Web Team

Web Team

Create a news section in your site

Learn how to set up an easy to archive news section in your site.

How it works

On your site people can access news by:

  1. clicking on an individual item from the news section on your site
  2. clicking on the News Archive link at the bottom of your current news items
  3. accessing the archive from the main site navigation

A dedicated news area within your site consists of:

  • a news folder (at the root level of your site)
  • an index.shtml file inside the news folder
  • folder(s) inside the news folder for each year
  • a file for each news item you add to your site

Create a news archive

Step 1: In Dreamweaver create new folders and files for your news section
  • At the root level of the Local Files panel create a new folder called news
  • Inside the news folder create a new file called index.shtml
  • Create another folder inside the news folder. Name it for the current year eg 2008 was the current year used in the example on the right. You will need a folder for each year of news/events you have. This example shows folders for 2007 and 2008.
  • For instructions on creating new folders and files see Getting started: creating new files and folders
Step 2: Name a news file in the archive folder
  • each file is named by date not topic. This lists files chronolgically in Dreamweaver and is easier to manage (1)
  • format for naming file is year/month/day
  • The highlighted file 080509.shtml is a news item on 8 May 2008 (2)
  • The naming convention for multiple news items on one day is to add a letter at the end of each file (a,b,c etc) eg 080704a - news item 'a' created 4th July 2008 (2)
  • Create a new file in the folder of the relevant year. Name it with the date you create the item

Step 3: Format the news item
  • Open the new file in your archive folder you just named in step 2
  • H1 heading appropriate for news item (whatever you call it will be the name links) eg Web enhancements: August latest
  • Bold text of date posted eg 18 August 2009
  • Add content and save
Step 4: Format the index page you created in the news folder
  • Open news/index.shtml you created earlier
  • H1 - News archive or News and Events archive
  • H2 - year (start with the current year at the top of the page)
  • bullet list beneath the year the exact title of the item you will link to
  • Highlighted example shows the news item from above added to the 2009 list (Web Style Guide update (22 July)
  • If you have many items add H3 headings for each month for easier scanning
Step5: Link the item to news/index.shtml
  • New item to be linked
  • Select text to be linked (don't link the date posted part of the text)
  • In Properties drag the 'globe' to the right of the link field to the file you want to link to

  • The item is now linked
  • Go to the live page and check the link is correct
Step 6: Add a news item to your home page
  • bold text for the link name (exact match to the title of the page it links to)
  • date posted in plain text within brackets beside it
  • link to news page (on title only, not date posted)
  • include one sentence below, maximum two

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