CREATING AND EDITING GATEWAY HELP PAGES

Documentation committee procedures

Creating and editing Gateway Help pages
Working with Gateway Help pages (for co-chairs)
Updating the Manifest File and using MakeKeywordIndex (for co-chairs)
Maintaining the document distribution system (for co-chairs)
Word and PDF versions of documents maintained by the Documentation Committee

Creating a Page from Scratch
Use the following template for creating a new help page.

<HTML>
<HEAD>

<TITLE>put the title of the page here</TITLE>

</HEAD>

<BODY bgcolor="#ffffff">

<P>
<A href="http://campusgw.library.cornell.edu/newhelp/toc.html">Help</A>: Continue with the appropriate headings and include links (see notes below2)

<HR>

Start building your page here

</BODY>
</HTML>

Notes:

1. Regarding the metadata for "CU.Subject": The terms you enter between the quotation marks after CONTENT are the terms that will be indexed for the search feature of Help. They will also appear alphabetically in the Gateway Help Index.

Example:

For the page about how to set search limits, the following appears in the metadata:

Anything set apart by a comma will be a new index term. If you enter "telnet, configuration: telnet, browser configuration: telnet" then the following three will appear in the index:

telnet
configuration: telnet
browser configuration: telnet

2. Every page should have a header that begins with Help (linked to http://campusgw.library.cornell.edu/newhelp/toc.html), followed by the appropriate directory headings for the page you are creating.

For example:

If you are creating a new help page that will go under "MyLibrary" which in turn is under the "Research Services and Support" section, then your header should be:

<p>
<a href="http://campusgw.library.cornell.edu/newhelp/toc.html">Help</a>: Research Services and Support:
<a href="http://campusgw.library.cornell.edu/newhelp/res_services/mylib.html">MyLibrary</A>
<hr>

The code above will make the top of the help page look like this:

Help: Research Services and Support: My Library

3. Metadata tags in general:

Sometimes, html editors interfere with the metadata tags on help pages. Make sure that each new tag appears at the beginning of a line. For example, MakeKeywordIndex will run into trouble if the metatags on a page look like this:

They should look like this:

4. Do not worry about entering html code for the footer information at the bottom of all help pages. Footer information is added automatically when the page is uploaded to the server.

5. Save your page as an html document and send it to a Co-Chair of the committee for uploading to the server. You can send your page via e-mail or on a disk.

Editing an Existing Page

If extensive editing of a page is required:

· Go to the existing help page and open/view the source code.
· Copy and Paste the code into a new file in an html editor.
· Make changes, including any necessary changes to the metadata and header/directory.
· Delete the footer content.
· Save the page as an html document and send the page to a Co-Chair of the committee (e-mail or disk).

If a page requires minimal editing, the changes can be made directly on the server by a Documentation Committee Co-chair.

Working with Gateway Help Pages (for Co-Chairs)

In order to manage Help pages, Co-Chairs must have Dreamweaver installed and configured to connect to the newhelp directory. Access is set up through the Gateway Committee (at present Maureen Morris). More information on configuring Dreamweaver for editing help pages.

Once a Co-Chair of the Documentation Committee receives a new or edited page, the following needs to be done:

Open Dreamweaver and save the page in the appropriate directory on the local site. Check the metadata and the links and clean up the page if needed. Preview the page in different browsers to make sure that everything is working. In the case of an edited page, save a copy of the current page on both the server and the local site. The naming convention is finding_articles.html_AS_OF_MM/DD/YYYY. Save only the current and next most recent copy of any given page. Beyond that, delete older versions from the server and the local site.
Connect to the remote site (server) and upload the file.
If the page is an edited page and no new keywords have been added, there is no need to do anything else.
If the page is an edited page and new keywords have been added or edited, then MakeKeywordIndex needs to be run (information below).
If the page is new, it should be listed in the MANIFEST text file (information below).
Once the files have been listed in MANIFEST and the MANIFEST file has been saved and uploaded to the server, MakeKeywordIndex needs to be run (information below).
We cannot edit pages with cgi-scripts. If any text in a help page with a cgi-script needs to be changed, contact Maureen Morris.
Please REMEMBER TO CHECK-IN any files you have worked on - not doing so will mean they are unavailable to the next person who needs to work on it.

The Manifest file and MakeKeywordIndex

The Manifest file is a .txt document that should be updated regularly to ensure it lists ALL ACTIVE help pages. If an active page is not listed on the Manifest file, then the subject words in the metadata for that page will not be searchable nor will they appear in the index.

When a new help page is created, it must be added to the Manifest text file. When a help page is retired or deleted, remember to remove it's listing from the Manifest file.

MakeKeywordIndex is a script that is run simply by opening the following in a browser:
http://www.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/help/MakeKeywordIndex

This program reads the list of HTML files on the Manifest file, extracts the metadata from each file, and then two things happen simultaneously:

1. The subject words in the metadata tags are put into the Help index
2. The subject words in the metadata tags will produce hits when entered into the Help search system

To make changes to the Manifest file: Transfer the text file called MANIFEST (in the newhelp folder on the server) to your local computer. Open it in a plain text editor, such as Notepad. Add/delete page listings as required. Save and transfer back to the server.

After making changes to the Manifest file and uploading it back to the server, always run MakeKeywordIndex.

Check for errors that the script found and make edits as necessary until no errors occur. This will ensure that all subject metadata tags are indexed and searchable in Help.

Maintaining the document distribution system

The Documentation Committee's charge stipulates that the committee is responsible for maintaining CUL-wide instruction-related print publications, as well as the distribution system for these publications. The disitribution system is also used for some publications created by other committees and units (Access Services and Library Administration, for example).

Checklist for newly created or updated print publications:

Upload WORD and PDF versions of the publication to the DCpubs directory of the documentation committee website.
Create or update links to the PDF version only on the CUL Handouts order form. This is the order form for public use.
Create or update links to both the Word and PDF versions on the page of Publications maintained by the documentation committee. This is the working repository for documentation committee publications.

Last updated: October 31, 2005