Project Overview

Installation

The publishing URL for creating a Windows Live Writer account for the News Articles module provider at metaPost.itcrossing.com is as follows:

http://metapost.itcrossing.com/metapost.ashx?key=news articles

Unique Features

The Ventrian News Articles module provider contains a variety of unique features such as:

• Custom Publish Dates – Clicking the Set publish date allows a user to select a future publish date. The blog entry will not be visible until the date selected.
• Text Summary – The excerpt field allows a text only summary to be entered for the blog post.
• HTML Summary – If an HTML summary is desired, a user may use the Split Post feature available from the Format menu (CTRL + O + S). The region above the split post will be used as the summary and the extended region below the split post (the More line shown below) will be used as the content of the post.

• Summary Only – If no summary or extended content is added, then the content is added into the summary field. This allows content providers who use the News Articles module as a blog to easily post entries to the News Articles module.
• Add Pages – There is full support in the News Articles module for adding pages. Pages can be retrieved, added, edited, deleted, assigned to different parents and the page order can be modified all from within Windows Live Writer.
• Featured and Secure – These custom News Articles options can be set right from within Windows Live Writer using a custom section in the categories dropdown.
• Date as Expiration – Users are able to specify that the publication date should be used as the expiration date for the article. This option appears along with the Featured and Secure options in the categories dropdown.
• Draft or For Approval – For content providers who do not have approval privileges, publishing the article using the publish command in Windows Live Writer will submit the article for approval. Submitting as a draft will submit the article as a draft. Submitting as a draft allows the content provider to continue to edit the article, whereas submitting for approval (Publish in Windows Live Writer) leaves that article in a state where it can no longer be edited by the content provider.
• Auto Approval for Approvers – Any user in the approver role in News Articles can submit articles to the site without waiting for approval.