Public Media Manager
User Manual
To accompany Public Media Manager version 1.2
Published
under GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE Version 2
Created at North Country Public Radio 2001-2006
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
February 16, 2006
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
Distribute Stories via RSS and Podcast
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
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.
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.
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
RSS Feed: RSS version 2.0
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
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. If you are posting .mp3 files, the start time should be left at zero, and only the end time given. The duration info in the news story is determined by this field and carries through into the podcast feed.
- 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.
-
Add Transcript: Enter a transcript of the story (optional) using the WYSIWYG editor built into the Submit Story Form. If a transcript is entered, the story toolbar will contain a link to a version of the story including the transcript; if no transcript is entered, the link will not appear.
Below: story page with transcript included
- 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. Keywords are also used to create "Topic" pages, RSS feeds and podcasts. 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, transcript if any, 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.


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.
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.
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.
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” or “newsYYMMDD.mp3”.
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. This option does not work with mp3 audio, only with.rm audio.
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.
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.

See Tools in The Public Media Manager Toolbar.
See Main Menu | SUBMIT a New Story.
See Main Menu | EDIT an Existing Story (by Story ID).
See Main Menu | VIEW an Existing Story (by Story ID).
See Main Menu | SEARCH for Stories.
Tools
The Tools Menu contains a set of tools for performing regular specialized
news management tasks.

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.
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

- 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.
Distribute Stories via RSS and podcast
-
The NewsCMS automatically generates rss and podcast feeds that can be used to distibute any and all stories.
-
Daily News RSS and Podcast
http://*your_domain/pmm-cms/NewsCMS/dailyRSS.php
is the feed URL for an RSS 2.0 compliant feed of all stories in the database dated for today. The RSS links go back to the permanent URL of the story within your news pages. If you add the query "?podcast=true" to the end of the daily RSS feed URL, you have an iTunes compliant podcast feed of the day's stories.
*your_domain is the web root or other location into which you have installed Public Media Manager.
-
Topical News RSS and Podcast
http://*your_domain/pmm-cms/NewsCMS/topicalRSS.php?topic=(**use topic keyword)
is the feed URL for an RSS 2.0 compliant feed of the most recent stories in the database that contain the specified keyword. The RSS links go back to the permanent URL of the story within your news pages. If you add the query "&podcast=true" to the end of the topical RSS feed URL, you have an iTunes compliant podcast feed of the most recent stories on the assigned topic.
*your_domain is the web root or other location into which you have installed Public Media Manager.
**
Ex. ?topic=environment
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.

See Main Menu in The Public Media Manager Toolbar.
See Tools | VISIT the Latest Live News Page.
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
This feature lists the current date according to your server in the form
dd-mmm-yy.
This feature lists the current time according to your server in the form
HH:MM followed by AM or PM.
This feature lists the total number of stories that are stored in your
database system.
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
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