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From Livesretold.co.uk
Contents |
Becoming a Member
Members are entitled to contribute life stories to Lives Retold UK, and to edit the life stories they have contributed. Lives Retold UK is currently in its development phase. When launched, there will be a one-off membership subscription of about £125, which covers one life story, including its permanent hosting. An additional one-off subscription of £125 will required for each additional life story. A part of each subscription will be placed in an endowmnent fund. The intention is to use the interest from this endowment to maintain Lives Retold UK on a permanent basis.
If you would like to participate as a free trial Member, without charge, during this development phase, please email Alex Reid, at reid 'at' dsl.pipex.com.
Sacred Rules
There are four sacred rules which all Members must observe:
a. Members must only edit the pages which they have been allocated. Any editing of other pages in Lives Retold UK will lead to termination of membership.
b. New accounts (for new Members) and new pages (for new life stories) are allocated by the administration; they must not be created by Members.
c. The heading of each life story must take a standard form, as follows:
Life story of Jocelyn Creswell started by his mother, Kate Creswell, in January 2008.
Related life stories:
Great grandfather: Reid.Philip.12.1.1901
Grandfather: Reid.Alexander.11.1.1941
Uncle: Reid.Philip.30.1.1989
d. All Chapter headings and section headings must be in upper and lower case, not in all caps.
How to find a life story
Click on the Members navigation button on the left of the page. This lists the Members and their life stories. Or you can use the search window on the left of the page and click Search.
General Tips
a. Get started. Break the ice by entering a thousand words or so. You can always change it later, and it will give you a feel of the process.
b. Be highly selective. Record only highlights, memorable moments, and key events. When transcribing a letter or diary, select only the most interesting extracts. Be equally selective with images.
b. Take it easy. Once started on a life story, you need be in no rush to finish. It will always be there, and can be added to or edited at any time. You might like to get cardboard box and put potential source material (diaries, letters, photos) into it. You can then do more work on the life story from time to time at your convenience.
c. Tell your friends. Tell friends and relations that you are writing a life story, and email them the URL of the website page. They will be interested, and they may have material which could be added. Also please encourage them to write life stories of their own!
Writing text
a. Click 'log in' at the top right of the page, and log in with your User Name and Password.
b. Find the life story you want to edit by clicking on 'Members' on the left of the screen, and then clicking on the life story.
c. At the top of the life story page you will see a tab called 'edit'. Click on this, and an editing window will open.
d. Type away. Insertion and deletion is done with the cursor as in any word processing program. Do a double carriage return between paragraphs. If you want a simple line break, type br enclosed by <> at the end of the line. Do remember to click 'Save page' at the bottom of the page before you move away from this page, otherwise you will lose your work.
e. For bold, italics, or for a Chapter heading, select the text with your cursor, then click the appropriate button in the row along the top of the editing window. The software automatically creates a contents list, at the top of the page, listing the Chapters.
f. We recommend breaking a life story down into about a dozen Chapters. Chapter headings are created using the 'level 2 headline' button at the top of the editing window (a large capital A). If you wish to break Chapters down into sections, we suggest that this is done with a section heading in bold. Chapter and section headings must be in upper and lower case; not in all caps.
g. We suggest that if you are quoting text, for example from a diary or letter, you put it in italics.
h. Saving pages. Always click 'Save page' at the bottom of the screen after you have finished doing some editing. If you click to another page in Lives Retold UK before clicking 'Save page' you will lose your work.
Life story length
Each life story may contain up to 50,000 words and 250 images. We recommend that if you wish to exceed 25,000 words or 125 images you should contact us at reid 'at' dsl.pipex.com to request a second page. Your life story will then cover two pages, like a two-volume book. We recommend this because a page of more than about 25,000 words can be slow to load.
Links
There are buttons above the editing box for creating links internal to Lives Retold UK (Ab) and for creating external links (globe). In the case of internal links, you must type in the exact page name, using the correct upper and lower case letters.
Images: standard layout
a. Our standard layout is shown at this page: Demonstration page: standard layout. All images are placed to the right, and are 175 pixels wide. To get the image code, go to Demonstration page: standard layout, and click the 'view source' tab at the top of the page. You can then copy and paste the image code into your own page. You will need to change the image name to the name of your image (taking care to use upper or lower case as required) and you will need to change the caption to the caption of your choice.
b. We recommend that you place all the image code (whether for one or more images) immediately below the relevant Chapter Heading or Section Heading. This will produce a group of images at the start of each Chapter or Section, as shown on the Demonstration page.
c. As well as adding the image code to your text, you need to upload each image to the Lives Retold UK website. This is done by clicking the 'upload file' button in the Toolbox to the left. Before uploading you may want to crop the image to eliminate waste space.
d. You will find that if you click on any image in a life story you will get a full size image.
e. We suggest the following sources of images: your own scanned photos, letters, and other memorabilia; your own digital photos; and images from the web. Google Images is a good source of web images.
g. We recommend that all images, including black and white photographs, are scanned in colour. They look much more authentic.
Images: advanced layout
Please note that the advanced layout is not recommended for use by Mac users, or by users of non-Microsoft browsers such as Safari or Firefox, as images may appear in the wrong places.
a. For those more ambitious editors, who are using Windows and Internet Explorer, we have an advanced layout.
b. Our advanced layout places larger images to the right, and smaller images to the left. It is shown at this page: Demonstration page: advanced layout. The right hand images are 240 pixels wide, and the left hand images are 125 pixels wide. To get the image code, go to this page Demonstration page: advanced layout, click the 'view source' tab at the top of the page, and copy and paste the image code.
c. Place the image code immediately above the point in the text at which you wish the top of the image to appear. We recommend that if images are separated by only a few lines it looks neater to group them together as a single block of images.
d. As well as adding the image code to your text, you need to upload each image to the Lives Retold UK website. This is done by clicking the 'upload file' button in the Toolbox to the left. Before uploading you may want to crop the image to eliminate waste space.
Gallery
A gallery of additional images can be added at the end of the life story as shown in this page: Demonstration page: standard layout. To get the gallery code, go to this page: Demonstration page: standard layout, click on the 'view source' tab at the top of the page, and copy and paste the gallery code. You will need to put in your own image names (taking care to use upper and lower case as required) and your own captions.
Contact
Any Member who is having difficulty, or needs advice, should please email: reid 'at' dsl.pipex.com.
Alex Reid
Editor, Lives Retold UK
27 Millington Road
Cambridge CB3 9HW
UK.
