Using Noticias

On this page Event or News item? Posting an event Posting a news item Adding an image Wrapping text Adding a link Adding an email link Checking your spelling See also Introduction to Noticias Noticias Designer Guidelines & Tips

Publishing to Noticias is easy - you don't have to know HTML, be a web programmer, or even know how the City of Albuquerque site is arranged.

Just log in to Lotus Notes, navigate to the Welcome screen, and click Enter Noticias.

Event or News Item?

The Noticias Entry Form allows you to choose whether your Noticias item should be posted to the Official City Calendar Events or the Official City News list.

Consider the following when you decide:

• Events are meetings, concerts, fundraisers, movies, etc. that take place at a specific time and place. Use the Events calendar to notify people that these events are happening.
• News items are announcements of city happenings, including City Council rulings, press conferences, requests for proposals, bus route changes, enrollment notices, announcements of event series (such as the announcement of the entire Summer Nights series, but not each individual Summer Nights event)

Step 1: To select Event or News, click the appropriate checkbox in the What is this box. The Noticias Entry Form changes based on your decision.

NEXT: Click here to learn more about posting an Event or about posting a News item.

 

Posting an Event

When you click the Official City Calendar Event checkbox, the Noticias Entry Form changes to display several extra fields.

Step 2: In the Who is your audience box, select City Employees or Public using the following criteria:

• If this event is intended only for City of Albuquerque employees, click the City Employees checkbox.
• If this event is intended for the the citizens of Albuquerque, click the Public checkbox.

Step 3: In the Event Name/Title field, type the name of the event. Use proper case by capitalizing the first letter of each word except words like and, at, and on. Do not use all caps. For example:

• Volunteer Training at Anderson-Abruzzo Balloon Museum
• Join Albuquerque Police Officers at the APD Ballroom Dancing Fundraiser

Step 4: In the Keywords field, type words that will help search engines find your event. These words should describe the event. For example, in the case of the APD Ballroom Dancing Fundraiser, you might type APD, Albuquerque Police Department, ballroom, dance, dancing, fundraiser. Use commas to separate the search terms.

Step 5: From the Event Start Date box, select the date of your event.

Step 6: From the Event Start Time and Event End Time boxes, select your event's time period.

Step 7: Click to add a checkbox to the Event Repeats box if this event happens more than once, or is a series. If, for example, the event you're posting is a weekly Town Hall meeting which will be held for the next five Wednesdays, you should check the Event Repeats box.

Step 7a: When you check the Event Repeats box, the Repeat Options window appears.

Step 7b: Under Make this calendar entry repeat, select the frequency of the meeting (Daily, Weekly, Monthly by Date, Monthly by Day, Yearly, or Custom), and the specific repetition day.

Step 7c: Under Duration, select when to begin and end the repeating events.

Step 7d: Click OK to save your settings and return to the Noticias Entry Form.

Step 8: In the Event Location field, type the name of the building, park, or other location where the event is taking place. Include floor number and room number if the event is in a large building.

Step 9: In the Event Address/Directions field, type:

• The full address where the event is taking place so that people can use MapQuest or Google Maps to locate the event.
• Directions to the event location.
• If your event requires that people navigate complicated government structures, help them out by telling them which set of elevators to take, where to park, and how much to expect to pay for parking.

Step 10: Click the arrow button next to the Event Category box. Select from Official Meetings, Community Meetings, Culture Art and Science, Sports and Recreation, Senior Events, or Training.

Step 11: The Contact, Contact Phone, Contact Email, Department, and Division fields default to your information. However, if you are not the contact person for this event, replace your information with that person's contact information.

Step 12: In the Body (Event) field, type other information about your event. You have already answered the what (the title), when (the Event date), and where (the Event Location and Address/Directions) of your event, now you need to answer the who, why, and how.

Some tips:

• Do not repeat the title of your event.
• Make sure that this text is Arial font, 10 point, and black.
• Use left alignment most of the time, and center alignment only sparingly.
• If there is more information about this event or the organizers or venue somewhere else on CABQ.gov, link to that page from here.
• If your Noticias post refers to drop-off points, locations of events, etc., that are not CABQ locations, your post should link to those organization's websites so that people can easily access maps and phone numbers.
• Convince people to attend the event by making your description interesting.
• If appropriate, add an image by selecting Image from the Create menu. Wrap the text around your image for a more professional look.
• Provide enough information that people can tell what your event is all about. Here's an example about why "more is better" in your Body:



Can you tell what this event is? Without descriptive information in the Body of the Noticias post, we only have the humorous title to inform us.

Step 13: When you're finished entering all of your event information, click the Submit for Review button at the top of the window. Your Noticias posting will be forwarded to your departmental approver for review and approval.

Posting a News Item

When you click the Official City News checkbox, the Noticias Entry Form changes to display several extra fields.

 

Step 2: In the Who is your audience box, select City Employees or Public using the following criteria:

• If this news is intended only for City of Albuquerque employees, click the City Employees checkbox.
• If this news is intended for the the citizens of Albuquerque, click the Public checkbox.

Step 3: In the News Name/Title field, type the name of the news item. Use proper case by capitalizing the first letter of each word except words like and, at, and on. Do not use all caps. For example:

• City Employee IT Security Certification Testing Begins on August 1, 2006
• Governor Richardson Announces Call for Proposals for "New Visions/New Mexico" Contract Awards

Step 4: In the Keywords field, type words that will help search engines find your news item. These words should describe the news. For example, in the case of the City Employee IT Security Certification Testing, you might type security, IT, certification, testing, City, employee . Use commas to separate the search terms.

