Public Media Manager

User Manual

To accompany Public Media Manager version 1.0

Published under GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE Version 2

Created at North Country Public Radio 2001-2004

Principal author: Bill Haenel

With assistance from: Dale Hobson and
Members of the Clarkson Open Source Institute:
Patricia Jablonski, Todd M. Deshane, Michael J. Forte
and Hollis Easter

Funding Support for NCPR Online:
The Sweetgrass Foundation

Funding Support for the Public Media Manager Project:
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting

North Country Public Radio
April 1, 2005


Table of Contents

Project Overview

Project Purpose

Installation and Specifications

Administrator Login

The Public Media Manager Toolbar

Main Menu
SUBMIT a New Story
EDIT an Existing Story (by Story ID)
VIEW an Existing Story (by Story ID)
VIEW STORIES for [today-yesterday-tomorrow]
UPLOAD a Newscast Audio File
SEARCH for Stories
Tools Menu
Submit a Story
Edit a Story
View a Story
Search Database
Tools
SET Story Order
EDIT Reporter List
EDIT the Weekend News Page
ADD/EDIT/ DISTRIBUTE Topic Page
Visit the Latest Live News Page
Main Menu
Visit News Page
Log Out

Upper Right Corner Information

Current Server Date
Current Server Time
Total Stories in DB
ID of Last Story Edited

Contact Information


Project Overview

The Public Media Manager (PMM) is an online news content management system (CMS) oriented toward public broadcasting websites. The intended users of Public Media Manager are the reporters, producers, and editors of broadcast news, along with associated online staff, if any, of public broadcasting organizations. The general web-browsing public also uses the system via website content display, content syndication features, and through search engines.

Project Purpose

The purpose of the Public Media Manager is to permit broadcasting entities to archive, aggregate, and distribute multimedia news content via their own and other websites or online vehicles, using non-specialist staff and existing resources. The Public Media Manager allows the integration of audio content with descriptive text, headlines, bylines, images and captions, media metafiles and information, associated hyperlink resources, and classification data. It also allows users to search, organize, display, and distribute all or part of such a “story” or stories, and controls the appearance of such stories, using a simple web-form based interface. Finally, this software system allows non-commercial developers to refine and extend system capabilities under an open-source distributed license.

Installation and Specifications

Running Environment:

Server Operating System: Linux
Web Server: Apache 1.3 or later
Database Server: MySQL 3.23x
PHP Server: 4.2.3 or earlier

Running Environment:

Browser Compatibility:
Internet Explorer 5 or higher
Netscape 7 or higher
Opera 7 or higher
Mozilla 1.2 or higher
Any browser compliant with W3 Consortium HTML 4.01 or later standard
HTML Output Standard: HTML 4.01
XML Output Standard: 1.0 Second Edition
RDF Feed: RSS version 0.91

Administrator Login


The administrator’s main page of the Public Media Manager can be found in the newsdb/ directory as the file index.php. Here you should find the administrator login screen with the top navigation toolbar, seen below. Once you have an Administrator account set up, you may log in here to access the menus and tools. The toolbar and menus are only accessible after a successful log in.

Public Media Manager Toolbar


Main Menu


SUBMIT a New Story

The Submit a Story feature allows a reporter or other user to create an aggregation of information or “story”. The purpose of a story is to make an identifiable unit from a selection of audio, text, image and metadata that can be classified, ordered and displayed in conjunction with other stories aggregated according to several criteria.

The Story Submission Form provides for the input, creation or upload of the following story elements upon confirmed posting:

  • Reporter: Select from dropdown of previously created reporter IDs.
  • Story Title: Enter headline for story. Limited HTML styling is permitted. Limit the number of characters entered for the title to 255 or less.
  • Story Date: Click the “Calendar” button to select a date from the pop-up calendar. The story date determines the story’s position in the chronological archive and its date of appearance on the news page. Future dates do not display outside of the CMS.
  • Story Description: Enter story description or body. Limited HTML styling is permitted.
  • Audio: Click the “Browse…” button to find the audio file that you wish to upload for this story. At this time, .mp3 and RealAudio (.rm) are the only types of audio file that are supported. If no audio file is selected, the audio file for the story defaults to the day’s complete newscast audio file. If the story is in the daily newscast, you may leave this field blank and continue with the following criteria.

