E2 Editor Doc - Buttons and Knobs

Open Thou Mine Eyes
– Psalm 119:18

But let me not be blinded on the road to Damascus
– C-Dawg

The first time you visit E2 after becoming a Content Editor (especially if you didn't know your investiture was imminent), you may be momentarily dumbfounded by all the new gadgets on the page. Some of them you may have heard of, or deduced their necessity. The meaning of some of the unforeseen items may be apparent after only a few seconds, and some you might never guess. Such was certainly the case with me. So let's look at them together. (I've included only controls that are not mentioned in the other documents you've probably read already.)

• New Writeups

  This section will probably leap out at you first, if only because it's more crowded than it once was. You will see a (h?) or (un-h!) annotation which means that the writeup is not hidden (but you can hide it), or is hidden (but you can un-hide it). I was mildly surprised by how many writeups are created hidden (not counting the daylogs, nuke requests, etc.). Because the hidden writeups do not count as part of the ten that are normally displayed, that can make the list pretty long — not to mention the fact that the ten has now changed to twenty. If it's really crimping your style, you can use the Show button at the top of the list to change the number that are displayed (still not including the hidden ones).

• Other Users

  Some users in the list will have a bracketed number following their name. It may even be in bold type. This indicates how many days have elapsed since they signed up; it's bold if less than five. It will disappear at 30 days.

• Normal writeup nodes

  At the top left there is now a cool! button, which allows you to editor cool an entire node. This has been covered in the E2 Editor Doc.

  At the top right there is an (un)note button with an accompanying input area. Here you can enter a comment which will be attached to the node and visible to other editors. A note can be attached to a node, or to an individual writeup. To put the note on a specific writeup, view that writeup by clicking on the nodetype (i.e. (idea)) in the upper left corner. These notes are available on virtually all node types (home nodes, in particular). You can see what's been happening in node notes through your notification nodelet, or on recent node notes. You are allowed and encouraged to read other editor's node notes. Putting something in a node note means that it is public knowledge among the editors, but keep in mind that this is often not information to be shared with the userbase at large.

  At the bottom of each writeup is a P, which gives you a pull down menu. This allows you to:

  • Hide or unhide a writeup (this can also be done from New Writeups).
  • Insure a writeup, so that other editors do not delete it. This is usually used when you are working with a user to fix errors. It is to some extent a holdover from days past, and is rarely used nowadays.
  • A textbox and button allowing you to remove a writeup to draft. The textbox sends a /msg to the noder; please explain clearly why you are removing the writeup, and what they should do.

  Above the blab box you now have a NN checkbox; this will put a copy of your blab message into the node notes for that writeup.

  Beneath the softlink field you have a button to create a firmlink, which will post a link at the top of the node or nodeshell directing users to another node. This is most often used for commonly confused words and phrases, to link a nodeshell to the proper spelling, and to link closely related ideas. Please try not to overuse.

  Towards the bottom of each node, there are buttons called Repair without Reordering and Repair and Reorder. Use this if a node is messed up, for who knows what reason. It may work or it may not. If you reorder, it will ensure that a definition writeup appears last, and that the other types appear in chronological order.

  Next to these are the Edit Writeup Order and Reparent Writeups links. The first allows you to change the order of writeups in a node, for example to put a lede at the top of a node, or to move a more common topic above an obscure one. Reparenting writeups allows you to move a single writeup from one node to another. Please check that you do not move a writeup to a node that already has another writeup by the same author already in it. Otherwise, the interface is pretty straightforward.

  Below this is the Change Title field, which does exactly what it says on the tin. It changes the title of the entire node, to exactly what you type in. Think before changing titles, but you are not going to break anything with a random typo.

  Below this is Node Lock. Locking a node prevents any other writeups from being added to it. We don't do this often, but the option is there.