This guide will give you an overview of how articles should be styled on OMG! Ubuntu! and OMG! Chrome! Note that for the latter items in orange instead appear in red.
Bold Openings
Open your post with one sentence in bold – and remind yourself that here is where a hook that inspires readers to continue reading is a must.
The opening line is the one part of your post that will almost certainly be read.
Following on from your opening line should be a sentence of two giving brief background/fill-in detail to anyone who might not know what you’re talking about. And always assume that people don’t.
Should people not read past the opening they should still know the basics about what the news or features is about.
Slug
Before publishing make sure that the slug – “permalink” – is comprehensible. Hit the ‘Edit’ button to adjust it.
In-post headings H3
All in-post headings are orange, and use the ‘H3’ heading style. Depending on your browser/OS you can normally hit Ctrl+3 to toggle this type on and off.
Subheadings, used to add more detail
H4 headings are used as sub-headings within a main heading to clarify points, or break down content.
Shortcut: Super/Ctrl+4
Bullet Lists
Where there is a lot of information to distil it’s easier to present it as a bullet-list. These take less time to read and are easy to scan.
Example usages:
- System specifications
- Application features
- A “point-by-point” recap of an on-going story
If your bullet list appears between two big chunks of text it’s helpful for readers if you bold all items in it.
Numbered Lists
Same as above
Quotes
Ideally quotes should be “in-line”.
“This,” Joey-Elijah Sneddon says, “is to help the brain understand them in context.” And context matters.
When you have a really good, short and snappy quote it’s important to highlight it. You can use the ‘quote’ button to make it center:
“..important to highlight it…”
Where you have an overly wordy quote, or a paragraph, do not use the ‘quote’ feature. Instead ‘indent’ it.
Joey provides more information on that:
“This is an example of a block quote. Remember to put quote marks before and after, bold and italicise it.
Attribution is usually not needed as you’ll make this clear in the a preceding sentence.”
Pull Quotes
To have quotes appear within text at the left or right use ‘[pull_quote_position] QUOTE [/pull_quote_position]‘ where position can be ‘left’ or ‘right’.
Examples:
“Aliquam praesent ac placerat massa.”
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Praesent ac placerat massa. Maecenas aliquet dolor vel lacus viverra quis ornare enim vestibulum. Mauris pellentesque tortor eget sapien aliquet cursus. Pellentesque et pulvinar risus. Pellentesque auctor nulla quis est commodo at dignissim massa tempus. Cras ac suscipit risus. Quisque hendrerit lorem et lacus sollicitudin tristique. Suspendisse id neque felis. Integer nec ante non urna facilisis luctus id sit amet mauris. Vestibulum porttitor imperdiet rutrum.
“Aliquam aliquet congue arcu a ultrices.”
Nunc in cursus augue. Aliquam aliquet congue arcu a ultrices. Mauris volutpat adipiscing odio et blandit. Mauris auctor imperdiet tempor. Praesent posuere nisl in nunc porttitor euismod. Pellentesque faucibus, sapien ac sollicitudin vehicula, nulla massa vestibulum turpis, non vulputate elit tortor id dui. Suspendisse eget scelerisque nunc. Fusce hendrerit enim egestas sapien ornare ut blandit turpis congue.
Images
Article Images
Images should be less than 100kb (where possible) and in the .jpeg format.
Although the website automatically displays images at a relative width to the browser size it’s helpful if you embed larger images at 750px. This ensures that they appear as clearly as possibly in the post body.
Captions
Feel free to enter a caption where relevant, though do not use a caption if you are opening a post with an image. It muddles the opening line.
Featured Images
When you visit the main page of OMG! Chrome! you’ll see that all posts show a rectangular ’tile’.
This ‘featured tile’ is important for a number of reasons:
- The main page gives prominence to them
- They are the default ‘thumbnail’ shown when people share an article on Facebook and Google+
Hit the ‘Featured Image’ link in the right-hand sidebar to choose an image. You can make your own custom thumbnails (size: 350px by 200px).
You can also choose a pre-defined tile by searching through the media library.
Galleries
Tbf
Excerpts
The very first post on the main page will display a short post description.
ou can write a custom paragraph or, to save time, copy and paste the first sentences from your article into the ‘Excerpts’ box before publishing.
Don’t see an Excerpts box? Hit the ‘Screen Options’ button at the top of the page to enable it.
One-Line
All posts should contain a ‘one line summary’ entered into the corresponding box. This is a concise expansion on what the article is about.
So, for a post titled “10 Things To Do After Installing Ubuntu 13.04″ your one-line might read as one of the following:
‘Tips on getting the most out of your new desktop’‘Raring to go: Our Post-Upgrade Checklist”
Notice how they all avoid repeating words already in the headline.
Categories and Tags
Don’t go mad selecting categories. Don’t call something an ‘Editorial’ unless it is; don’t call an app update a ‘Review’ unless you’re using the review box, etc.
By default all posts will be marked as News unless you select something else. The main page displays one tag (the earliest alphabetically) on the Featured Tile image.
For tags, try to use pre-existing ones where possible (as you type a tag existing suggestions will appear). Try to avoid tagging a post with 15 variations of the same word (markshuttleworth, mark shuttleworth, mark, shuttleworth, etc) and resist the urge to use generalised terms like ‘linux’ or ‘ubuntu’. It’s an Ubuntu site, so these are mostly a given.
Reviews
For reviews make sure you use the Review Box. This is located underneath the post body.
Review Checklist:
- Check ‘Enable Review’ box
- Add Criteria Headers & Scores
- Do not select ‘Percentages’ as rating type
- Add Header
- Add One/two word summary
- Add Short conclusion
- Choose whether the box appears at the bottom of the post or in the upper right
Buttons
We have 7 separate buttons, each has a specific use:
To insert a button hit the speech bubble icon on the toolbar. Fill out the appropriate fields (making sure to enter _blank in target if you’re linking to something ‘off site’) and then press the button you wish to insert.
AFTER the code, which will resemble that below, has been embedded you will need to give your button a title:
[type url="http://domain.com" target="_blank" title="a title for your link"] Button Title Goes Here [/type]
Also: Center align your button code before publishing.
Videos
To embed a video from YouTube or Vimeo simply paste the URL link into your post with no formatting. WordPress does the rest.
Formatting
Code formatting
Code snippets should be styled with the ‘Preformatted‘ option.
Source Attribution Formatting
Use the ‘Source’ box:
Citations
insert cite numbers by highlighting number and pressing the x2 button. Insert cite source at the end of the article, right aligned and in H6.
Links
Ensure you have enter an alt tag description.