Training Aide

From the Barnabas home page / main menu, click Log In under User in the right hand column.

Your user ID is your first initial followed by your complete last name, except for Joe Dean, who gets to use both his initials.

Change your password

The first thing you need to do is to change your password. Click on Preferences under User and just enter your new password two times. Then click submit. This will change your password. Please remember your new password.

Log Off

Click on Log Off on the right side near the bottom of the Tools Menu.

Terminology

Site � the whole MDPC Barnabas site located on EditMe.com. The URL is listed above.

Menu � the list of toolbox topics found on the left side of every page.

Tools Menu � the list of actions and items you can do. Found on the right side of every page. If you see Show Tools on the right side, that means the tools are hidden. Click on Show Tools to make them appear.

Main Page � the first page of each topic. The page you go to if you click on a topic name from the Menu.

Page � one page of information about a topic. A page can be lots of writing, a list of links, a list of questions, or combinations of any of the above.

Link � a way to reference something. You can reference a document you have attached, a web site that belongs to another church that provides information about your topic, another page in our Barnabas toolbox, or a picture you have that shows something that the new church should see.

Attachment - a document created in another piece of software (Word document, Excel spreadsheet, a database, picture, or image, etc.) that you want to reference or use as an example.

Now what? - Getting started

Each topic has already been set up on the documentation site. They are located on the left side of this page, under the Menu title. Click on the topic you wish to write or read about and you will go to that page.

If nothing has been written about the topic, the page will contain only one or two sentences about the topic, the title line, and the framework for the topic. Each of the pieces of the framework (the red words with the funny [ ] around them) is really the beginnings of a new page - waiting for you to give it life.

Click on the page you want to start with and begin typing in the box.

What are all those buttons at the top of the box?

They are the style buttons � bold, italics, underline; alignment � left, center, right; text and background colors; bullets and numbers; undo and redo; are probably the ones you�ll use the most. They function just like those buttons do in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, WordPerfect, etc.

How do I edit a page that is already there?

Go to the page you want to edit and click Edit on the right hand tool menu under Page.

If 'Show Tools' is the only thing you see on the right side of the page, click it and the tools menu will appear.

How do I add a page?

In the place where you want to refer to the new page, type Who Should Not Be On the Core Team? using the following rules:

Use [[ and ]] at the beginning and end of your page name to denote a link to a new page
Page titles should be written in this way: CapitalFirstLetterFollowedBySmallLettersInEachWord. When you save and the new page title is converted to a link, it will appear on the page like this [CapitalFirstLetterFollowedBySmallLettersInEachWord]. This means you have a new page ready to go.
Be really specific. For example, every topic will have a page named BestPractices. Name yours Finance Best Practices so it will differentiate from others� pages.

What if I mess up?

If you just mess up typing, delete it and start again.

If you want to go back to a previous version of a page, call Beth and she will restore it. The system keeps the previous ten versions of each page so it's pretty easy to restore if you don't have to go too far back.

How do I delete a page I don�t need?

Click on the box next to Mark this page for deletion? And then Save. This will delete the page.

How do I link to a Word document, or excel spreadsheet, etc.?

On the tools menu, click on Attachments under Page. Then click Browse next to the File 1 box. This will let you access the hard drive of the computer you are on and, if you are at the church, the church network. Find the file you want to link and then click on it in the Browse window.

If you need to add more than one file at a time, repeat the above process, up to five files, and then click Submit.

This will link the files to your page as attachments.

If you want to put a link in the text of your page, not just leave it as an attachment at the bottom, click on the selection box next to Insert Link or Image into Selection. Then save the page.

How do I link to an external web site?

In order to link to an external web site, you must know the complete URL, i.e., http://www.mdpc.org.

Click on the word(s) you want to be the link. For example, if your sentence reads: The MDPC website provides an excellent example of . . . . you would highlight "MDPC website" by dragging over it.

Then click on the link image above. The one that looks like infinity or a link from a chain is the right one. A pop-up box will ask for the URL (the web address).

Type it in or if you don�t want to do all that typing, go to the page you want to reference in another window or tab, Edit/Copy the URL and then CNTL-V to paste it into the URL window on our site.

What about version control? (What does version control mean?)

Version control means keeping track of changes that have been made to the system and to any given page.

The system keeps copies of the ten most recent versions of a page. This means that every time you save, you are making a new version.

So try to save after you have made significant changes or after a work session not with every word change you make.

We can roll back to any of the previous ten saved versions to retrieve old work, if we need to. Call Beth if you need help with this.

What is the security on this site?

The overall site has public read, authorized user write access. This means that anyone on the internet who finds our site can read what we have written. They can also leave a comment on any page. Only those who have been authorized can make changes to a page. All of us on the Barnabas team are authorized to make changes.

One exception, the developer guide is administrator write, authorized read. This means that you, as an authorized user, can read it, but only system administrators can update it.

What is I only have a paper copy of something?

Try to get an electronic copy of it first. This is much easier to manage. If you only can get a paper copy, we can have it scanned at the church and then link it to your page.

The reason we want electronic copies, if possible, is so that the new church can then take the sample or template and modify it to fit their needs. If we have to scan something, they can look at it for ideas but they can�t use it as it is or edit it for themselves.

What if I can't remember a page name to link to it?

PLEASE try to name your pages according to the following rules:

Topic name followed by piece of the framework or sub-topic.

For example: Finance Best Practices, Child Protection Best Practices, Leadership Best Practices, and Office Services Best Practices are all separate pages.

If you mistype a page name as you are creating it, it may just get lost. Oh, well. That's why the easiest way to create a page is to reference it first on the page you are going from. Then you can just click on the bracketed link to create the new page.

How do I print?

First, hide the tools. Click on Hide Tools on the right side.

Then go to File, Print. This will print the page exactly as you see it. Yes, right now it prints the menu on each page. We are working on fixing that.

How do I work on my topic with my partner?

Option 1: Work together in the same room on the same computer. You can do this at home or at the church. Unless there is a class scheduled, the computer lab at church is a fine place to work. We also have a couple of computers down in the Barnabas space under the Sanctuary.

Option 2: One person be the primary writer and the other offer comments or edit. The primary writer can work from wherever they want to. The second person can look at the pages and offer comments via the comment box, a phone call, emails, or they can just make changes.

If you choose to allow both parties to actively work on one page, please work out a way to make sure you are both happy with the results.

Version control will keep track of changes if you save.

Why can�t I just use the Back button when I am editing something?

The system assumes that you want to go back to editing the page you were just working on, instead of going back to the previous page you were viewing. Then, for some reason, it gets stuck. Your best bet is to click on your topic again in the Menu and go back to the main page for your topic. Sorry. A system quirk.

What are the Menu and Site tools for in the Tools menu?

Those tools are used by the administrators to manage the system. We will use those when we need to add or change topics, change security settings, add new users, and things like that.

Last Modified 10/4/04 11:10 PM

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