New.Journalism.Review

A NEWS SITE USING PRiNZ  BranfordMagazine 2.51

I  created a news site for level journalism students using WordPress and  PRiNZ BranfordMagazine 2.51 template. From a user-perspective it looks pretty good, although it's less flexible than Joomla! at the back-end.

There are many other news-stye templates that you can tailor to meet your needs. (See Revolution 2 Theme and Bram.us has a good list of others). 

SUPPORT FOR THOSE USING THE TEMPLATE

1. The creator of the template runs a support forum (this does not take any new support requests, but the database is searchable).

2. Download the excellent e-book – Sites that Soar – great if you don't know much about WordPress and it uses BrandfordMagazine as its example.

KEY STAGES FOR CREATING A SITE USING BRANFORD

The stages I went through to get the site right are roughly:

1. Change the website header (Logo),
 You need to find the name of the existing header graphic in the template files (it is known as bg-branding.png) and it's exactly 625 pixels w x 100 pixels h.Then go into Photoshop and create your own version. Finally, upload your logo to the same folder that has bg-branding.png.

2. Navigation bars
There
is a primary navigation bar that appears horizontally beneath the
website header. To add sections to this you simply create a page (NOT A POST). This will  automatically be added to the navigation bar.

The secondary navigation runs vertically on the left of the page. It orders posts according to categories   It is not standard to have a nav bar on the left for a news site, so this is not great.

You need to understand that categories in WordPress have IDs.
To get categories to appear in the left navigation bar, you need to
type these numbers into the template code.  Annoyingly WordPress 2.5
hides IDs. That said, it's possible to get them to appear again, but
you will need to download a plugin which is appropriately called Reveal IDs for WP Admin

5. Joomla! has module positions. And Brandford based on WordPress has its own  positions
Now
is the time to write  some posts (i.e. create some news articles). You
will then categorise these and these categories will appear in various
positions on the front page.

The positions on the front page are:

• Lead Article (this is what appears beneath the tabbed section).
• Featured articles
• Right Column Articles

As with the left nav bar, you have to type in the ID numbers of the categories containing content that you want to appear in each position.

ADDING IMAGES TO THE FRONT PAGE

It's
easy to get an image to go with a post, but you will also want any
story that appears on the front page to have an image as well. Unlike in Joomla!, WordPress does simply not take
the image from the post and stick it on the front page.

Instead any images you want to appear on the front page must appear in the CustomFields section of the post.

This is a complicated process. There is no easy way to change the
order of what appears on the front page (to get a headline story, you
would need to change the date on the post to make it the newest). This gets frustrating with large sites.

Joomla! has front page manager which exists so you can order front page content.

CONCLUSION: 

WordPress is great for blogs and seems
to be getting better all the time. But you may well outgrow WordPress
quite quickly if you use it for a news site. Joomla! or Drupal could be
a better bet!

WORDPRESS FOR A "NEWS" SITE?

WordPress
just seems to be getting better and better all the time. Like Joomla!,
WordPress is free and there is plenty of online community support. 

Like many people, I thought that WordPress only produced sites that look like blogs. In fact designers have been coming up with templates that look like news sites for ages (and really sexy-looking news sites as well). Perfect for any small business, charity or university student project.

SOME GOOD WORDPRESS TEMPLATES FOR NEWS SITES:

• Revolution 2 Theme

• Bram.us (list of newsy WordPress templates).

WHAT'S GOOD ABOUT WORDPRESS FOR NEWS SITES:

• I use WordPress for a site that is used by Level 1 students.  It
  allows me to introduce students to the idea of the CMS and how
  information is organised online.
• WordPress allows multiple users 
• The WordPress interface is far more intuitive than Joomla! (more on that later).
• Like Joomla! it has loads of great extensions/ add-ons / widgets – whatever you want to call 'em!

WHAT'S NOT-SO-GOOD

• Poor categorisation - WordPress only has a shallow hierarchy
  for organising stories. You can  file stories into main categories, but
  that's about it. I don't believe (and I could be wrong) there is not
  the deep level of sub-categories you get in Joomla!
• Adding sections to the navigation bar – This involves
  a trip into 'template manager' and you need to make changes to the
  code. In this area, one tiny slip or mistake and you are sunk. In
  Joomla!, it's very easy to adjust menus headings using menu manager.
• Manage Posts in WordPress is weak – compared to article manager in Joomla! You can't sort posts or unpublish through this manage posts section (you have to go into each article – correction. This is now solved). When you have hundreds of posts and you need to locate some information, this can be a problem!

Links:
Creating a student journalism site on a tight budget – using WordPress to create a news site.
NewsWire.NZ - what can be achieved using a fantastic WordPress template.
WordPress a CMS for Journalists (Andy Dickinson) 

A NEWS SITE USING PRiNZ  BranfordMagazine 2.51

I  created a news site for L1 students using WordPress and  PRiNZ BranfordMagazine 2.51 template. From a user perspective it looks pretty good, although it’s less flexible than Joomla! at the back-end.