Step 5: From the News Start Date and News End Date boxes, select the dates this news should be posted. This allows your news item to "expire" so that it disappears from the Official City News list when it is no longer current.

Step 6: The Contact, Contact Phone, Contact Email, Department, and Division fields default to your information. However, if you are not the contact person for this news item, replace your information with that person's contact information.

Step 7: In the Body (Event) field, type the text of the news item. Keep your text professional by using proper spelling, grammar, and sentence structure. Break up large amounts of text using paragraphs.

Some tips:

• Do not repeat the title of your news item.
• Make sure that this text is Arial font, 10 point, and black.
• Use left alignment most of the time, and center alignment only sparingly.
• Make sure that the text is easy to understand by a citizen. Don't use governmental jargon or acronyms.
• If you must use department names, spell them out, rather than using their acronyms.
• If there is related information somewhere else on CABQ.gov, link to that page from here.
• If appropriate, add an image by selecting Image from the Create menu. Wrap the text around your image for a more professional look.

Step 8. When you're finished entering all of your event information, click the Submit for Review button at the top of the window. Your Noticias posting will be forwarded to your departmental approver for review and approval.

 

Adding an Image

Noticias items are far more interesting when they have an interesting image!

Here's how to add an image to your Noticias item:

Step 1: Find an image that is related to your event. For example, if you are posting a News item regarding the arrival of a new rhino at the Zoo, find a photo of the new rhino or a rhino that looks like him.

Step 2: Resize the image using a photo editing tool like Picasa, which is free for download from the Google Picasa website. Refer to your photo editing software's documentation for specific resizing instructions.

Here are the image size guidelines:

• Do not use Noticias to resize your image. Noticias does not actually resize the image (by making it smaller in file size), it simply shrinks the way it looks to your users. Because of this, users still download the entire file, but they only see a small version of it.
• Your image should be no more than 250 pixels wide.
• Don't just resize your event poster or flier - the text will look bad. Instead, select an appealing image from the flier and focus on that. Here's an example:

If you shrink your event poster to 250 pixels wide, the text on the poster becomes unreadable. Can you read the Date, Time, Location, and Ticket Price information in this image? How about tht yellow text at the bottom? No way.



Instead of shrinking your event poster to 250 pixels wide, crop an interesting part of the poster like this:



Notice that you can read the words "Havana Nights," but that you have lost the essential Date, Time, Location, and Ticket Price information. Solve this problem by thoroughly filling out the Noticias form, including adding extra information (like "Live Music, Dancing, Cuban Fusion Cuisine, Mojitos, Silent Auction, and more!") to the Body of your Noticias posting.

Refer to your image editing software's documentation to learn how to crop images.

Step 3: Save your resized image to a convenient location on your hard drive.

Step 4: In Noticias, place your curser in the Body (Event) field or the Body (News) field and click on the Create menu. Select Picture....

 

Step 5: The Import window appears. Locate the resized image on your hard drive and click Import.

 

The image appears where your curser was. Move it around by clicking and dragging it.

Wrapping Text Around an Image

Your Noticias item will look more professional if you wrap your text around any image you use. Here's how to do it:

Step 1: In the Body of your Noticias post, click on the image you just imported.

Step 2: Right-click on the image and choose Picture Properties from the menu that pops up.

Step 3: The Picture window appears. Click on the arrow next to the Text Wrap field and select either Wrap, float image left or Wrap, float image right.

Here are two examples of Noticias postings with floating images and wrapping text:

This image has the Wrap, float image left property set:

This image has the Wrap, float image right property set:

Adding a Link

If there is more information about this event, the organizers, or the venue somewhere else on CABQ.gov, you should link to that page from your Noticias post.

For example, the 2006 Open Space Summer Series has a very nice page that is accessible from its Event postings using a sentence that says, "Please see Open Space Summer Series Calendar of Events for more information." Without that link from the Noticias item, a visitor to the CABQ site would never know that the Open Space Summer Series page existed.

Also, if your Noticias post refers to drop-off points, locations of events, etc., that are not at CABQ, your post should link to those organization's websites so that people can easily access maps and phone numbers.

Here's how:

Step 1: In the Body of your Noticias post, select the text that you want to appear as a link.

Step 2: From the Create menu, select Hotspot and then Link Hotspot.

Step 3: The HotSpot Resource Link window appears. In the Value field, type the URL of the site you want to link to. Don't forget to include the http:// part of the address!

Step 4: Click the X icon to close the HotSpot Resource Link window and return to your Noticias post. Your link now appears in blue, underlined text.

Tip: You can double check your link by copying the text in the Value field and pasting it into the Address or URL field in your favorite web browser. If it doesn't, check the following things:

• There should be an http:// in front of the www. part of the address.
• If the address is long, make sure that the entire address was pasted into the web browser
• Check to make sure that you didn't type ".htm" when you meant to type ".html" and vice versa

Adding an Email Link

When an email address is mentioned in the body of a Noticias item, it should be linked as a mailto like this:

Here's how to do it:

Step 1: Highlight the text that you want to be turned into an email link.

Step 2: From the Create menu, select Hotspot and then Link Hotspot.

Step 3: The HotSpot Resource Link window appears. In the Value field, type:

mailto:emailaddress

In the case of the example, you would type mailto:lmolecke@cabq.gov

Note: Your email link will not work if you don't include the "mailto:" part in front of the email address!

Step 4: Click the X icon to close the HotSpot Resource Link window and return to your Noticias post. Your link now appears in blue, underlined text.

Checking Spelling

Noticias has a built-in spell checker. Here's how to use it:

Step 1: Place your curser anywhere in the Noticias Entry Form.

Step 2: From the Edit menu, click Check Spelling.