  • Start Time and End Time: Enter the start and end point within the audio file that is associated with your story in the form HH:MM:SS.msmsms.
  • Image1 and Caption: Click the “Browse…” button to find the image file that you wish to upload for this story. Enter Image1’s caption in the Caption box that is located on the same line. Limited HTML styling is permitted. Limit the number of characters entered for the caption to 255 or less.
  • Image2 and Caption: Click the “Browse…” button to find the image file that you wish to upload for this story. Enter Image1’s caption in the Caption box that is located on the same line. Limited HTML styling is permitted. Limit the number of characters entered for the caption to 255 or less.
  • Related Links and Captions: Enter the related URLs into the textboxes after the text “http://”. You may enter up to four (4) related URLs to your story. Enter each URL’s caption in the Caption box that is located on the same line. Limited HTML styling is permitted. Limit the number of characters entered for the caption to 255 or less.
  • Keywords: Enter text-only “keywords” related to your story. Each keyword or phrase must be separated with a comma-space (“, ”). It is not necessary to add keywords, but keywords will make cross-linking between stories as well as searching for news articles easier. Display radio button allows you to choose whether or not a story should show on the day’s news page.



  • Preview Story Now: Click the “Preview Story Now” button to enter the Confirmation Form. The Confirmation Form displays a preview of the complete story with live images, audio links and related links, along with media metafile information and keyword list. If you would not like to submit this story as seen on the confirmation page, select the No button at the bottom of the page to return to the submission form for revision. If you would like to submit the story as previewed, select the Yes button at the bottom of the page to confirm the database update and assign a permanent ID number to the story.
  • Reset: Click the “Reset” button to abort submission of the story, if desired. This should bring you back to the Main Menu.

EDIT an Existing Story (by Story ID)



First, enter the existing story ID number of the story that you wish to edit and click the “Get Story” button. All elements of an existing story can be edited, except for the permanent ID number, via the Story Edit Form. This is identical to the Story Submission Form, except that it provides one additional option: to delete a story (see the “DELETE STORY” button at the bottom of the Story Edit Form). Once edits are made to a story, you will see a confirmation form. If the “DELETE STORY” is selected, you will see a deletion confirmation. Reenter the story ID number to confirm deletion of this story.


The system provides several access points to the Story Edit Form – from the Main Menu, from the top navigation toolbar, from the View a Story display, and from the Search Results display.

VIEW an Existing Story
(by Story ID)

First, enter the existing story ID number of the story that you wish to view and click the “Get Story” button. The full story is displayed with working audio file, live links, graphics and CSS styling. Options to view previous story (the story with story ID directly before the current story that you are viewing in numerical order, if it exists), view next story (the story with story ID directly after the current story that you were viewing in numerical order, if it exists), and edit the current story are listed at the bottom of the page.

VIEW STORIES for [today-yesterday-tomorrow]

Shows the Search Result display for the stories of today’s date, yesterday’s date or tomorrow’s date, whichever is clicked on. This is the same as “SEARCH for Stories” in the Main Menu or Search Database in the top navigation toolbar with a search by Date with the value of “today”, “yesterday” or “tomorrow”, respectively. See “SEARCH for Stories” in the Main Menu for more information.

UPLOAD a Newscast Audio File

This feature in the Main Menu allows you to upload a longer multi-story audio file not associated with any single story ID. This is used to create a complete day’s newscast link on a news page. An audio file will appear as a day’s newscast if it conforms to the naming convention “newsYYMMDD.rm”. Browse for the file and click the “Upload” button. This will upload the audio file via http, and edit the newscast metafile to point to the appropriate filename. Note: If no audio file is selected in the Story Submission Form, the default is the corresponding day’s full newscast file. Selected start and end points determine which portion of the newscast plays as the story audio. Several stories can share the same audio file.

On the UPLOAD a Newscast Audio File page, click the “Browse…” button to find the newscast file that you wish to upload. Then enter the date of the newscast in the form mm/dd/yyyy. Click the “Calendar” button to select a date from the pop-up calendar or leave today’s date in the textbox. Finally, click the “Upload” button to send the file to the site and update the newscast link. Click “OK” to confirm upload.

SEARCH for Stories



This feature allows you to search and group stories by ID, Date, text within the Title, text within the Description, Reporter, or Keywords (see below). Once a search field and value combination are submitted using the “Search” button, a Search Results display is shown for the stories that match the submitted criteria (if any). The table contains a row for each story with the option to EDIT the story, followed by the story’s ID, Date, Title, Description, Reporter, Audio link and Keyword list. The story display can be ordered by several of these criteria.

Tools Menu

See Tools in The Public Media Manager Toolbar.

Submit a Story

See Main Menu | SUBMIT a New Story.

Edit a Story

See Main Menu | EDIT an Existing Story (by Story ID).

View a Story

See Main Menu | VIEW an Existing Story (by Story ID).

Search Database

See Main Menu | SEARCH for Stories.