There are many other news-stye templates that you can tailor to meet your needs. (See Revolution 2 Theme and Bram.us has a good list of others). 

SUPPORT FOR THOSE USING THE TEMPLATE

1. The creator of the template runs a support forum (this does not take any new support requests, but the database is searchable).

2. Download the excellent e-book – Sites that Soar

KEY STAGES FOR CREATING A SITE USING BRANFORD

The stages I went through to get the site right are roughly:

1. Change the website header (Logo),
You need to do this in Joomla! as well. So you need to find the name of the existing header graphic in the template files (it is known as bg-branding.png) and it’s exactly 625 pixels w x 100 pixels h.Then go into Photoshop and create your own version. Finally, upload your logo to the same folder that has bg-branding.png.

2. Navigation bars
There is a primary navigation bar that appears horizontally beneath the website header. To add sections to this you simply create a page (NOT A POST). This will be automatically added to the navigation bar.

The secondary navigation runs vertically on the left of the page.  It orders posts according to categories   It is not standard to have a nav bar on the left for a news site (it’s more common with blogs). You would normally have the nav bar on the right.

You need to understand that categories in WordPress have IDs. To get categories to appear in the left navigation bar, you need to type these numbers into the template code.  Annoyingly WordPress 2.5 hides IDs. That said, it’s possible to get them to appear again, but you will need to download a plugin which is appropriately called Reveal IDs for WP Admin

5. Joomla! has module positions and Brandford has its own  positions
Now is the time to write  some posts (i.e. create some news articles). You will then categorise these and these categories will appear in various positions on the front page.

The positions on the front page are:

• Lead Article (this is what appears beneath the tabbed section).
• Featured articles
• Right Column Articles

As with the left nav bar, you have to type in the ID numbers of the categories containing content that you want to appear in each position.

ADDING IMAGES TO THE FRONT PAGE

It’s easy to get an image to go with a post, but you will also want any story that appears on the front page to have an image as well. Unlike in Joomla!, the WordPress does not take
the imagefront the post and stick it on the front page.

Instead any images you want to appear on the front page must appear in the CustomFields section of the post. 

This is a complicated process. There is no easy way to change the order of what appears on the front page (to get a headline story, you need to change the date on the post to make it the newest). Joomla! has front page manager which exists soley so adminstrators can order front page content.

CONCLUSION: 

WordPress is great for blogs and seems to be getting better all the time. But you may well outgrow WordPress quite quickly if you use it for a news site.

Those looking for a decent content management system (CMS) for a website [quick tip: look at open source before opening your wallet] should check out the current issue of .Net* Magazine [Issue 177 / July].

*Note: The magazine is known as Practical Web Design outside the UK.

It has some good general advice, roughly translated as follows:

1. You probably don't need to bother with a CMS if you have a small site which you don't update very often. Just design it in Dreamweaver instead.   
2. Use a CMS if you're running a content-driven site (e.g. one that contains plenty of news), you do regular updates and/or have multiple authors of content.
3. Avoid outdated and expensive CMS solutions i.e. the type in-house CMS solutions really bad web design agencies love to recommend. 
4. You don't need to spend a fortune. Many great CMS solutions are open source and FREE, but the amount of support varies between products. WordPress is so popular that there are loads of community websites offering free advice and tons of how-to books about it, including a recent addition to the Dummies series. But quite a lot has been written about DotNetNuke and increasingly there are books about Joomla!

It reviewed a large number of CMS, but focussed on five main
ones. [.Net gave the star ratings and I've added a few comments]
WordPress [rated five stars....Bang on the nail, in my humble opinion]
ExpressionEngine [4 stars]
MovableType [4 stars.....looking a bit outdated, deserves two stars in MHO]
Blogger [3 stars...what's this doing on the list?]
Drupal  [2 stars........?????? MHO]

Little space was devoted to Joomla!, a PHP-based solution, and has plenty of fans. It's also easier to learn than the feature suggests.

.Net also need to separate out those CMS solutions which are suitable for creating news-based sites and those which are better for blogs.

But nobody can dispute the .Net view that WordPress is king. It can do no wrong in my view and gets better all the time. Security issues aside, the hosted version of WordPress is great for beginners and when you get round to hosting in yourself – it's just really flexible! It's ideal for blogs, but also can be adapted for  content-driven news sites. See some interesting examples of WordPress uses.

Quick video from Drupal Rocks which showcases some Drupal-based journalism/news sites, the free CMS. Tons of big names are using it, including Playboy in Germany! The video is small, but you can make it full size by clicking on it.

 

Drupal Rocks Newspaper and Journalism Websites from Drupal Rocks on Vimeo.