #pagetop (no ). Whenever you want a link to the top of a page, just use the Top Shortcut.

Use the {whoAmI} macro to show the user's name and login status on a Manila page. Like this: .

Add the Create A New Story (.../discuss/edit/newStory) and Create a New Picture (.../pictures/edit/newPicture) links to your browser's custom tool bar for quick access.

To keep Manila from making an email address active, put the escape character ("\") in front of the "@". That way you get Me@KenDow.Com instead of Me@KenDow.Com.

Want to flip your Home Page but don't want the Calendar? If you bookmark the flipping (so to speak ;-) URL, you can turn off the Calendar and use that bookmark. The URL is like this:

your.server.here/admin/fliphomepage

While editing a Manila Story or Message, use Select All and Copy (in most browsers) to put a backup on the clipboard. If your browser crashes, you can start it again and then paste the content back in. Of course, if your computer crashes... :-(

You can link directly to a Manila Picture using this URL format (101 is the Picture number):

yoursite.com/picture$101

This is useful for background images in a Manila site. Just replace the {body} macro with <body>, but remember that your Prefs -> Appearance -> Color settings for Background, Text, Link, Active Link and Visited Link won't work anymore. You'll have to handle them in the <body> tag.

You can comment out chunks of XML in Navigation Links and Site Structure using the HTML comment element. For example:

<item name="Discuss" pagename="/manilaNewbies/discuss/"/>

This makes it a bit easier to try different approaches.

You can use ftp and mailto links as Shortcut addresses. For example:

ftp://ftpsite.com
mailto:me@kendow.com

If you create linked text in a Bulletin, using the anchor tag (a href), Manila removes the HTML from the text for the plain text version and adds it as a link to the bottom of the Bulletin. So when you use a link in a Bulletin it works in both the HTML and plain text versions, but keeps the plain text version easy to read.

You can use the <pre> tag to create simple tables in Manila. For example, the following table uses ordinary text with tabs between columns and a return to start each row.

Head 1  Head 2  Head 3

Item A  Item B  Item C

Item D  Item E  Item F

You can find out where people are browsing on your site using the ".../stats/mostreadmessages" page.

You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes
You get what need...

Remember to logoff from your Manila site if the computer you're using might be used by someone else.

You can use the {siteName} macro in a Story or Message to insert the name of your site. For example:

ManilaNewbies

You can put <meta> tags, used by search engines, into the pages on your site using the Prefs -> Advanced -> Template. They go inside the <head> element, and look like this:

<meta name="keywords" lang="en-us" content="Kansas, Dorothy">

There are HTML syntax checkers, including some Web-based ones, that can help you solve Manila layout problems caused by faulty HTML.

Bulletins let you send email to Members of your site who have opted to receive them.

You can send HTML bulletins, like miniature Web pages, to Members who've chosen to receive them - and Manila will automatically convert them into plain text for those who prefer it that way.

If you want to strictly control who joins your site, your can turn off Membership to hide the Members box and disable the automated sign up. Then only you can add Members using the Admin page. Remember to bookmark the login page before you try this, or you won't be able to log in!

To keep Manila from inserting breaks into Navigation Links (normally this is a good thing), use non-breaking spaces between the words. For example, instead of this:

<item name="About this site" pagename="/welcome"/>

use this:

<item name="About this site" pagename="/welcome"/>

So you're working with Cascading Style Sheets and accidentally make your site impossible to view. Cooked? Maybe not - turning off style sheet support in your browser should get you back in for repairs.

Want to see more of your Shortcuts at one time? Create a bookmark using this format:

yoursite.com/admin/viewShortcuts?s=1&m=500

The number after the "s=" sets the start of the list and the one after "\m=\" sets the end.

You can point to sites outside your own with the Navigation Links, using the following format:

<item name="Manila Newbies" pagename="http\://weblogs.userland.com/manilaNewbies"/>

The Discussion Group, Messages and the Calendar.

There's a global set of Shortcuts that work on any ETP site. Here's an example: If you already have a Shortcut defined on your site, that one will be used instead of a matching entry in the global Shortcuts.

You can link to any Web file - not just Web pages - using Shortcuts. For example, here's an MP3 link created by a Shortcut: Las Brisas. The Shortcut contains

kendow.com/Mp3/lasbrisasintro.mp3

Naturally, you'll need an MP3 player to hear this example!

Archived Home Pages have a known URL format so you can call one up without the Calendar if you know the date it was created. The format is

yourdomain/yoursite/YYYY/MM/DD

For example, the URL to call up the ManilaNewbies Home Page created on January 17 of the year 2000 would be

weblogs.userland.com/manilaNewbies/2000/01/17

You can hide the Title on your Home Page using a Prefs -> Appearance -> Home Page setting.

Members can edit their profile information using this URL format: yoursite.com/prefs

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.

You can have Manila automatically create Shortcuts for your Stories. There's a setting under Prefs -> Editorial -> Shortcuts.

You can add Members to your site using Admin -> Membership.

You can hide the link for creating a new topic in the Discussion Group, under Prefs -> Appearance -> Discussion Group.

You can turn a Message into a Story, or even into the Home Page Story. Here's how.

The colors used in the Membership box are determined under Prefs -> Appearance -> Colors, while the HTML layout can be controlled from Prefs -> Advanced -> Join Now Members Box and Sign Out Members Box.

You can change the Member information that Manila stores using the Custom Prefs feature.

The {now} macro will insert the current time (for the time zone the server is in).

You can change your password by calling up the Sign Up page (at yourdomain.com/member/signup ) after you've logged in, entering your login name with a new password, and clicking Login.

You can have more than one Managing Editor using Prefs -> Editorial. Here's how.

You can control the HTML your Members and Editors can use with Prefs -> Legal Tags. Here's how.

You can control where bylines appear on your site, and how they are formatted, by using Prefs -> Appearance -> Bylines. Here how.

There's a page to help you choose colors for your Manila site.

There's a page in the "Manila User's Guide & Reference" that explains the different things you can put into a Shortcut.

You can syndicate the content of your Manila site - here's how.

You can change the size of your Editor's Only links by wrapping either a <font> or CSS <div> element around the {editorialMenu} macro in your Prefs -> Advanced -> Template.

You can let your Members customize the look of your site; Leigh Dodds explains how.

If you're not sure what can go into a DG Message, here's the skinny.

If you haven't used the Bulletins feature yet, you should check it out. Here's how to set up the Preferences for it.

A way to avoid accidentally activating Shortcuts (besides escaping with "\") is to use single quotes instead of double. For example, 'FAQ' instead of FAQ.

A Managing Editor can check the custody of a Story, and override it, from the Admin page.

You can combine the bookmarklets idea with Manila Shortcuts to easily put small JavaScripts into links on your site. For example, I created a Random Link Shortcut on this site by putting that bookmarklet into the Shortcut address field. Two things to keep in mind: Shortcuts are limited to 200 characters; bookmarklets with different versions for Netscape and MSIE can't use a single Shortcut for both.

When you delete a Picture from the Admin page, the Picture remains intact but disappears from the Pictures list.