ezplug (the new web editing software)
This is only a brief introduction.
We welcome specific questions and look forward to assisting with the development of your websites.
The ezplug software is intended to allow easy maintenance of your web pages. You can access and modify it from any web browser.
Login is via the following
website https://www.biology.usu.edu/admin/login.cfm
**please note
- when accessing the site you may encounter a warning message regarding security certificates or trustworthiness of the site - you'll need to proceed anyway
- if you have not logged in for the past 6 months you will be required to request another login
If you have previously logged in:
**If it has been 6 months since your last login you will need to contact Joe via email to have your account reactivated. It will render "disabled" error until it's reactivated.
Enter your A# and password in the fields (indicated by the yellow arrows) link to login screen
If you have NOT previously logged in you will need to click on "need a login?" (indicated by the red arrow)
Upon successfully logging in you will be directed to the ezplug home screen
The simplest way to navigate to your web pages and begin editing is to click the link to the Biology website (yellow arrow) after logging in
ezplug basics
After logging in and navigating to the biology website you will now see a small "command window" in the upper left corner of the web page. This command window allows you several different options for editing.
File & Image management
Please contact Joe to have directories created for maintaining images and files (images are actually stored differently with a different directory structure than files)
To upload an image or other file navigate to the destination directory in ezplug (red arrow)
**Please do not upload files to root directories. If you upload a file to an unintended location and are unable to move it to the correct directory you can contact Joe and have him move it for you.
Select either "Browse" for a single file or "upload multiple files" and navigate on your local computer to the location of the files (yellow arrows)
Select the files to be uploaded and click "upload" to complete the action (yellow arrow)
There are several options available to manage the files once they have been uploaded (pink arrow);
"open"
"delete"
"rename"
"move/copy"
"manipulate"
manipulate permanently modifies the file, so be cautious not to upload the only copy.
Content management
New web pages can only be created by Joe but once created you can modify them.
Copying and pasting directly from Microsoft Word is not recommended. Doing this will import a lot of metadata (junk code that you don't want) and may cause your text to appear differently than you intend. To help with this, ezplug has incorporated a paste tool to help strip the metadata.
Getting Started
* request a login
* send Joe an email outlining the web pages and directories that you would like to have created
* add the text to the web pages
* upload the necessary files to the appropriate directories in ezplug
Tips
To edit your faculty web page you need to select "Edit this Plugin"
To edit your lab web page you need to select "Edit this Page"
A few words of caution
Brian Joy wants me to mention the following: “NEVER SELECT THE ‘DELETE THIS PAGE’ COMMAND!!!”, from the "Advanced View" menu (red arrow - above image) rather than deleting a page I would highly recommend changing the status to "Archive" (red arrow - lower image)
Until you change the status (Advanced View, "Status" tab) to "active" (yellow arrow - lower image) your page will not show on the web
The status of your page can also be seen in the "Advanced View" (yellow arrow - upper image)
After modifying your web site you must select "Save Changes" to make them permanent (yellow arrow - right side, lower image), otherwise your work will be lost.
Changes are live and permanent and backup files are not stored. Once you have clicked "Save Changes" you can't revert to the old and would have to recreate the old content.
Images modified with the "manipulate" tool in the image manager are permanently modified and copies of the originals are not stored in ezplug.
ezplug may not function correctly with some web browsers. Google Chrome may be superior in other ways but Mozilla Firefox is a better option when working in ezplug.