To contribute to The Archives Database or to submit Ephemera via our online forms you need to register to become a Contributor. To register you will also need to enter the answer to a simple mathematical question to prove you’re not a robot – if you enter the wrong answer, the ‘Captcha‘ will not allow you to register. New registrations are then approved by an administrator. As the project is run by volunteers there can be some delay before pending registrations are approved, so please ignore the automated confirmation email you’ll immediately receive and await a welcome email from a real person before attempting to log in.
If you encounter difficulties usingĀ the forms or it’s easier for you this way, you may also download the form in Word format and send as an attachment, or email any questions you might have, to newruskinarchives [at] gmail [dot] com
We realise that some people are more experienced than others with computers so don’t worry if you get stuck: we are happy to help.
The content below is a working draft for guidance to Contributors.
Table of contents
- Logging in and out
- Entries to The Archives Database
- Submissions of Ephemera
- Using the Visual Editor
- Pasting from Word and other applications
- Inserting Pictures
Logging in and out
For security, when logging in you must first complete the ‘Captcha‘, then log in to wordpress with your user name and password and you’ll be taken to the WordPress ‘Dashboard’.
Please log out at the end of your session using the dropdown menu at the top right of the Dashboard window where it says “Howdy, User Name”.
Entries to The Archives Database
Logged in, from the main menu of the website you can click on Database entry. (Users with Editor permissions can also go to Formidable from the Dashboard.)
Contributors can submit entries only as ‘Draft‘, these are then approved by an Editor before they are published. Only when a form submission’s Status is changed to ‘Publish‘ by an Editor can the outside world see database entries. Unpublished drafts for The Archives Database entries do show in the listings (to indicate that we do have some info in the archive) but when a person other than a logged-in Editor clicks on their link they’re not allowed to access the page and a ‘Not Found’ page is displayed to them. Likewise unpublished drafts in Ephemera are not visible to the outside world.
Required fields, errors: Where others have encountered problems in the past are in departing from the required format when entering dates in the dropdown – leaving this field blank is also OK here, and in not filling in the required fields: Title, Author and Author Email. In such cases at the head of the form page an error message is displayed in red., and its possible to scroll through the form to find which field requires entry/correction (also highlighted in red).
Please remember the one golden rule is that everything can be edited, but that the editing must be done back within Formidable. (The WordPress pages generated by Formidable also have Edit links, please ignore these – always edit via Formidable > Form Entries).
… work in progress – to be continued
Submissions of Ephemera
It’s necessary to Switch Form to that for Ephemera database entry.
Using the Visual Editor
Some form fields allow rich text entries using the WordPress Visual editor, see below…
Pasting from Word and other applications
Pictures need to be uploaded separately from the text (in part so they exist uniquely within the database) so you may wish to place prompts – eg (PICTURE OF FRED HERE) – within your Word document. Then you need to use the Paste as text function in the Visual Editor.
The editor has two modes with tabs to switch between Visual and Text. Unfortunately Text here is completely counter-intuitive, it really means HTML Code – don’t even go there yet! The Visual Editor is what it says on the box, a WYSIWYG editor more or less! (What You See ISN’T always exactly as What You Get.)
The Visual Editor opens with only a single row of buttons: You first need to click on the Kitchen Sink button to bring up the second row of tools. The Kitchen Sink button’s icon is a visual metaphor for two rows.
In the middle of the second row you’ll find the button for Paste as Text.
If you are pasting text copied from other word processors or from a webpage for example you should use click on this to turn the function on – this is very important because otherwise extraneous formatting code can creep in which potentially effects the integrity of the data in the database even if it doesn’t manifest on the pages of the web archive itself. If you are pasting from Word it is not necessary to use this function since the latest version of Word now handles this automatically.
Immediately after all of that you should cut and paste or type your title into the Title field, and then at the bottom of the form Publish with Status as a Draft before doing any further work.
Inserting Pictures
In the Visual Editor the Add Media button has a function similar to Insert>Picture in Word. It takes you direct from the Visual Editor to the interface for Media > Library > Add New and then once you’ve uploaded the picture there (and you can give it a title and description and importantly Alt Text for accessibility, eg unsighted people using screen readers) then clicking Insert takes you back to the Visual Editor and inserts the picture whereever you had the insertion point, ie had placed or left the cursor. Everything is editable, so I’d rather that instead of me trying to cover everything here you first shake it and see, and then I can guide you through any necessary editing.
… work in progress – to be continued
I was asked to see what I could find about Alfred Tompkins in Oxfordshire RO. He was an assistant schools inspector for BICESTER (not Banbury) & is mentioned in the return to the end of 1915. By the 1916 return he had been replaced by a Mt Partridge.
The Education Committee minutes record the names of officials who resigned to join the forces & of those who were killed. Alfred Tompskins name does not appear.
I wonder if Alfred Tompkins is the man noted in C11 as a ‘Higher Education senior clerk’ b1877, living in Hampshire. I must emphasize that this is supposition.