Articles – MC Professional

What is it?

The Articles tab is where you manage all of the content, or pages, on your MC Professional website. An Article contains information that you want to display on your site - usually text, images, links, etc. Similar to a newspaper, one page of your site can contain one Article, or several Articles.

Creating a New Article
Toolbar
Article List
Parameters
Metadata Information
WYSIWYG Editor Icons and Functions

We don't recommend copying, then pasting, content (e.g. text, images, graphics etc.) from outside sources into any WYSIWYG editor found in MC Professional. If you do, this may bring incompatible code into your website or email client. Content from outside sources may not display as intended.

How to Access

Access the Articles tab by navigating to Website > Articles.

Creating a New Article

1. To create a new Article, begin by navigating to Website > Articles and clicking the New plus sign.

2. Give the Article a Title. This Title will appear at the top of a member's browser tab when they're viewing the article. The Article's Alias will auto-generate. NOTE: Each Article is required to have a unique alias. If you receive a message that "The chosen alias is already in use..." add something to the alias to differentiate it (ex. instead of just community, change the alias to community-page or community-2).

3. Add text, links, and images to the Article body as needed.

To add links into the article, click either the Site Links button at the bottom of the article page to pull in a link from elsewhere on your MemberClicks site, or click the Insert/Edit Link icon to insert an external web address. This icon is on the second row of editing icons and resembles two pieces of attached chain link.

To add images into the article, click the Image button at the bottom of the article. NOTE: We suggest inserting only images previously uploaded to our Media Manager. You can upload them if needed through the Image button.

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4. Set Permissions for the Article using the Group Access checkboxes on the right-hand side of the screen.

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5. Save.

Video

Here's a short video of the process.

Toolbar

The following toolbar can be found at the top of the main Article Manager screen. Each toolbar button is explained below.

Archive: To change one or more Articles to archived status, select them using the checkbox next to the Article's name and click Archive. Archived Articles are retained on the site and are available for viewing on Menu Items with a type of "Archive Layout". Archived Articles cannot be published to other pages while set to Archived status.
Publish: To publish one or more Articles, select them, then click Publish.
Unpublish: To unpublish one or more Articles, select them, then click Unpublish.
Move: Select one or more Articles and click on this button to move them into a new Category. A new screen will display showing the possible "move to" locations on the left, along with the list of Article(s) being moved on the right. To complete the move, select the desired "move to" location, then click "move".
Copy: Select one or more Articles and click this button to copy them. After clicking Copy, a new screen will display showing the possible "copy to" locations on the left, along with the list of Article(s) being copied on the right. To complete the copy, select the desired "copy to" location and click the "copy" button.
Move to Trash: Select one or more Articles and click on this button to move them to the article trash. NOTE: Articles can be restored from the Article Trash as long as they are not permanently deleted.
View Trash: This option takes you to the Article Trash, where you can view any previously deleted Articles.
New: Click on this button to create a new Article.
Permissions: Click this button to open the Article Permissions area. These permissions determine which of your database Groups are able to access/view each Article.
Help: Opens this Help screen.

Article List

The Article List will display all of the articles within your site. You are able to edit and/or change settings for any article in this area. The following image is broken down into 3 sections, which are explained below.

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Section 1 contains options for finding/sorting the Articles in your list:

Filter: If you have a large number of Articles, you can use the Filter option to quickly find the desired Article you're looking for. Enter all or part of the Article title, or the ID number, then search.
Select Category: Use this option to display only the Articles in a particular Category by selecting the appropriate Category from the drop down menu.
Select Author: Use this option to display only the Articles that were created by a particular person/author.
Select State: Use this option to display only the Articles that are published, unpublished or archived.
Section 2 contains all of the articles and their information. You are able to sort the list by clicking any of the column headers.

#: An indexing number automatically assigned by MC Professional.
Checkbox: Check this box to select one or more Articles. To select all Articles, check the box in the column heading. After one or more boxes are checked, click a toolbar button to take an action on the selected Article(s). Many toolbar actions, like publish and unpublish, can work with multiple Articles selected.
Title: This is the name of the Article and can optionally be displayed on the web page. A title is required for all Articles. Edit an Article by clicking on its title.
Published: This displays the Article's published status, which can be one of the following: published, not published, archived, published but pending, published and current, or published but expired. You can toggle the published state on and off by clicking the icon in this column. A status of pending means that an Article's "start publishing date" is in the future. You are able to see the Article's start and stop publishing dates by hovering your mouse over this icon.
Front Page: This shows whether or not an Article will display on the front page. You are able to change this setting by clicking on the icon.
Order: The order to display items. If the list is sorted by this column, you can change the order by clicking the arrows or by entering the sequential order and clicking "save order" (it will be an icon in the header row). NOTE: the display order on a Category Blog or Front Page Blog layout is set in the "parameters - advanced" section for each menu item. If that order is set to use something other than "order" (for example, "title - alphabetical"), then the order value in this screen will be ignored. If the menu item order parameter is set to use "order", then the Articles will display on the page based on the order in this screen.
Category: This is the Category that an Article belongs in. Clicking the Category title will open it for editing.
Author: The name of the user who created the Article. You are able to change an author in "parameters (Article)" when editing the Article.
Date: The date that the Article was created on. You are able to change the date in "parameters (Article)" when editing the Article.
Hits: This is the number of times the Article has been viewed. You may reset this value to 0 in the Article editor.
ID: The ID number is a unique value used to identify the Article internally (for example, internal links). It is assigned automatically and cannot be changed.
Section 3 contains the display and navigation options for your article list:

Display #: The number of Articles displayed at one time.
Buttons: Use these buttons to navigate between pages in your Article list.

