Django updates, just in time for election coverage

Some recent django news you can use, listed by slug to help the scanability:

UPDATE: DELETE KEY: The delete key (aka backspace key) will no longer take you back to the previous Web page you visited. This should help save us from losing edits by mistake.

UPDATE: HOT TOPICS: TJ recommends that we limit these to 18 active at a time, to save on load times with the home page. Maggie and I cleaned several of them out a few days ago. Noah also reset the count on all of them to 10. Now, just like with articles, if the priority numbers are the same on two hot topics, the newer one will come up first.

UPDATE: AUTHOR FIELDS: These are now showing up on landing pages, where before just the byline field would.

TIP: HOW TO PLAY TWO PHOTOS IN THE LEAD POSITION ON AN ARTICLE PAGE: Load both photos in the lead media field, then switch the template to Photo. It's the same way we make photo gallery pages.

NEW FEATURE: LANDING PAGES FOR PACKAGES: Want to read all the news from the Election 08 Preview we're currently in the midst of running? Click here. Noah has made it so that packages now have their own landing pages. To get there, go under Packages, select the package you want, and click View on Site. This is a great feature for Hot Topics and blog posts.

TIP: DON'T BREAK THE WEB SITE: When we write slugs, they need to be unique to each file in django. When identical slugs happen, you're likely to get an internal server error. Noah is working on a safeguard for this, but in the meantime, let's make sure we're using unique slugs by always putting at least a four-digit or six-digit date.

This problem is an exact mirror of the headline/django ID problem, which you can read more about here.

More updates hopefully coming soon.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Django updates, just in time for election coverage

Some recent django news you can use, listed by slug to help the scanability:

UPDATE: DELETE KEY: The delete key (aka backspace key) will no longer take you back to the previous Web page you visited. This should help save us from losing edits by mistake.

UPDATE: HOT TOPICS: TJ recommends that we limit these to 18 active at a time, to save on load times with the home page. Maggie and I cleaned several of them out a few days ago. Noah also reset the count on all of them to 10. Now, just like with articles, if the priority numbers are the same on two hot topics, the newer one will come up first.

UPDATE: AUTHOR FIELDS: These are now showing up on landing pages, where before just the byline field would.

TIP: HOW TO PLAY TWO PHOTOS IN THE LEAD POSITION ON AN ARTICLE PAGE: Load both photos in the lead media field, then switch the template to Photo. It's the same way we make photo gallery pages.

NEW FEATURE: LANDING PAGES FOR PACKAGES: Want to read all the news from the Election 08 Preview we're currently in the midst of running? Click here. Noah has made it so that packages now have their own landing pages. To get there, go under Packages, select the package you want, and click View on Site. This is a great feature for Hot Topics and blog posts.

TIP: DON'T BREAK THE WEB SITE: When we write slugs, they need to be unique to each file in django. When identical slugs happen, you're likely to get an internal server error. Noah is working on a safeguard for this, but in the meantime, let's make sure we're using unique slugs by always putting at least a four-digit or six-digit date.

This problem is an exact mirror of the headline/django ID problem, which you can read more about here.

More updates hopefully coming soon.
Make sure slugs are unique

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Writing headlines in django

When you're filing stories to django, please do your best to write a real headline. Here's why:

The headline becomes the django ID, which is part of the URL for that story. If two people write the same headline on the same day, like "heady goes herey," then we're all trying to save the same story under the same filename, essentially.

While there are safeguards in place to prevent us from actually losing data, it can result in a misdirected story. For instance, I clicked on a story tonight and ended up with something different than I clicked on.

And if you're absolutely rushed and don't have time to craft a headline, paste the slug into the headline field.

Another reason to go with the slug or a real headline: The django ID is part of the URL. So if you say something like "my stupid headline here," that becomes part of the URL.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Random django things on my mind ...

