Check out each of the menu items in the red (or orange) bar near the top of the page.

• Home - Start Here
• Contributors - the folks who have signed up to contribute content or add their comments.  Click on a person's name or photo to see their profile and the content they've contributed to the site.  You only see story excerpts in the list.  Click the Read this Story link to go to the full version.
• Recent Stories - the most recent posts.  You only see story excerpts in the list.  Click the Read this Story link to go to the full version.
• Search by Tag - Down the right side of some pages (this one, for example) is a list of tags or topics people have assigned to their stories.  Click on one of the tags to see stories about that topic.  The Search by Tag page lets you search by more than one tag at the same time.
• How to . . . - You are Here.

Many pages of this site show you a list of stories - with the title, a photo if there is one, a short excerpt from the text, and a link so you can Read this story.  We do this so you can see more of the content on a page, not just the first story.

Once you click the Read this story link, you're taken to the Profile page of the story's author.  You can see the whole story along with any photos or documents attached to it.  You can also add a comment in the right-hand column.

If the story is yours, and you're logged in, there is a three-dot icon like this ...  in the top right, under the story's dates.  You click that icon to edit the story or to add or arrange photos or documents.

In order to add your stories, photos or comments, we need to know who you are.  We want to make sure content is being added by people who were really there.

Click the Sign Up button at the right end of the orange navigation bar.  The form is pretty simple.  You have to fill in all the fields; the form will warn you if you forget something.

Now Log In

Now you can log in by clicking the Login link at the right end of the navigation bar.  The site will display your name on the left, just below the navigation bar.

Privacy Policy

We promise we won't share your information with anyone unless they take us to court and force us to.

Once you sign up, you'll be shown on the Contributors page.  But your entry will say "I haven't uploaded my photo yet."

Cick on your name or the blue photo block to go to your profile page.  If you've logged in, you'll be able to click one of the buttons below the photo block to manage your page.

In the Profile form, you can correct your name if you made a mistake entering it. In the Location field, tell us where you're living now.

And please do upload a photo.

Your profile should be a snapshot description of yourself.  You can talk about how you were connected to Dumont Press Graphix back in the day.  Or if you connected with the community before DPG got off the ground, or years later, that's fine too.

We'd like to know (briefly) what you've been doing for the past 50 years, and what you're up to now.  

Click the Save the Changes button when you're done. 

You can come back later and change your profile, or change your photo.

In the Profile form, you can correct your name if you made a mistake entering it. In the Location field, tell us where you're living now.

And please do upload a photo.

Your profile should be a snapshot description of yourself.  You can talk about how you were connected to Dumont Press Graphix back in the day.  Or if you connected with the community before DPG got off the ground, or years later, that's fine too.

We'd like to know (briefly) what you've been doing for the past 50 years, and what you're up to now.  

Click the Save the Changes button when you're done. 

You can come back later and change your profile, or change your photo.

Click the Add a Story button below your profile photo.  Once you've saved your story (and provided you're logged in) you edit it by clicking the three-dot menu in the upper right of the full story display.

General Info About Stories

Every item of content on this site is contained in a story.  Many stories contain text; some of them contain a great deal of text.  But a story doesn't have to include any text; if you want to add a photo, you create a story and add the photo to it.  Of course, it might be a good idea to include some background info about the photo.

Every story has to have a title, so we can keep track of it.  And every story you contribute has your name on it.

You can edit your stories as many times as you like.  Nothing is carved in stone.

How to Insert Text

You can type your story directly into the text box or you can compose it somewhere else and paste it into the text box.

If you compose your story somewhere else, please don't add any formatting beyond bold, italic and underline.  Do not set fonts, colours or text sizes - they will really mess things up when you paste onto this website. 

Also, this site spaces paragraphs a comfortable distance apart, so don't put extra carriage returns between paragraphs.

Save Often

We intend to add an Autosave feature to the editor in the near future, but it isn't present yet.  So please save your work every 10 minutes or so.

When you add or edit a story, you have the option of attaching a tag to it.  Tags are topics and they're listed - kind of like a mini-index - in the right column of the Home page and some other pages. 

Putting a tag on your story will help other people find it and let it be grouped with other stories on the same topic.  Click in the checkbox beside the tag you want to add to your story; you can use more that one tag if that fits.  You can change your mind and remove a tag later if you like.

If your story doesn't fit with any of the existing tags, you can add a new tag to the system.  But please be sparing about adding new tags - too many tags is as bad as none at all.  Above all, please don't use a person's name as a tag.  There will be a search function on the site soon, and it will be able to find stories that contain a person's name.

This site uses an editor that behaves very much like a word processor.  But we've limited the kinds of formatting you can do, to keep things looking fairly consistent throughout the site.

