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How do I change the date after I edit an article?

Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2012 8:00 pm
by kelsea823
How do I change the date after I edit an article?

We want our newsletter articles to show up in a specific order with the Spiritual Message showing first.

The only way I can figure out how to keep them in a specific order is by setting all the articles up in the order I want them in and then going in and editing the articles every month instead of creating new articles. (New articles show up on top and I don't want them too.)

Our first newsletter was created on 09 Dec 2012. Our Relief Society secretary just edited the information to show January's information and it changed to show that she was the new contributor, but it still had the old 09 Dec. 2012 date.

It would be nice if the date changed when the article was edited last or if we could manually change the date.

Let me know if I'm missing something. We don't want people logging on thinking it's old information because it shows the first create date and not the updated edited date.

Thanks!

Kelly

Re: How do I change the date after I edit an article?

Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2012 8:13 pm
by aebrown
kelsea823 wrote:We want our newsletter articles to show up in a specific order with the Spiritual Message showing first.

The only way I can figure out how to keep them in a specific order is by setting all the articles up in the order I want them in and then going in and editing the articles every month instead of creating new articles. (New articles show up on top and I don't want them too.)

Our first newsletter was created on 09 Dec 2012. Our Relief Society secretary just edited the information to show January's information and it changed to show that she was the new contributor, but it still had the old 09 Dec. 2012 date.
Currently the Newsletter works like most blogs do -- new posts appear on top. That's a very standard way of operating that is familiar to many people. It sounds like you want the sorting to work differently.

It seems to me that all you have to do is create your new newsletter articles in reverse order. For example, if you want them to appear in the order Spiritual Message, Recipes, Calendar Items, Birthdays, then you just have to make sure that for each month you create the Birthdays article first, followed by Calendar Items, Recipes, and finally Spiritual Message. Using such a technique would put the articles in the order you want, and would allow you to keep past months' newsletters on file (which your current technique of editing existing articles does not).
kelsea823 wrote:It would be nice if the date changed when the article was edited last...
Many people specifically don't want the date to change when the article is edited. Doing so would mean that a simple edit to fix a typo would change the article order. It's difficult to imagine how that could ever be desirable.
kelsea823 wrote:... or if we could manually change the date.
That would be a nice new feature. I'd certainly appreciate it, since it would give us control over those cases where we want to manage the order of articles.

But since it is a new feature, its implementation would have to be prioritized with all the other requested features, bug fixes, and other applications.

Re: How do I change the date after I edit an article?

Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2012 9:22 pm
by kelsea823
Thank you for your quick reply. I'm not a blogger, so I didn't know that was why it was set up to post the newest articles first. I thought it would be more like a word document that you could cut and paste and move articles around.

We would like our newsletter to start with the Spiritual Message first, followed by articles by the High Priests, Relief Society, Elders Quorum etc.

So I set up the initial newsletter like that and because all the organizations are responsible for their own monthly updates, I don't have control over when the specific organizations will update their information and in what order they will do it. Hence, it seems that it will always be out of order if we start from scratch each month with a new newsletter. So I thought it would be easier to just make an initial newsletter in the order we want it and then update it.

I would like to keep a copy of the old newsletter however. I was just copying the articles and keeping them in a word document.

A possible solution to keep the order and also keep the prior months newsletter would be for me to set up a new month in the order we want and then just let the organizations go in and edit the articles to add the new months information.

Does that make sense?

This is our wards first attempt at using the website for our newsletter. So I am starting from scratch and I am new to this and I'm not a blogger so it's been a bit confusing to me. Is there a place I could see an example of a newsletter with a couple of months data so I could see how it works? I feel like I'm experimenting at this point and making it up as I go along.

Thanks again!

Kelly

Re: How do I change the date after I edit an article?

Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2012 12:41 pm
by aebrown
kelsea823 wrote:A possible solution to keep the order and also keep the prior months newsletter would be for me to set up a new month in the order we want and then just let the organizations go in and edit the articles to add the new months information.

Does that make sense?
Yes, I think that this would be a very workable solution to achieve the ordering you want for your newsletter.
kelsea823 wrote:Is there a place I could see an example of a newsletter with a couple of months data so I could see how it works?
The only newsletters you have access to are your ward's and your stake's. So if your stake has set up a useful newsletter, that might give you ideas, but otherwise I think you're on your own. But you can certainly counsel with other members of your ward (particularly other contributors to your newsletter) to see if they have suggestions.

You also might consider whether the specific ordering and formatting you are currently trying to achieve is really a requirement or if some other approach might be simpler but still achieve a good result. As you brainstorm with others you might come up with new ideas along those lines.

Re: How do I change the date after I edit an article?

Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2012 12:50 pm
by drepouille
Do you think the term "Newsletter" is confusing to members? I can understand their confusion if they think of the Newsletter as a document (one for each month) with several articles. I think the old term "News and Information" might be less confusing, but we live with the hand we are dealt.

Dana

Re: How do I change the date after I edit an article?

Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2012 1:33 pm
by kelsea823
Thanks for your replies. I set January up so that each organization can contribute to a new months format each month in order. I guess we will go with that and see if anyone has any suggestions to make it easier or better.

The term "Newsletter" was really confusing to me. I was supposed to set it up as a newsletter with new updated articles from our different organizations each month. Kind of a 1 stop shop for ward members to get all the information going on in the ward and being able to print out articles to take Visiting Teaching etc.

Anyone else have ideas what they do with their newsletter?

Thanks!

Kelly

Re: How do I change the date after I edit an article?

Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2012 2:27 pm
by aebrown
kelsea823 wrote:Anyone else have ideas what they do with their newsletter?
Here are some things we've done with our stake newsletter:
  • Forms (such as reimbursement form)
  • Directions to and information about our regional recreation property
  • Announcements about upcoming events (e.g., stake conference, temple dedication)
  • Helpful resource materials (for example, in the area of combating pornography, lists of helpful websites, computer security checklists, filtering software, etc.)
  • Information about our local home storage center (hours, prices, available commodities, etc.)
  • Recipes for using food storage items
  • Special messages from the stake presidency
  • Stake goals for the year
  • Report on events (such as a recent youth conference)
All these are categorized so that people can focus on a particular topic.

Re: How do I change the date after I edit an article?

Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:49 am
by kelsea823
Great ideas! Thank You! Right now we are focused on more of a traditional newsletter outline with each organization's information of lesson plans, activities, etc. I would love to add some of your ideas.

Where did you get the info for things like the helpful resource materials and food storage recipes?

Re: How do I change the date after I edit an article?

Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2013 11:34 am
by aebrown
kelsea823 wrote:Where did you get the info for things like the helpful resource materials and food storage recipes?
The helpful resource materials came mostly from documents created by various speakers in the adult session of our last stake conference.

The food storage recipes came from our stake provident living specialist.

I had to do some formatting and fixing of links in those documents, then I created PDF versions and posted them as attachments to Newsletter articles.

Re: How do I change the date after I edit an article?

Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2013 5:31 pm
by kelsea823
I haven't tried to do attachments yet. It looks like some people have had problems doing so. Those are good ideas for attachments - thanks!