Web development is still going well. One little thing Noah fixed this week:

-- The check in/check out problem. We think we know where this problem was coming up. When you use the "print" features in django, stories were checking in. He's changed that so that stories stay checked out even when on the print screens. That should make things better.

Also, some other random thoughts I wanted to get down somewhere ...

-- Tom points out that we're not getting our hottest topic of all, MU football, into our Hot Topics menu. He's right. We have to figure out a way to do better with that.

-- That thought got me thinking: Maybe we need a whole promotions team to not only keep our Hot Topics regularly switched up, but to also otherwise promote the good journalism that we do here.

-- I hope to get Radio Adelante saved as a podcast and incorporated into the Missourian's Web site this semester. More to come on that.

-- We're seriously looking at dumping Falcon all together and going to PlanSystem. As long as the night news editors are OK with PlanSystem, I'm OK with it too. While I don't think it's the ideal system for us, I do think it's better than Falcon (of course, what isn't better than Falcon?). And while we'd still trade one set of problems for another, I think we have the potential for fewer problems on PlaySystem.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

We can now print from django!

First, let me tell you how awesome Noah is. Be sure to tell him you think so too next time you see him.

Why? Because he has created two new buttons on article pages that you're going to love.

Need to print a story with the notes for your portfolio? Simply look for the "print" button at the top of the article page. It will take you to another screen that shows all the changes you've made to the story file. Just send that page to the printer.

Need to pull a story from django back to Falcon for print? Try the button that says "print (no notes)" at the top of the article file. This will give you a full preview of your story, including the author field and the infobox. This also works for stories with publishing dates in the future -- now we don't have to do a fast publish and unpublish to grab copy for print. This will be especially helpful for features and opinion copy.

The "print (no notes)" button still has a little tweaking before it's complete, but for now this should be easier than pulling from the live Web site.

All of this, thanks to Noah. Let me be the first to say "Thanks Noah."

And if this message seems Greek to you, grab me Monday when I'm back in the newsroom and I'll gladly give a demonstration.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Checking in/checking out

I've had a few questions about the checking in/checking out function in django, as well as a few complaints about problems. We're trying to troubleshoot those problems but haven't come up with anything yet. But we're working on it.

There are three ways to check in a story once you've opened it in django:

-- Move it to another queue
-- Click the "cancel" button at the top of the file
-- Click the blue "Save" button at the bottom of the article.

Closing windows, going to different Web sites or using the "Home" button will NOT check in your story.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

The day after launch -- new stuff in django

We got some good feedback from the Monday night crew after making the transition to django. Here are a few things we have in development this week in response to YOUR suggestions!

Keyboard shortcut for the notes mode: ctrl+shift+N

From Noah: "I tried to make it use F8, but Firefox won't let me override function keys."

Printing from django: Noah is working to add two buttons later this week that will make this happen. This is what I asked him to create, which he said is doable (warning, final version may look different):

1. Button one would export the slug, hed, deck, excerpt, body, author and infobox as just plain text, with the notes highlighted so you can tell what students edited.
2. Button two would export all the same fields, but it wouldn't include notes. This would make it easier to copy plain text back to Falcon for the print product.

One other important update: Reimaging of newsroom computers is on hold. TJ is planning to upgrade all of our computes to the latest version of Mac's Operating System (Leopard), which will allow him to better take care of our computers, monitor printing better, etc. etc. Going to Leopard should also finally fix a good chunk of our printing problems (at least the ones that relate to network connectivity -- the Ricoh printer sucks and will always suck).

Here's the rub: The version of Falcon we have now doesn't work with Leopard. We're still waiting on a Falcon upgrade, and until we have it, we can't go to Leopard. I'll be testing that upgrade tomorrow ASAP. We are doing all we can to get this new image out and improve our computers.

Remember, check out the Missourian Information Systems site to see where we are on our priority list for Web site development or to report errors and bugs and to make feature requests. And you can always check out the DjangoForDjournalists blog for more updates like these.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Why I hate django, by Cal Henderson

Blogged with the Flock Browser

A very exciting django update

I'm happy to report that django notes mode has passed the first round of testing.