The big difference from a word processor is that in order to change formatting, you have to remove any existing formats you've applied.  To do that, highlight the text you want to unformat and choose Format -> Clear formatting from the menu.

Clear formatting is at the bottom of the Format menu.  We'll try to get it into a better place soon.

The editor will let you insert sub-headings into a story.  Headings can only be applied to a paragraph, not to a block of highlighted text.  The toolbar button that says Not a Heading is where you'll find heading styles.

If you want to apply one of the Text styles from the toolbar button, you have to highlight the text you want to format.

This site spaces paragraphs automatically.  So you don't have to put an extra line between paragraphs - the site will do that for you.

See, I didn't need to put an extra carriage return after the last paragraph.  The site inserts the necessary space between paragraphs.

Therefore, if you want to compose your content in Word and copy it onto this site, that's just fine, but please don't put extra lines between paragraphs.  When you paste your content into this editor, the paragraphs will be properly spaced.

The link button in the editor is at the left of the second row of buttons.  It looks like (surprise!) a couple of links.

To insert a link, follow these steps:

• Add your story to the Dumont Press Graphix site.  Type the text you want to contain the link.  For the benefit of people using screen readers, don't just type 'here' or 'click' but give them enough information they know what the link is about.
• In another browser window, or another tab, go to the page you want to link to.  Copy the URL from the address bar at the top of the window.  In Chrome, the address bar is always on, but some other browsers let you hide it.  If you need to, get help to turn on the address bar.
• Go back to your story.  Highlight the text you want to contain the link.  Click the Link button.  Paste the URL you copied into the URL field.  The text you highlighted will already be shown in the Text to Display field.
• You don't need a title, but if you provide one will show as a tooltip when a user hovers over the link.
• If your link is to somewhere outside the Dumont Press Graphix site, it is best to choose New Window in the Open Link in field.
• Click Save to save your link.
  
  

Once you've saved your story, be sure to check your link and make sure it works.

To remove a link

Go in to Edit the Story; right click on the link and choose Remove link.

This screen works best if you can see the whole thing - so if you can see the dark border at the bottom of the form.  Zoom your browser out if you can't see the bottom of the form.

Remember to Save

With all these operations, You have to click Save This Layout or your arrangment won't be saved.

Arranging Stories

This form lets you put your stories in the order you want.  Just drag and drop the stories to arrange them in order.

Hiding or Removing Stories

You can also hide a story or remove it from your page.  If a story is hidden, it won't show up on your page, but you can unhide it later.  This is handy if you're working on a story but are not yet happy with it.  Hide it until you can get it finished.

To remove a story from your page, click the Take Off button.  You can add a story back later if you change your mind..

Adding a Story Back

To add a story back to your page, drag it from the left column to the right and place it in the order you want.

Bonus - Display the Story

In the screen's left column, the Display button below the story title will show you the story - in case you don't remember what it is or how it looks.

If your story is very short, and mostly a vehicle to display photos, they'll be shown at the end of the story.  If there are more than 4 photos, they'll be arranged in a sliding carousel.  But if you want your photos to be distributed throughout your story, that's not hard to do.

Wherever you want a photo to appear, put this code

Here's an example from a story on this page:
On this form you can set a title for your photo

You have to put in the code exactly as it is here - square brackets, no caps, no spaces.  Don't put a space after it.  Don't put the code on its own line - just stick it into the text.  Most of the time, you'll want your photo to be at the beginning of a paragraph, because the layout will be happiest that way.

When your story is displayed, the system will take your photos in the order you have them in the Arrange Photos form.  And it will display them as you've chosen with the Edit Photo Properties form for each photo.  See the Edit Photo Properties story on this page for more info.

On this form you can set a title for your photo as well as a caption.  Website accessibility standards also decree you should have text (or alt-text) on the image for the benefit of visually-impared people.

The Layout section of the form lets you choose a size for the photo and to put it at the left of the story text, at the right, or in the centre.  The first image in this story is set to wide and centred - which is often a good way to have the first photo in a story.

When photos are displayed in a carousel, these settings have no effect.  But when a photo is displayed within a story, the choices you make here will affect the way the photo shows up.  You can experiment with the settings to see how your photo looks best.

The pop-up option tells whether a larger version of the photo will pop up when the photo is clicked.  Most of the time, you'll want this option set to Yes.

If you are the owner of this photo (if you're the one who uploaded it) the Archival Info is also available.  This information may help people find your photo in a search, or provide valuable information for future historians.

Here is a document with some information you may find useful.  It's about how to pick up messages to another email address (that is, not a gmail.com address) from Gmail. 

This story is mostly so I can check out how Documents work with Stories.