Parameters - Article

This section allows you to enter parameters when editing an Article. These entries are optional, and the system automatically creates default entries for these values!

Author: Select the Author from the drop-down list box. Default is the current user.
Author Alias: This optional field allows you to enter in an alias for this Author for this Article. This allows you to display a different Author name for this Article.
Created Date: This field defaults to the current time when the Article was created. You can enter in a different date and time or click on the calendar icon to find the desired date.
Start Publishing: Date and time to start publishing. Use this field if you want to enter content ahead of time and then have it published automatically at a future time.
Finish Publishing: Date and time to finish publishing. Use this field if you want to have content automatically changed to Unpublished state at a future time (for example, when it is no longer applicable).

Parameters - Advanced

These parameters allow you to override the parameters set in the Parameter/Global Configuration setup in the Articles tab and the Parameters - Component settings in the Menu Items tab.

A value of 'Use Global' means that either the setting from the Menu Item or the setting from the Global Configuration will control the action. A setting other than 'Use Global' will always control the action and override settings from these other areas. The setting here takes top priority. The setting in the Menu Item is second priority. The setting in the Global Configuration takes control if both of the other settings are set to 'Use Global'.

NOTE: "Use Global" refers to the Global Configuration set-up, which is configured internally by MC Professional. If you're not sure what your Global Configuration is, and/or would like to adjust it, please contact our Help Team at help@memberclicks.com

Show Title: (Use Global/No/Yes). Whether or not to show the Article's Title.
Title Linkable: (No/Yes/Use Global) Whether or not the Title of the Article will be a hyperlink to the Article.
Intro Text: (Use Global/Hide/Show). Hide or Show the Article's Intro Text when the 'Read more...' link is selected. Intro Text is the first part of the Article before a 'Read more...' break. If this parameter is 'Show', when the User selects the 'Read more...' link, the entire article will display. If this parameter is 'Hide', when the User selects the 'Read more...' link, only the part of the Article after the 'Read more...' link will display. NOTE: "Read more..." can only be used in Category or Front page blog type layouts, NOT in single articles.
Category Title: (Hide/Show/Use Global) Whether or not the Category Title will display.
Category Title Linkable: (No/Yes/Use Global) Whether or not the Title of the Category will be a hyperlink to the Category page.
Author Name: (Hide/Show/Use Global) Whether or not to display the Author Name.
Created Date and Time: (Hide/Show/Use Global) Whether or not to display the date and time the Article was created.
Modified Date and Time: (Hide/Show/Use Global) Whether or not to display the date and time the Article was last modified.
PDF Icon: (Hide/Show/Use Global) Whether or not to display a button to allow the Article to be rendered in a new window in PDF format. This allows the User to view, print, or save the Article as a PDF file.
Print Icon: (Hide/Show/Use Global) Whether or not to display a button to allow the Article to be printed. This allows the User to print the current Article in a printer-friendly format.
Email Icon: (Hide/Show/Use Global) Whether or not to display a button to allow a link to the Article to be emailed. This displays a form that allows the user to send an email with a link to the current Article.
Key Reference is an advanced setting generally only used by MC Professional design. The Key Reference field allows designers a more flexible way to reference articles.
Alternative Read more: Optional text to display next to the 'Read more...' link. If no entry is made, the Article Title is used. NOTE: "Read more..." can only be used in Category or Front page blog type layouts, NOT in single articles.

Metadata Information

This section allows you to enter Metadata Information for an Article. Metadata is information about the Article that is not displayed but is available to Search Engines and other systems to classify the Article. This gives you more control over how the content will be analyzed by these programs. All of these entries are optional.

Metadata Description: Optional Metadata Description for this Article.
Metadata Keywords: Optional entry for keywords. Must be entered separated by commas (for example, "cats, dogs, pets") and may be entered in upper or lower case. (For example, "CATS" will match "cats" or "Cats"). Keywords can be used in several ways to help Search Engines and other systems classify the content of the Article.
Robots: Optional keywords for Robots. Robots are automated software programs that surf the web and catalog web content. If special keywords are desired for Robots to use, enter them here.
Author: Optional entry for an Author name within the metadata.

WYSIWYG Editor Icons and Functions

Below is a description of each icon found within the WYSIWYG (What You See is What You Get) editor, as well as it's corresponding function.

First Row

		Bold - Makes selected text bold.
		Italic - Italicizes selected text.
		Underline - Underlines selected text.
		Strikethrough - Strikes through selected text.
		Align Left - Aligns selected text to the left.
		Align Center - Centers selected text.
		Align Right - Aligns selected text to the right.
		Align Full - Fully justifies the selected text
Note - to change the font, size or style of text, select the text and then select the new font, size, or style from the drop-down menus in the editor toolbar. To maintain consistency throughout the site, it's recommended to use paragraph, Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3, etc. formats whenever possible.