Notes mode won't show up in source code anymore after stories have been published. That's a good thing.

The bad thing about notes: If you're copying the stories from django to Falcon, anything you have in notes WILL COPY. Notes DO NOT TRANSLATE between django and Falcon. In other words, if you edit a story in notes mode, copy it out of django and put it in Falcon, you've essentially just lost all of your editing work.

The good thing about notes: Once the story is published on the Web site, you can grab the story from there and put it in Falcon. Notes will not come with it.

How we should proceed this week: I'm planning to run Opinion copy through django for editing this week, then pull from online for print. If that goes well, I'm recommending we proceed with the full switch next week. But we can discuss that at the Wednesday coffee.

In the meantime, I'd suggest that city editors and ACEs continue to have reporters file in django but move the stories to Falcon. You can edit in django, and you can use the notes mode to get used to it, but I'd go back and delete notes before copying to Falcon.

Now, other django news:

Did you know? You can plug embed YouTube videos into your articles. First, copy the embed code on the video you want to use. Then, open your article in django. Next, open the HTML box from the editor above the body field. Finally, paste the code into the HTML box wherever you want the video to appear.

New feature! You can now link related stories together more easily than before, and without setting up a package (aka article group). Under the "lead media" and "related media" boxes is a box called "Related articles." You can select the magnifying glass, find previous articles you want to link, and select them.

Did you know? You can use multimedia in the lead media spot of stories. So if you have a cool video, slideshow or audio to go with a story, weigh it against the other media in your stories to see which gets the lead spot.

As always, I'm more than happy to meet with any of you one-on-one to help you get comfortable with django. Leave a comment on the blog or drop me an e-mail if you need a tutorial on how this stuff works. And yes, there will be a manual before the end of the semester, just as soon as I get a chance to work on one.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

django development update for Sept. 15

Eds,

Jeanne asked me to update all of you on where we are with changing our workflow this week:

-- Noah has been on vacation since the week before last, and he wasn't able to make it today. We expect him back tomorrow.

-- The only thing holding us up right now is the notes mode in django. It works, sort of. If you use it, the material you put in notes doesn't show up on the Web site, but it does show up in the source code. For those of you not up on the geek talk, it means that anything you note out in django can still be read by the public. That's bad. And until that's fixed, we can't edit in django.

-- The related problem with notes is that when stories with notes are copied to Falcon, the notes come with them -- but not in notes form. Essentially, that means you're editing it again from scratch, and that's doubling the work of the copy desk.

Here is what you should do this week (or until further notice):

-- Have your reporters file in django. Edit in django if you feel comfortable doing so. Just DO NOT USE THE NOTES MODE.

-- City editors and ACES should then copy the story back to Falcon and send it to RIM.

-- The desk will proceed as normal from there.

Once we have this notes bug squished, we'll start migrating the desk over to django. Once the desk is up, city eds and ACES won't have to copy stories back to Falcon.

As always, if you have any questions, see me. And if you're still feeling like you need some django traning, let me know and I'll come by and work with you. I like to work with you. All of you. So let’s spend some time together if you need it, OK?

Thanks,

jake

Blogged with the Flock Browser

A few django reminders for the day

A couple of reminders I put out about django today:

Hey gang,

When you're using the packaging (aka article groups) function in django, remember that any piece of media you link to that package will show up on every article.

For instance, with the Taste of Missouri event that was part of the centennial, the photos were linked to the package. That meant those Taste of Missouri photos ran on every story.

IN some cases, like with the 100 years of the Missourian video, that's a good thing. In the case of the Taste of Missouri event and several other photos, it's not a good thing. Please keep that in mind when deciding whether to link a piece of media to a package.

Thanks,

jake

And this one:

Eds,

A little clarification about how sections and packages work in relation to election stories:


First, for sections:
All election stories, be them wire or Missourian-generated, should be filed under the Election section.

