Support for Professional Online Publishing

I am working on a software system that can be deployed in web servers for online publications.

The system supports the publication of editions on given dates. An edition contains articles, which can have been written by various authors. Editors can plan the edition up until its publication date and upload the articles in their final versions. From the publication date on, the public can read the edition.

When the public first visits the web site, they see the current edition. If they choose, they can navigate to an index of past editions.

Readers can also see an index of the topics covered. Editors can highlight for the readers, those articles that they think especially worthy with respect to a given topic.

To justify public support via CTC VISTA for this development, let me point out its usefulness for publications covering the problems and questions surrounding the making and carrying out of public policy. Owing to online publishing's lower cost relative to the print media and television, and its better support for reader participation, it can improve the level and quality of democratic participation.

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Is there a staging server I could check it out on? I'd be interested in checking it out. You can send it to me via email if you like too.

Jack Waugh's Recent Field Reports

Support for Professional Online Publishing

I am working on a software system that can be deployed in web servers for online publications. …read more

Uploading

Readers of these field reports may have some difficulty understanding the reports' contexts if those readers have forgotten, or never knew, the nature and purpose of the organization at which the VISTA is working. So, by way of reminder: I work at the Center for Community Technology Services (CCTS) at the University of Baltimore. We help nonprofits in the Baltimore, Md. …read more

A Little Markup Language

Up until yesterday, the design for CCTS's CMS called for using the Textile markup language for the contents of a "block" element (i. e., a paragraph, heading, list item, or table cell). And in fact that's implemented in our code. However, thinking about how to import documents exposed problems with using Textile. …read more

Menus and Uploads

I implemented the "main menu" for our CMS. Nine rules determine which pages the menu indexes when a given page is being displayed. Currently, I am working on the ability to import HTML files exported from Microsoft Word (even though everyone should switch to OpenOffice.org).