Second Row

		Find - Opens a window to let you search for content in the editor
		Find/Replace - Opens a window to let you search for and replace content that in the editor.
		Unordered List - Creates a bulleted list of selected text items. Each paragraph will be a bullet. For example: It does not matter whether the paragraphs are long or short, only that you have hit return and started a new line between each item you select for the list. Make sure to select only the text you want to put in the list. To add new items to the list, simply go to the end of a paragraph on the list and hit return. This will automatically add a new bullet to the list.
		Ordered List - Works exactly like the unordered list above, but creates a numbered list instead of bullets.
		Outdent - Decreases the indentation of selected text, moving it towards the left.
		Indent - Increases the indentation of selected text, moving it towards the right.
		Blockquote - Browsers insert white space before and after a blockquote element, as well as margins for the element. Blockquotes are used for long quotations.
		Insert/Edit Link - Turns the selected text or image into a link to an external site.
		Unlink Hyperlink - Removes the hyperlink from the selected image or text.
		Insert Anchor - Lets you insert an anchor in the HTML content. The list of anchors already created will appear in the drop down list within the Insert Hyperlink dialogue box.
		Insert/Edit Image - Inserts an image in the page. You can specify the location of an image hosted on an external site. If an image is already selected from within the content, you can change the appearance and other properties of the image.
		Font Color - Opens a drop-down color palette for choosing the color of the selected text. Once the desired color has been chosen, highlighting text and clicking this icon will apply to color to the selected text.
		Highlight Color - Opens a drop-down color palette for choosing the background color of the selected text. Once the desired color has been chosen, highlighting the text and clicking this icon will apply the color as a background to the selected text.
		Check Spelling - This button will check the spelling of text in the editor.

Third Row

		Undo - Reverses the last action taken.
		Redo - Can be used after undoing an action to do the action again.
		Insert Table - Opens a dialogue box in which you can specify the parameters of a table. If creating a new table, it's recommended to specify the width of the table (100%, for example) before adding content to the table.
		Row Properties - Brings up the Row Properties dialogue. You can adjust the alignment, vertical alignment, height, and background color.
		Cell Properties - Brings up the Cell Properties dialogue. You can adjust the alignment, vertical alignment, column and row span, color, width, height and background color.
		Insert Row Before - Inserts a new row above the row in which the cursor is located. The new row will have the same number of cells as the selected row.
		Insert Row After - Inserts a new row below the row in which the cursor is located. The new row will have the same number of cells as the selected row.
		Delete Row - Deletes the entire row in which the cursor is located.
		Insert Column Before - Inserts a new column to the left of the column in which the cursor is located. The new column will have the same number of cells as the selected column.
		Insert Column After - Inserts a new column to the right of the column in which the cursor is located. The new column will have the same number of cells as the selected column.
		Delete Column - Deletes the entire column in which the cursor is located.
		Split Cell - Splits the cell in which the cursor is located into two cells to undo a previous merge.
		Merge Cells - Merges the selected cells into one.
		Insert Horizontal Rule - Inserts a horizontal line across the content area.
		Remove Formatting - Removes HTML formatting from selected content.
		Hide Gridlines - Tables without a border are given a dotted border by the editor so that you can see them. Clicking this button hides those lines.
		Subscript - Makes selected text subscript.
		Superscript - Makes selected text superscript.
		Insert Custom Character - Lets you insert special letters, characters and symbols.
		Insert Embedded Media - Inserts a multimedia object in the page. You can specify the location of media hosted on an external site.

Fourth Row

		Edit CSS Style - Allows you to edit the CSS style of the selected element.
		Citation - Used to markup citations, such as title of magazines or newspapers.
		Abbreviation - Used to markup abbreviations, so the long form is displayed as a tooltip.
		Deletion - Applies deletion formatting to the selected text.
		Insertion - Applies insertion formatting to the selected text.
		Insert/Edit Attributes - Allows you to inert or edit the attributes of the selected text.
		Print - This function prints the display view of your page.
		Cleanup Messy Code - Corrects improper HTML code.
		Preview - Frequently used for proofreading, this icon will open a preview window of content within the editor.
		Toggle Full Screen Mode - Expands the Editor to a full screen view. All edited content is transferred.
		HTML View - A window appears that will allow you to edit the html of the current page.

Below the Editor

		Image - Allows you to insert an image from your Media Manager
		Pagebreak - Creates a pagebreak
		Read More - Inserts a Read More link in the Article NOTE: Only applies to blog type layouts
		Site Links - Allows you to insert a site link
		Merge Data - Allows you to place attributes from your database into the page. In the editor, these will appear in the format ##Attribute Name##, but to anyone viewing the page they will appear as that attribute from that individual's profile. For instance, ##First Name## will appear as the individual's first name on the page. Merge fields should only be used on content which requires login.
		Toggle Editor - Toggles the editor to the HTML view

Articles in this section