If it's a story about a local election, you can also file it under Local.

If it's a state race, you can also file it under State News.

If it's an opinion piece, you should only file it under the Opinion section (OP/ED, Letters, Local Columnists, etc. etc.). Filing it under elections puts it on the News page.


For packages:
We have two packages for the election: President 2008 and gubernatorial election 2008. You can link any story here that has to do with those topics, including Letters to the Editor (please make sure LETTER appears at the start of the headline so readers know what they're getting when they click on it).

If you need any further explanation, I'm always happy to talk django. Come see me.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Some new goodies in django

TJ made a couple of major updates today:

We now have football templates on our front page layouts. The only difference is that the template creates a banner ad promoting our MU coverage through Jacked.com (i.e. our live game coverage). So only use this template when we're ready to tell our readers to go to our Jacked.com page for live Tigers football coverage.

The other big update is that all stories are now stamped with the day and date. For instance, if you check out an article posted today, it will say it's posted at X time, Tuesday, Sept. 9.

Progress is being made, not always as quickly as we like, but it's progress all the same.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tentative plan for rolling out django in the newsroom

During the production meeting today with Jeanne, we came up with the following procedures to begin rolling django out into the newsroom next week. We're implementing this slowly to make sure everyone is up to speed, and so that we don't completely overwhelm our night news editors next week when they'll have a lot of extra coverage from the centennial.

Starting Monday morning, we'd like reporters to begin filing to django instead of Falcon. Most of them have been trained, and most should have online accounts. I can help sign up any stragglers.

City editors and ACEs will edit stories in django. They'll then put the first-edit version in Falcon and send it to the Rim. The django file should also be sent to the Rim in django.

The copy desk will then go to work on the stories as usual. The news editors and TA's will then post the fully edited versions to the Web.

If all goes well next week, we'll start switching the desk over to django first. This will allow Mike and TJ to start reimaging computers and upgrading memory, and our newsroom will be much happier once that is all done.

If you have any concerns, share them on the listserv or on the django development blog at djangofordjournalists.blogspot.com.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Some tweaks in how we style django stuff

For the copy and design desk, here are some changes in how we're styling various elements on the Web:

Taglines: These include columnist bios at the end of opinion pieces, contributing lines at the end of news stories, source lines in infoboxes, etc. etc.
New style: Italics only. No bold. And please make sure you're turning Web addresses and e-mail addresses into clickable links. If you don't know how to do that, come see me and I'll gladly show you.

Subheads in stories and infoboxes: For the sake of consistency, use Heading 2 for these.

Standing slugs at the start of online headlines: These should be in all caps, to make them stand out from headlines that may start with a slug. Examples:

ANALYSIS: Gubernatorial race will set new record for costs
UPDATE: Two more bodies found in basement of Warren Funeral Home
LETTER: Vote Sherlock for king of the universe

But not these:

iPhone: It comes out Friday, and everyone wants one
Almost showtime: Missouri Theatre set for grand re-opening
Here we go again: Presidential election results hinge on Florida recount


Seven day rule: Do not use today, tonight, yesterday or tomorrow in online copy. It should always be the day of the week. Today and tonight are terms to use for print.


Also, I was asked to explain how scoring works on the Web site. Here's how it works:

The story with the lowest number score will get the highest placement when you click on the news, sports, or opinion landing pages. The highest number gets the lowest placement on the page.

So, you'd think zero would automatically be the top story, right? Wrong. -1 trumps zero. -2 trumps -1. And so on.

We need to come up with a system to determine how to use this functionality. If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them. Drop me an e-mail or leave a comment at the blog, djangofordjournalists.blogspot.com.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Something about our front pages I didn't know

Got this message from Noah this morning:

Please refrain from unpublishing previous front page layouts when 
adding new ones. This is unnecessary, and has the possibility of 
breaking the front page. It also makes some planned features (like 
being able to view previous front pages) impossible to implement. The 
"pub time" field should be used to control which layout is active at 
any given time (as with articles, it should be set to the appropriate 
date and time when the layout is published, and both fields should be 
left alone thereafter).

