Enter your User Name and Password in the boxes under “USER LOGIN” at the bottom left column.

If you did not log out from your last visit, the site might still consider you “logged in”. If so, rather than fillable boxes, you will see your User Name as the heading of a menu at the top left:

USER NAME
* My account
* Create content
* Administer
* Log out

To add a posting to the front page, click on “Create Content”.

Then, in the main column, under Create Content, click on “Story”.

Give the post a title in the “Title” box, and type or paste your content into the “Body” box.

Select all appropriate tags from the “Committee Tags” list. The minutes and committee pages depend on these tags being marked. Note: There's a “Board” tag not directly accessible to through the menu system for stuff like these instructions.

In the body, web and email addresses will automatically turn into links. Line breaks are automatic, too. If you paste in something with invisible line breaks (e.g., from an email), you might have to delete/backspace and replace those invisible breaks with a regular space. Make the lines fill the width of the “Body” box.

You can add some styles to the body text with basic HTML tags. A basic rule to remember is that HTML tags must appear in pairs: an opening tag and a closing tag. Tags are always enclosed by a “<” and a “>”, like this: <TAGNAME>. Closing tags are exactly like the opening tag with a / before the tag name, like this: </TAGNAME>.

So, to add style to text, you would type:
<TAGNAME> Body text here </TAGNAME>

Replace TAGNAME with these (they can be lowercase):
for bold the tag is “strong”, like this: <strong>text here</strong>
for italic the tag is “em”, like this: <em>text here</em>

There are plenty more, but those two should meet most needs. Note that these work only in the body text. HTML tags do not work in the title, or other fields you might encounter.

Click the “Preview” button at the bottom to review your work. Your posting as entered will appear at the top of the column. Make any desired changes in the “Title” or “Body” boxes under the preview section (scroll down to reach them if necessary), and click “Preview” again to verify. When satisfied, click “Save”. Your post will then appear on the site’s main page.

To edit an existing post, click on its title. You will see two tabs beneath the title: “View” and “Edit”. Clicking the “Edit” tab will allow you to make changes (and preview them) just like when creating a new post. Making changes to a post will not change its position on the main page. The most recent creation, not modification, will always be at the top.

Once created, a posted story can also be deleted by clicking on the “Delete” button. The site will ask you to confirm this action before removing the story.

PICTURES AND ATTACHMENTS

To add an picture to your post, click on "File attachments". Click and browse to the file on your computer, then click Attach. When it is done uploading, you'll have some options. Leave "List" checked if you want the file to have a text link at the bottom of the post you're creating. In "Description" enter the caption for the picture (it can be different than the file name).

Preview and save as for a plain post.

To attach PDFs or other kinds of documents, use the same routine as for pictures. A post can have multiple attachments, and you can use the little cross-hair icon at the left of the attachment list to drag attachments into a different order.

To delete a picture or attachment, click on the delete checkbox in the attachment list and save the post. You will be asked to confirm the deletion.

COMMENTS

To enable comments by visitors, click on "Comment settings". Move the radio button to Read/Write, and save the post. Each comment when added will have clickable links beneath it to edit or delete as necessary.

Every comment also has a “reply” link. Use this link to reply to a particular comment (or reply to a previous reply), and create what are called threaded discussions. Each sub-thought can lead to its own stream of ideas.

CLICKABLE TEXT

To make some text into a link, like this, you need to use another HTML tag. It's called an “anchor”. The easiest method is to cut and paste the entire following statement into your post, then modify as needed.

Text begins here, <a href="HTTP://URL_YOU_WANT_TO_LINK_TO" target="blank">your text to become a link</a>, then the rest of the text.

Use the preview button to check your post (you can try the link from the preview). This is computer code, and a missing character or misplaced space can throw everything off. When somebody develops a WYSIWYG editor for Drupal, all this gets much easier.