Tandem Club Website

Introduction

This document provides a brief overview for administrators of the TC Events website.
The goal of the site is to provide an easy way for people to provide information to club members and others. As well as site administrators, the site has been designed so the Regional Organisers and others can also easily add information without in-depth web site knowledge.

Regional Groups now have the ability to edit their own ‘What’s on’ entries as well as the facility to add their own news and pictures. Regional organisers: Please contact The Tandem Club Web Group for a login on the site. Also we can set up your Region if it is not already present.
The site will have bugs ... Please email  The Tandem Club Web Group with these.

Facilities

The site's operation is currently mainly limited to TC events and Regional groups, although this may be extended in the future. Basic facilities are:

  • General web page display and editing for normal information.
  • Major Tandem Club events administration, with web based booking forms, events database, event information and reports.
  • What'sOn system. Allows TC regional events and others to be added and edited by RO's or other administrators.
  • Regional groups websites. Provides the ability for RO's (or others) to add web pages, events, documents, news and picture showcases for their own regional group.
  • Showcase system for pictures by group or event.

WhatsOn System

The Whats On system is designed to allow regional group and other events to be added to an events database and be displayed to site visitors. It also provides the facility to list these events in a suitable form for direct inclusion in the TC Journal.
Regional Organisers can add and edit entries for their group. General site administrators or whatsOn administrators can add and edit any of the entries.
The system automatically displays only those entries that are in date.
To Add and entry:

  1. Login to the system (you will need a suitable login to the system, contact The Tandem Club Web Group for this).
  2. If you are an RO, your groups regional pages will have an "Edit What's On" link in the left hand menu. Please navigate to the Groups web page from the main menu and click on the "Edit What's On" link. This will bring up a page listing your entries and provide a means to add or edit them.
  3. If you are a general site administrator, you can use the "WhatsOn" menu item and the functions available will be in the left hand menu. There are also V - View, E - Edit and D - Delete buttons for each entry.
  4. The events form is simply filled out. If your Regional Group is not listed then one of the Site administrators will need to add this regional group to the system. Please keep to the formats described on the form.
  5. Click on the Save button to save the entry.

For the TC journal there is a "Journal List" link that allows the journal entries to be displayed in a form suitable for a simple copy/paste action into a word processor.

Regional Groups

The Regional groups system allows RO's and others with appropriate permissions to create and edit webpage information for their group. The system allows multiple web pages to be created with links to other sites or other information. Pictures can also be uploaded to go on these pages. The system also provides facilities to upload documents or any type. News items, WhatsOn entries and  picture showcases on a per group basis can be  added to and edited.
To administer these:

  1. Login to the system (you will need a suitable login to the system, contact The Tandem Club Web Group for this).
  2. There is a list of the available functions in the left hand menu.

The pages can be edited using the "Edit page" link. This brings up an on-line editor similar to a conventional word processor. Simply type in the information and format it as required. Note that tables can be used to columnate or block the content in an easy way. (table borders can be set equal to 0) There are some special "script" entries at the bottom of the page that include the Documents, News, Showcase and WhatsOn entries. To edit/move these you will need to edit the page source with the "Source" button.

Pictures can be uploaded with the "image" button. You can either use a picture existing on the web system or upload new pictures using using the "Browse Server" button. The images can be resized prior to sending to one of a set of sizes. By default they will be resized to 1024x768 when they get to the server. Also make sure the orientation is correct.

If the "Add Page" button is used to add a new webpage, a link will be added at the bottom of the current page to link to it. Once you have edited the new page you will probably want to edit the parent page and move/format the link as desired.
The left hand list of actions allows documents, news, showcases and What's On entries for the group to be added or edited.

Major Events

TBD

Users

The system maintains a database of users for the site. This contains information on the user as well as their user id and password. Each user can be assigned a set of roles. These define what items on the website they can view and/or edit. The core roles are:

  • admin: Overall site administration
  • adminUsers: The ability to view and edit user accounts
  • adminDelete: The ability to delete things from the site
  • adminWhatsOn: Generic What's On add and edit ability. This is for people that can edit all WahtsOn items
  • adminGroup<Groupname>: Ability to add, edit and delete items for a regional group. This includes the webpages, documents, news, showcases and What's On entries for that group.
  • eventsView: Allow these uers to view the event booking lists.

A user can also have a Regional group they belong to and other groups they are interested in. These are not used as yet.

Editing Pages

The system has a WYSIWYG type of web page editor. This presents a word processor like interface with a set of toolbar entries along the top. Normal word processing features such as paragraph style, bold, Italic, bulleted or numbered lines etc can be used. The system can also create hyperlinks to other website pages or off website pages.

Tables are supported and can be very useful for row/column based page layouting (border can be set to 0) as well as more conventional tables of information.

Pictures can be uploaded with the "image" button. You can either use a picture existing on the web system using the "Browse Server" button or use the "Upload" tab and select an image on your PC sending it to the web server using the "Send it to the Server" button. Try and make sure the images are reduced in resolution as appropriate to the size of page image wanted before sending to reduce your upload time and peoples download time. They will be resized to 1024x768 when they get to the server. Also make sure the orientation is correct.
If the "Add Page" button is used to add a new webpage, a link will be added at the bottom of the current page to link to it. Once you have edited the new page you will probably want to edit the parent page and move/format the link as desired.

Make sure the "Save" icon or "Submit" button is used to save the page before going off the editor page.

If needed, and if users have an understanding of HTML formatting, the "Source" mode of editing can be used for more control over the page layout and contents.

Special, website generated, blocks can be included using the following code entered in "Source" mode:

 <script language='php'>whatsOnList()</script>

There are a few functions that can be used. These currently include:

whatsOnList() The next 3 entries from the What's On list
documentList() The next 3 entries from the documents
newList() The next 3 entries news items
showcaseGroup() The next 3 entries from the showcase
picturesRandomImage(width=300px) A random picture from the system with given width

Showcase Pictures

The system arranges pictures in named showcases. These have a group name as well as a title and description. Pictures can be uploaded one at a time or as a batch using the "Add pictures" link. This brings up a Java based picture uploader that will allow the pictures to be rotated prior to upload. It also pre-scales the pictures to 1024x768 resolution for speedy upload.

Titles of the pictures can be edited by selecting the showcase and using the "Edit showcase pics" link. As well as titles and descriptions, the picture can be marked as good. When so marked it will be show by the random picture display system.

Technical Information

More detailed technical information is available: help/index.html