You learn something new about your own Web site every day. :)

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Presenting: Django appreciation week

I'm officially declaring next week Django appreciation week. And there is reason to celebrate -- all of the "big bugs" that derailed us the last time we tried to turn django into our primary content management system have now been fixed, tested, and are working.

We'll spend next week getting everyone -- reporters, copy editors, designers, photographers, graphic artists -- trained in the ways django. After that, the tech guys can start re-imaging the iMacs. A few notes about reimaging:

-- All of the iMacs will get more memory.

-- Reporter stations will not have Falcon on them.

-- Some of the iMacs will move back to the copy desk. This will allow all the copy editors to actually sit together and work together instead of being strung out all across the room on nightside.

-- Software will be updated, so we'll have all the latest browsers on all computers (including the ability to see Flash).

It's imperative that we all make some time to get trained in django next week. We've tried to set up the queue system so that it's similar to Falcon. Noah and TJ have done all they can to make it easy to use. So don't be afraid of the big, bad Django. It's better than it's ever been, which is to say it's really easy to use.

Here is the training schedule for next week. Please tell your students to get as many of them there as possible. I'll be putting up fliers as well.

Tuesday, Sept. 2 -- 5:30 p.m. in the conference room (308)
Wednesday -- 10 a.m. in the budget area
Thursday -- During the 11 a.m. budget meeting
Friday -- 10 a.m. in the budget area.

I'm also happy to schedule other training times if these times won't work.

Hope to see you all next week for django appreciation week!

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Django updates

Noah and TJ have made some good progress on the django front this week. Here is where we are:

-- Bullet lists now work in the WYSIWYG editor. Just highlight your lists and hit one of the two bullet options (the options are just to the right of where you bold text). One option allows for square bullets; the other will do an automatic numbers list.

-- Reversioning is now working as well. To access this function, go into the article, click history, and then select the previous version of the story you want to see. If you want to restore the story to a previous version, click save.

-- Searching, operating queues and spell checker all seem to be working well now.

-- The notes mode still has some buggy problems, but those should be resolved by tomorrow, I hope. If not, it's something we can work around.

Next step: Setting up django skills salons for next week. More details coming soon.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Django update blog day 2: Working toward a new workflow

My hope is that the newsroom workflow can begin to go Web-first next week.

We have a few bug issues that need to be worked out before this can happen, but Noah is hopeful this can be done by the end of the week.

Speaking of which, Noah is on vacation next week, then he's scheduled to work on advertising issues when he gets back. If these issues are not resolved this week, we'll either have to wait to change workflow until mid-September or push back the advertising issues.

Here is what still needs to happen to switch up work flow:

Notes mode -- Right now, text can easily be put INTO notes mode. To pull it out of notes mode, you have to do it one paragraph at a time. We hope to get this buggy issue fixed ASAP.

Reversioning -- Noah hopes to have something to show for this Wednesday. This is the feature that would allow us to go back to an earlier version of a story.

Story search -- When searching for stories, if that story has been modified, all versions of that story show up in the search. Noah is working on this.

Everything else seems to be working well enough to switch around workflow. My recommendation is to begin filing and editing in django late next week or early the week after (Sept. 8). As we get closer to having the bugs worked out, we'll need to schedule a training time with editors.

Ideally, I'd like to:

Sept. 2 and 3 (Tuesday and Wednesday) -- train editors and reporters on how to post to django
Sept. 4 -- Have one beat begin posting in django. If all goes well ...
Sept. 5 -- Newsroom posting to django first. Begin reshuffling, reimaging newsroom computers.

Missourian sports department partnering with Jacked

The Missourian sports page is about to get Jacked.

Check it out here.

