Project work – Page 11 – Learning (Lib)Tech

WordPress Plugin: Publicize or Automatically Post to Facebook & Twitter

So, I recently discovered the WordPress Jetpack plugin set, which does a lot of the things I had previous looked for WordPress plugins to do, including custom css, share buttons, and extra widgets you’ll find on the .com version. The only thing I really wanted that was missing, was the “Publicize” feature to post to social media, such as Twitter.

Requirement

The one requirement I had was that one plugin should be able to post to multiple social networks instead of having separate ones for each social network. This mostly has to do with making it easier to use and maintain. While we only need Facebook and Twitter right now, we may need others in the future, especially something like G+, so I preferred to already have something installed instead of having to find yet another plugin later.

Results

Network Publisher: This plugin probably supports the most social media sites and even includes stats. I didn’t actually really test this one because it required signing up for an API key. From the plugin page, it seems to at least work though.
SocialPublish: This one also required creating an account, but I still don’t understand why this is necessary.
NextScripts Social Network Auto Poster & WP-AutoSharePost: These required setting up apps on each of the sites, which is fine but not what I was looking for.
Social by MailChimp: This only does Twitter and Facebook, which was my minimum requirement, but it works. Not the nicest interface ever, but I like that you can edit the messages individually before they’re posted. I disabled the comment display, so I’m not sure how well that works, but it’s not something we wanted.

So in the end, Social was the only that did what I wanted easily (i.e. without all the dev apps stuff) and without the requirement of creating an account elsewhere first. Still need to properly test it on a multisite setup, but it’s the closest thing I can find to WordPress’ Publicize.

UPDATE: WordPress JetPack now includes Publicize! Yay~

Guidelines on Writing for the Web

So as part of the website redesign and working on making the site WCAG compliant, I wrote a couple sets of guidelines. One of them was on writing content for the web. Some of the points and the example I got from a coworkers, but most of it I just consider sensible advice. Overall, I tried to keep it fairly short and simple in the hopes that staff members will actually read it!

Writing for the Web

Web readers skim pages and look for keywords, links, and other information that will help them find what they’re looking for quickly. Therefore, when writing new or revising content:

1. Be Clear and Concise

Make your page title descriptive and concise, keeping it fairly short.
Keep sentences, paragraphs, lists, and other information short and simple.
Use lists wherever appropriate, especially when users have choices. Use numbered lists for complex instructions and include important screenshots.
Unless you’re creating a policy page, keep the entire page short (e.g. 2-3 screens worth).

Bad Example:
To find information on citation styles, go to the Library’s Home Page, click on Research Help, then click on Citations and Style Guides and choose APA Style Page, MLA Style page or RefWorks.

Better Example:
For more information about citation styles, check the

APA Style Page
MLA Style Page or
RefWorks

2. Speak to Your Audience

Avoid acronyms and “library” vocabulary when writing content for the library’s webpages.
Write at a Grade 7-8 level in a direct voice, using “you”. For example, use “get” not “obtain”.
Because users scan pages and don’t read them, information needs to be written clearly and concisely and at a reading level that doesn’t impede typical user behaviour.

3. Be Meaningful

Links, in particular, should be meaningful. The words of a link should tell your reader what the link is about.
Screen readers have the option of listing all of the links on a page, so think about whether a user would know what your links refer to out of context.
In addition, don’t overuse links. Only use them where it makes sense, such as for a list of resources.

Branding the Library Website: Making a Flexible WordPress Theme

In moving our website to WordPress, I wanted to create a theme that could be used by our staff when working on online projects which would sit outside our main website, but in which we would host. Obviously they have the option of using other themes, but then someone (likely from our team) would have to make sure it meets accessibility guidelines, and as there are very few of those, I thought it best to just make our theme flexible.

No CLF

This is just a disclaimer that the main reason we could even do this is because we do not have a Common Look & Feel policy from the university administration, which most universities do. On the flip side, that’s one reason I wanted to do it. I would like that the library “products” are recognized as such. Doing it through a theme would also provide a more consistent user experience across the sites that use the library’s theme.

The Header

Our existing site already used a consistent header. However, it also includes the “Ask Us” logo, which would take you to the “Ask Us” page with all the myriad ways to contact the library for help. For other sites, it’s more likely that they will want to list specific contact instead, so I added an option to remove it.

new site header — New Header with Custom Menu and Google Search Bar

In addition, of course, for any sites using the theme, they will want the name of their site in the header, so I added a text box input for that in the options page and used font-face to pick a different font to make it stand out a little more.

The Menu

The navigation was built into the original theme so that you can either use a custom menu or it will fallback to using pages. However, the way our sites are made, some of the subpages menus would have been so long as to go past the end of the page, so I added the option to take out submenus.

new header with subsite title — Header with Subsite Title, Fallback Menu, and WordPress Search

Finally, the original website search bar redirects the user to the university’s Google search of the library’s directory, so I made the option to change it to the standard WordPress search bar to search within the current site.

The Footer

Since each site may have different links in the footer, I also made an option to include custom links in the footer, such that the ‘Home’ link is the only hard-coded link (which is always the link of the home page of the site you’re on).

Full Site Footer with Custom Links and Social Media Icons

While it’s possible to make the social media buttons customizable, until there is a demand or need, I decided to simply put in the option to take them all out.

Hardcoded Part of Footer

The rest of the footer (copyright) is always there. Again, unless there is a demand or need, I didn’t make the copyright holder changeable.

Templating

As many sections of our website (e.g. catalogue/OPAC, Research Guides) are not part of the CMS, I am currently working on taking the WordPress template (minus the options) and creating a plain HTML and then a ColdFusion template to use in those sections.

New Site: Moved to WordPress CMS

We moved our site this morning to a new domain and it’s now running on WordPress. After a few issues with the redirect that central IT had to fix, it seems to be running smoothly.

There is still a lot of work to be done in terms of cleaning up content, especially since there are still many pages using tables for layout purposes (insert big cringe here). I also still need to finish going through the accessibility reports (only did the front page so far), and writing guidelines for staff. Training has still yet to happen for staff as well (since we focused on getting the site up first).

Spot the Differences

The website has actually changed very little on the front end. Think you can spot all the differences?

I’ve made an answer key if you care to play (red = added/removed, blue = moved, orange = small difference).

Rationale

I think most people will understand the rationale in going to the CMS. The move in this case was much more for internal reasons, primarily so that staff can update pages. Of course, this actually should have a positive impact (at least in theory) as staff will be assigned pages and be responsible for keeping them current. Putting this system in place should also free up time of those involved in maintaining the website to do other things.

Finding a WordPress Image Slider Carousel Plugin (Again)

UPDATE: Please consider not using a carousel at all: Death to the Website Carousel

I previously posted on this same topic not all that long ago, but that slider broke when we updated to the most recent WordPress (3.4) and since new plugins come out all the time, I thought I’d just find a new one. Continue reading “Finding a WordPress Image Slider Carousel Plugin (Again)”