Figure 1: Worflow Schema
Contents
Introduction
Summary
Configuration
Templates
Workflow schema
Browser Normal View
Browser Edited View
Preview Articles
Browser Editing An Article
Chief Editor Validation
Requirements
Notes
Pricing
This plug-in is an addition to Gossamer Threads GLinks product. The Simple Workflow plug-in as it suggests, provides Links with a simple workflow process; a way to allow members/users of a Links site to modify an article/link and submit it to be reviewed (by an admin/chief editor). The system creates a second parallel version of the links/article leaving the current live version intact and online. Once a modified article is submitted the admin and/or editors are alerted to this fact via email.
The admin/chief editor then has four responses available. 1) Accept the changes, the new version replaces and deletes the current version. 2) Ask the author to undertake further modifications. 3) Reject without reason. 4) Reject and email the reason to the author.
The plug-in allows the admin to:
- allow editors to edit live articles/posts without deleting the current version,
- accept the modification of an article and replace the live version with the updated version
- delete a modification of an article with the option to explain via email why it has been deleted
- inform the author via email that further modification is required before publication
The author can log on to the browser.cgi tool to :
- edit a live version of an article without modifying the live article
- preview the edited version as it will appear (allowing to visually compare to live version)
- multiple edits of edited version allowed
- request modification be validated by chief editor/admin
-
will be alerted to the update request decision via email
There are currently no admin configuration options since all available options are available through adding them to the browser.cgi templates. Should certain functions not required you can simply omitt adding them to templates.
You will need to modify several templates in the 'browser' template folder, instructions and the appropriate code is provided. The templates can also be placed in the 'luna' folder which will override the 'browser' folder templates. One template is required to be placed in the 'luna' folder in order to provide a preview of what the link.html and detailed.html templates will look like as you can see below.
Workflow schema
Below is a schema of the workflow process with the different options available.
Figure 1: Worflow Schema
As you can see in the schema when editing a 'live' article, once the article modifications are submitted the article is considered 'under modification'.
Browser Normal View
To further illustrate this change you can see below in figure 2 the initial view of an article with the options of being able to edit it, preview it, move it, copy it or view other articles from the same author
Figure 2: Browser.cgi normal view
Browser Edited View
Once and article has been edited and the modifications submitted, this view will be different since the user will now be able to preview the modified version, further edit the modified version and request for it to be validated as can be seen in figure 3. You can also seen in this example that the editor can preview both the current 'live' version alongside the edited version as they would appear on the site.
Figure 3: Browser.cgi modified view
Note: as a chief editor, you will also see the validate button (green checked box) that allows in the case of a chief editor, to obtain the validation form which can be partially viewed in a screenshot below in figure 5.
Preview Articles
The preview function allows an editor to see both the detailed.html and link.html view i.e. the full article view and the summary view of the article. This allows a user to precisely select layout, images and alignment of objects to appear on the page prior to publishing the article. It is possible as an option to lock both the article from being edited by anyone else as well as locking the preview so that no other editor can preview the article until it is published. You can see the icons used for these options in Figure 2 above. Below is an example of the what the preview may look like, in this case a complete preview of the full article followed below by a summary of the article.
Figure 4 : Editor Preview of Article and Article Summary
Editing Articles
The browser templates were modified to allow for a more pleasant layout of the form used to edit articles. On a par with blog systems some simple Javascript is used to limit the size of captions for example and inserting simple tags (if tags can be used in the body of the article), a confirmation message that no copyrighted content is being submitted etc. Note: in this example Andy's Thumb Images is used. In the full page view the tags available in the body rely upon another unreleased plugin providing a more complex page setting. Below is an example of what the users view. Clicking on the image will give you a full page view.
Figure 5 : Browser Modifying Article View (click for full page view)
Chief Editor Validation
This form allows a chief editor to :
- validate modifications requested, as well as refer to the original version to compare
- delete without a reason
- delete and explain via email why
- reject the modifications and allow further modifications
Figure 6 : edited article validation form (bottom of form view)
Gossamer Links 3.x.x (has also been tested with Links SQL 2.1+)
The user profile validation plug-in can be used in conjunction with Gossamer Community.
Notes
The Simple Workflow plug-in requires you to add some extra code to the browser templates. The admin templates used to validate modified articles are automatically installed in the admin templates folder. In order to differentiate between editors by creating a chief editor and editor status for example then some modifications to the code in a few templates is required. The design and layout in the examples are not provided since they are part of that sites overall design : the templates provided will inherit your own template set design. You will most probably need to apply your own CSS design to the templates.
Pricing
Simple Workflow Plug-in (with modified templates): 300 US dollars.
Copyright © 2006 John Garner. Contact Me