Jacked offers Web widgets that will give our readers the ability to follow Tigers football in a whole new way. While football games are in progress, readers will be able to follow all the action in real time. We'll be able to use the "Smack Talk" feature, will be much like iChat with a reporter blogging the action and readers able to interact with the blogger(s).

There are still some design tweaks to be done on the above link, but it's getting close. We hope to launch it this weekend for the Illini vs. Mizzou game.

A few tech notes from Tom

Excerpts from potpourri e-mail Tom sent around this morning. Everything techy is included here:

TECH -- THE NEWSROOM PRINTERS: Mike P updated me yesterday.
The Ricoh (copy desk): Mike was trying to get repair folk out to fix it
Monday. His efforts were complicated by disputes in the service agreement.
We agreed on the need to get someone even if we had to pay out-of-pocket
costs.
Long term, we hope to have a new copier there by mid-November.
The Canon (main newsroom), as best I know, only has the usual problems
but nothing, um, catastrophic.

TECH -- THE NEWSROOM HARDWARE
Mike will replace all dead computers in the production areas this week
by taking Adelante computers on a temporary basis.
When we switch reporters to django, we'll add some reporter computers to
the production area and dedicate some of the reporting areas as laptop only.
By the end of the semester, we should be able to reduce total newsroom
hardware from about 80 computers to 50 or fewer, with more reductions in the
following semester. I don't ever foresee killing all the reporter tubes,
though.
Mike also hopes to increase the memory on the computers we keep.
Finally, the satellite newsroom will stay with its current complement of
computers because they're too old to use upstairs.

TECH -- DJANGO
By end of last week Noah had fixed three of the four major issues --
spell check, story search, and story length. He's fixing a few bugs on notes
mode that Jake found in a first round of testing. By week's end we should
have a more firm idea of launch date(s) for converting as much as possible
away from our friendly Falcon.

Frequently Asked Questions -- First day of school edition

What do we need to do to change our workflow to django first?

As of right now, the following problems need to be stress tested and shown to work in order for workflow to change:

Notes mode
Spell check
File lock (check-in, check-out)
Reversion -- still in the works
Moving stories around in queues

Once these problems are solved, we'll commence with some training.

When will computers be moved, repaired, re-imaged?
Once we're onto a django-first system, the computers will be re-imaged to allow for long-needed updates (like Flash). Reporting stations will not have Falcon; only the desk will have it.

What's up with the intranet?
All reporters, copy editors and designers should have access to it. I'll be working with Nina to populate and update it this semester. If you have any ideas or documents you want to see there, e-mail me at shelrockj@missouri.edu.

What's next for django?
Find out at the developmental spreadsheet.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Frequently Asked Questions -- First day of school edition

What do we need to do to change our workflow to django first?

As of right now, the following problems need to be stress tested and shown to work in order for workflow to change:

Notes mode
Spell check
File lock (check-in, check-out)
Reversion -- still in the works
Moving stories around in queues

Once these problems are solved, we'll commence with some training.

When will computers be moved, repaired, re-imaged?
Once we're onto a django-first system, the computers will be re-imaged to allow for long-needed updates (like Flash). Reporting stations will not have Falcon; only the desk will have it.

What's up with the intranet?
All reporters, copy editors and designers should have access to it. I'll be working with Nina to populate and update it this semester. If you have any ideas or documents you want to see there, e-mail me at shelrockj@missouri.edu.

What's next for django?
Find out at the developmental spreadsheet.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Django update blog, day 1

Priority 1 tasks:

Story length -- working fine
Story search -- working fine
Notes mode -- Still buggy. Noah is troubleshooting. Words turn to notes fine, but they don't come out of notes without many, many clicks.
Spell check -- working fine
File lock (check-in, check-out): First round of testing went great.
Search by author -- ready for testing
Reversion -- still in the works

I'm shooting for Thursday to be ready to change work flow. Noah deserves high praise for cranking so many of those off the list today.

I'm going to put most of these through a final stress test tomorrow and check them off the list.