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.

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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.

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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.

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Why I hate django, by Cal Henderson

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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. :)

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