Posts Quickstart Guide Step 2: Create and publish posts

Welcome to Step 2 in the "Posts Quickstart Guide" series, giving you a "quickstart" to using posts with your Finalsite products. In this article, we’ll show you how to create and publish a post. 

---

In this Article

• Step 1: Choose your board 
• Step 2: Create a post
• Quick Tutorial: Create Posts
• Step 3: Preview and publish a post 
• Next steps: Decide how you want your posts to be read

---

Step 1: Choose your board 

• Navigate to the board you want the post to appear on.
• Click on Boards to find the list of folders and navigate to the board.

Step 2: Create a post

To get started, select the board you'd like to post on and click the green Create Post button in the top right corner.

The post creation window will open up.

In order to send a post, there are four required pieces of information that must be completed: 

• Title
• URL
• Body / External URL OR Summary
• Date

Title

 A title is required before the post can be saved.

URL 

Each post has a unique, customizable “slug” to allow links directly to it.

• URL defaults to the name of the post, with hyphens instead of spaces.
• If a post by the same name exists on the board, it will be necessary to rename the slug before publishing the post.
• You can copy a direct link URL to this post, but first, a default post page must be set for this board.
• If the URL doesn't appear, first Save the post, then click on the link icon to copy the full URL

Body Content / External Redirect URL 

Add body content, or redirect the post to an external link or resource.

• Body Content: Stay on the tab to write the content of the post, add images, hyperlink text, and add styling.
  
• External Redirect URL: Select either Resource Redirect OR External Redirect URL.
  
  • Resource Redirect: Click Browse to select an item from Resources so that when a user clicks on the post, this resource will open automatically. 
  • External Redirect URL: Enter the address of the destination site in the field. Select the Open in New Window/Tab checkbox to have the link open in its own window when clicked on. 

Summary

Some will choose to display a Summary instead of Body Content on a Composer page. Use the text area in the Summary section to write a short description of the post content. This content can also be displayed separately from the body content in Composer Post elements.

Plain-text summary

The Plain-text Summary field can accept text-only descriptions that accompany the post in RSS feed readers and email alerts. This is automatically derived from the content entered in the Summary field, but it can be edited separately.

The Plain-text summary of a post is shown to users who subscribe to a board via its RSS feed. For more about Posts subscriptions, see Subscribe to post updates.

Date

At the top of the settings side of the screen, there are three different fields for dates to be chosen: Start, Featured Until, and Expire.

• Start sets when the post will become visible on the website. Posts are not visible to end users before they reach their Start date.
• Featured Until is optional.
  • If you enter a date here, the post will be marked as Featured from the Start date up to when the Featured Until date is reached.
  • Composer Post elements can be configured to display Featured posts on site pages.
  • Any post with a Featured Until date set will appear in any corresponding Featured Post elements during the selected time frame.
• Expire controls when a post will be archived and removed from site pages.
  • Expired posts cannot be displayed in a Composer element. An expired post is invisible to end users, but still remains accessible on the back end in Posts and can be re-published if desired.

Configure other options

There are other options that can be configured to display a certain way in a Post element, as well as some conveniences such as the ability to Share to Social Media. To learn more about settings, click to the subsection, "Configure other options" in the longer article, "Create and publish a post." You may want to wait to utilize these until you have mastered the basics of the Posts module, first. 

 

Step 3: Preview and publish a post 

On the bottom toolbar, there are several icons that allow you to take some quick actions, such as:

• manage comments (if enabled), 
• move a post to a different board,
• delete a post,
• preview a post,
• and either view the status of the post, or save/publish/update it.
  • If you don't see one of these icons, save your post to make them appear.

See what a post will look like when finalized. To preview the post with the theme applied:

• Click Update to save your changes before selecting the eyeball in the bottom right corner to Preview this post. A Default Board Post Page must be created and connected before you will be able to preview the post in Composer.
• Styles will not be reflected in the Posts content editor because styles come from the theme which is applied in Composer.
• When a post is viewed via the Preview button in the bottom right corner, styles will be visible as this post will open in another tab in Composer with that site's theme applied.

Once you are ready to publish your post, click Update. If no date is selected, the post will publish immediately. Or you can Schedule your post to publish at a specified date and time.

Next steps: Decide how you want your posts to be read

The beauty of the Posts module is its flexibility. The next article will show you the options available for how visitors can read and engage with your posts. Go straight to the article, "Posts Quickstart Guide Step 3: How do you want your posts to be read?"