Tools

The Tools Menu contains a set of tools for performing regular specialized news management tasks.


SET Story Order

First, enter the date for which you wish to re-order stories. Enter the date in the form mm/dd/yyyy. Click the “Calendar” button to select a date from the pop-up calendar. Then, click the “Get Story List” button to view a list of the stories on the date entered. The stories are shown in a table with each story’s ID and title per row (seen below). Use the UP arrow on the left or the DOWN arrow on the right of each story to reorder the stories. The default story order on a day’s news page is the inverse order of entry. The SET Story Order tool is used to override the default.

EDIT Reporter List



To add a new Reporter to the list, enter the Reporter’s name in the textbox and click the “ADD NEW” button. To edit an existing Reporter, click the “EDIT” link that is next to the Reporter’s name that you wish to edit. Make the necessary changes and click the “UPDATE” button when finished. Otherwise, click “CANCEL” to disregard any changes made to the Reporter’s name.



EDIT the Weekend News Page



This feature is used to create and edit a weekend “news magazine” from selected stories and features of the preceding week. All stories from the preceding week are listed with their Date, story ID, Title, and the possible Headings or categories for each news story. Stories can be added into or excluded from several story categories. Story categories can be reordered, as can stories within a category. The resulting page can be previewed below right. The Weekend News Page automatically replaces the daily news page between 12:01AM Saturday and 12:00AM Monday.

The page lists the Week’s Stories on the left and the Weekend Lineup on the right. The preceding week’s stories are listed under the Week’s Stories and the Headings or story categories are listed under the Weekend Lineup. For each story, click which category you would like it to be under by clicking the abbreviation of the heading listed after the story title. Click the UP or DOWN arrows to re-order the stories within a category or to re-order the categories, as desired. You can remove a story from a category by clicking the “(remove)” link that is next to the story’s Title in the Weekend Lineup listing. See an example of the page that is used to edit the Weekend News above.

ADD/EDIT/DISTRIBUTE a topic page



This feature is used to distribute content throughout a news site or to syndicate content to remote or partner sites by generating php scripts and javascripts to organize and display database content. It will dynamically create and update pages with selected content, and will create navigation for all newly created pages.


 

Add/Edit Create Topic Form

  • Topic Name: will appear as main header on page.



  • Topic Description: enter brief description of content carried by page.

  • Include Stories: This section allows you to select the criteria for story inclusion in a topic page. Reporter Name, Keyword, text within title and within description, and a logical operator field to allow you to choose any or all of the criteria selected.

  • Format page: Allows you to select sort by and sort order for stories, number of stories to include on page, and to make one page a subtopic under another.



  • Custom content: Allows you to add additional content of any kind to a topic page.

  • Preview Topic Content: Allows you to check that the proper content has been selected and will display properly. (below right.

  • Below: Sample topic page, (keyword: transportation)...



and with custom content included (right column).

EDIT a Topic Page:

Returns you to Add Topic Form with current values for editing.

DISTRIBUTE a Topic Page

  • Used to create php and javascripts for distributing and formatting topical content within the host site, or anywhere on the web.

  • Select topic criteria with the ADD Topic form and select “distribute.” Script code is generated that will display the selected content in the selected format. Resulting code is copied and pasted into page code where the content will appear.



  • Sample remote site distribution: The screen shot shows keyword: history, number of stories: one, displayed on a remote site.

Visit the Live News Page



This link shows the current news page that is seen from the web. Make any necessary changes to this page using the Public Media Manager tools and menus. See an example of a live news page above and below, showing some built in usability features like pop-up story IDs and email story features.



Main Menu

See Main Menu in The Public Media Manager Toolbar.

Visit News Page

See Tools | VISIT the Latest Live News Page.

Log Out

This will log you out of the system. After logout, you will be redirected to the login page. NOTE: Depending on your server, your session may time out after 15 minutes, but that is not guaranteed.

Upper Right Corner Information

Current Server Date

This feature lists the current date according to your server in the form dd-mmm-yy.

Current Server Time

This feature lists the current time according to your server in the form HH:MM followed by AM or PM.

Total Stories in DB

This feature lists the total number of stories that are stored in your database system.

ID of Last Story Edited

This feature lists the ID number of the last story that has been edited. You can click on the ID number listed here, which will display the full story of the last one edited. This feature is the same as the View a Story in the top navigation toolbar with story ID of the last story edited. See View a Story for more information.

Contact Information

If you have questions or comments on this software, please contact:

North Country Public Radio
St. Lawrence University
Canton NY 13617

Dale Hobson, Web Manager
dale@ncpr.org
1-315-229-5336