UPM SaveNew

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UPM SaveNew is a handy Textpattern plugin that can save time for the web designer and can bring consistency to a multi-user environment. Written by long-time TXP developer Mary Fredborg, it is small and easily installed, like all Textpattern plugins. Just copy and paste it and that's it - there are no further attributes or things to tweak. The UPM SaveNew plugin and further info is available from Mary's Utter Plush Textpattern plugins page. It simply adds a Save New button to the Write tab and to the Forms tab. This brings some nice benefits.

For the Web Designer

When creating a site the web designer or site builder will want extra forms besides the default ones. For example, I use a form called head which contains tags used in the head of my web pages. If I make one change to the form all the pages on the site will also change because they all use the form called head. The home page needs to be slightly different, however, so I use a slightly different form. To make it I simply open the head form and click Save New. Voila! A new form called head_copy! I then alter a couple of things, change the name to headhome (because it is more meaningful), click Save and my new form is done. And of course put form="headhome" in the default page to use the new form.

In A Multi-User Environment

If your site has different authors writing articles for publication, you probably want some consistency in the way their articles are formatted. So you create an article template, and UPM SaveNew makes it easy for them to follow it. Let's say, for example, you want everyone to use the same sizes of headings and subheadings, to remember where to use bold text and where to use italics, and to use two types of ordered lists. You write a sample article which uses these elements exactly as required and save it with a title such as News Dept Template. You then instruct your news writers to open the template, change the title to a new one of their choice, change the Status to Draft (or go into More and change the date to a future one if they want to be able to preview the article) and click Save New. They are then free to write their article, replacing your sample text with their own, copying and pasting where necessary, all in the certainty that they are working to your guidelines. When done they change Status to Live or set the timestamp to now, Save, and the article is published.

A particular section of your site may require specific code in a custom field and a particular article image. With UPM SaveNew there's no need to leave it to memory. Just write an article with the correct settings and save it. Your writers can just change the title, the Status or the date/time of publication, and click Save New. As above, they are then free to write their article knowing that the correct fields have been included.

UPM SaveNew is an easy-to-use Textpattern plugin that brings consistency in a multi-user environment and is handy for the web designer.

Comments

  1. Lawrence Salberg #

    No offense, but I don’t think this will fly. Your first example about the forms is (hopefully) just as much work for any developer as just Ctrl-C/Ctrl-X into a new blank form. Can’t see any time-savings or benefit there.

    Your second example shows some promise, since clients can be loons. But because they are loons, they will, quite likely, over-write the original “template” regardless of what instruction they are given.

    However, I think if you integrate this plug-in such that the developer can flag certain articles as “templates” (maybe using a custom_field) so they can’t be over-written by clients (users having a certain privilege or lower, i.e. copy editor). Maybe that the regular “save” button is disabled on those template articles and only your “save new” button shows.

    Of course, this would be easier if TextPattern would recognize that a large handful of T/P users are web designers creating sites for clients and implement a default “client” user privileges.

  2. Mike Dennis #

    Peter

    I’m curious why you suggest to set the time-stamp for the future as opposed to using draft?

  3. Peter #

    That’s out of habit, Mike :) I like to use Live and a future date so I can fully preview the article in the browser (View becomes available next to the title). Draft doesn’t allow me to do this because the Preview only shows the main text. But both ways are OK, so I’ve amended the article slightly. Thanks for reminding me!

  4. Mike Dennis #

    It’s not a bad habit :)

    I tend to live on the edge. I don’t use draft often, and usually don’t preview until I go live. Then proof after the fact. A terrible habit. So I forgot view isn’t available for draft in 4.0.6 and before.

    Plus I’ve been running svn, so for a couple of months I’ve had a view link with my draft

    Likin’ the articles. Keep up the good work.

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