Prepare a News Item

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Prepare a News Item

What are news items?

News items are individual short stories (news briefs) that show up on the mdtParatextNews page on the site; the most recent story also shows up in abbreviated form on the site home page.
Originally, news stories were all contained in a single file, the news.xml file, but of course it eventually became unwieldy and has now been split into separate files, one for each story. These files appear in the /db/data/news/ folder. News briefs are used to provide short announcements about major changes in the project, releases, team changes, and so on.

How to create a news story

The simplest approach is to take an existing news story, save it with a new filename, and then rework it to create your own story. Then just add it to svn.
A news story file is always named as in these examples, where the date represents the date of the story.
  • news_2011-05-13
  • news_2012-05-03
(Note: you can post-date a story if you want it to appear at some future point.)
The only things you need to edit in the file will be:
  • @xml:id attributes
  • the <title> element in the <titleStmt> in the <teiHeader>
  • <respStmt> elements
  • <change> elements in the <revisionDesc>
  • The main story <div>
The changes you need to make should be obvious except for the last case. The story <div> looks like this:
<div xml:id="news_2017-05-29_story">
            
<head><date when="2017-05-29"/><lb/><lb/><title>Dr. Mark Kaethler Joins MoEML
              Leadership Team
</title></head>
            
<figure style="float:right; padding-left:2em; width:25%;">
              
<graphic url="graphics/web_team_photos_2014_new/mark_kaethler.jpg" width="100%"/>
              
<figDesc>Dr. Mark Kaethler, Assistant Director, Mayoral Shows</figDesc>
            
</figure>
            
<p>MoEML is delighted to announce <gap reason="editorial"/></p>
          
</div>
Don’t forget to make sure the date in the title is correct. Most news stories include a picture, which will also be used on the home page when the story is the most recent one. Keep your story short and punchy. Note that the current approach of providing explicit style to size and place the image will soon be replaced by a more consistent approach based on a set of available style attributes.

Cite this page

MLA citation

Holmes, Martin D. Prepare a News Item. The Map of Early Modern London, edited by Janelle Jenstad, U of Victoria, 26 Jun. 2020, mapoflondon.uvic.ca/prepare_news_item.htm.

Chicago citation

Holmes, Martin D. Prepare a News Item. The Map of Early Modern London. Ed. Janelle Jenstad. Victoria: University of Victoria. Accessed June 26, 2020. https://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/prepare_news_item.htm.

APA citation

Holmes, M. D. 2020. Prepare a News Item. In J. Jenstad (Ed), The Map of Early Modern London. Victoria: University of Victoria. Retrieved from https://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/prepare_news_item.htm.

RIS file (for RefMan, EndNote etc.)

Provider: University of Victoria
Database: The Map of Early Modern London
Content: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

TY  - ELEC
A1  - Holmes, Martin
ED  - Jenstad, Janelle
T1  - Prepare a News Item
T2  - The Map of Early Modern London
PY  - 2020
DA  - 2020/06/26
CY  - Victoria
PB  - University of Victoria
LA  - English
UR  - https://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/prepare_news_item.htm
UR  - https://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/xml/standalone/prepare_news_item.xml
ER  - 

RefWorks

RT Web Page
SR Electronic(1)
A1 Holmes, Martin
A6 Jenstad, Janelle
T1 Prepare a News Item
T2 The Map of Early Modern London
WP 2020
FD 2020/06/26
RD 2020/06/26
PP Victoria
PB University of Victoria
LA English
OL English
LK https://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/prepare_news_item.htm

TEI citation

<bibl type="mla"><author><name ref="#HOLM3"><surname>Holmes</surname>, <forename>Martin</forename> <forename>D.</forename></name></author> <title level="a">Prepare a News Item</title>. <title level="m">The Map of Early Modern London</title>, edited by <editor><name ref="#JENS1"><forename>Janelle</forename> <surname>Jenstad</surname></name></editor>, <publisher>U of Victoria</publisher>, <date when="2020-06-26">26 Jun. 2020</date>, <ref target="https://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/prepare_news_item.htm">mapoflondon.uvic.ca/prepare_news_item.htm</ref>.</bibl>

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