Uploading a blog to the website
Instructions
Log in to T4 and navigate to Home » www.derby.ac.uk » Blog » Posts » [Year] eg ‘21’ » [Month] eg ‘Jan’
Creating the section
Create a new section beneath the relevant year for the blog article, eg ‘Top tips for new online students’
Name should reflect the name of the blog article
Untick show in navigation option
Set the output URI to ensure URL won't break if the page title changes - this must start with '/blog/' eg ‘/blog/name-of-blog-here'
Hero
Add a pattern or image hero
Main heading (h1) in the hero should be the same as the section name
If the blog has a short intro paragraph, add this content to the Feature block
Content
Add a text block
This is the main body of the blog article
You can break up the text by adding image embeds/image groups, impact quotes, logos or key stat content types. A new text block would need to be added for further text after any of these components
Headings may be added to structure the blog article, particularly if it is a longer article - after the main blog post title (h1), headings start at h2 and work their way down from there
Any links to pages on the University website should be added using the ‘Insert section link’ option in T4, whereas external links can be added by the ‘Insert/edit external link’ option
Section config
Add section config from the content list
The section config contains all of the setup and configuration data for our blog posts. It is important that this is completed correctly or blog posts will not function as expected. The following fields must be filled in. You can ignore any fields in the section config which are not directly referenced as follows:
Add an abstract, this should be relevant and unique to the blog article, typically a summary of the article content
Add a thumbnail image rectangle. Export from ThirdLight using Website imagery – thumbnail rectangle, or crop your image to 2000x1500px. Pass through TinyJPG and upload to the appropriate folder in the media library, eg Categorised > derby.ac.uk > Blog > Posts > 2021 > Jan
Ensure the Content type tag is set to ‘Blog post’
If relevant, set the college(s), subject(s), research centre(s) this blog is linked to
Add the date the blog is due to be published as the ‘Start or Publish date’ eg 07 January 2021 4:25 PM (the time of day set isn’t important)
At the bottom of the Section config you will find ‘Blog category’ and ‘Author’
From the ‘Blog category’ list, select up to two categories that the blog post is most relevant to
If the blog post is written by an academic member of staff who has an existing staff profile, search and select the academic name in the ‘Author’ list (listed alphabetically by surname). If the author is not listed here, please contact the Digital Team who will create a new author profile
Call-To-Action (CTA)
If you would like to add a relevant Call-To-Action (CTA), mirror the relevant CTA from the section Home » www.derby.ac.uk » Blog » CTAs to your blog section. The CTA will mirror to the blog section and display at the bottom by default – to reposition the CTA, just drag and drop the content.
If you want the CTA to be positioned within text content, you will need to split the text into multiple text blocks so the CTA can be sandwiched between
Preview!
Finally, preview the blog and check formatting, author profile, date and related categories are pulling through correctly
Additional information about the new University Blog
Structure
The new blog resides in the “blog” section of T4 which is currently situated under Home » www.derby.ac.uk » Blog » Posts.
The Blog homepage content is located within the main “Blog” section.
Blog posts are placed in sections underneath the “Posts” section which is further divided into separate years and months. Note that the structure of the posts is purely for organisational purposes. This does not determine the actual publish date or ordering of posts, it simply makes it easier for us to find and administrate posts. Individual posts are created as sections within their publish year/month, named with the title of the blog post (see “Blog Title” for more information).
The category listings pages also sit underneath the “Blog” section. These sections are typically empty except for the code that generates the list itself and a section config file.
Generally, when migrating blog content you will not need to alter the content within the “Blog” section itself or the category sections, you will only be adding and altering sections and content that sit underneath the “Posts” section.
Blog posts
Blog posts themselves are quite simple and are made up of a minimum of three general parts:
Pattern hero
This consists of two elements, the title of the blog post, which is in the heading, and a small piece of text in the feature block. These should both be completed for every blog post.
Text block(s)/media embeds/other content
This should contain the content of the blog post. There may be more than one of these if the blog is particularly long, or split up by media content.
Section config
This contains all the meta-information for the blog. For example, what categories the blog post belongs to, the post date, the blog author, the publish date, and so on.
Thumbnail Image Rectangle
This image is used on both the homepage of the blog (for the most recent blog posts), and also in the category listings pages. Thirdlight is the preferred source of imagery, but free to use images are available on sites including:
The thumbnail image must be in 4:3 aspect ratio and must be run through TinyJPG (see General guidance)
Content-type tag
This must be set to “Blog Post” or the post will not display on the website.
Start or publish date
This must be set to the publish date of the blog post.
Blog post category
This should be set to the category or categories that the blog post belongs to. Note that we have streamlined the categories so there are fewer now than on the original blog. Use your judgement to decide which categories to place the blog in if it’s current category has been removed. You should choose a maximum of 2 categories.