In a system as complex as RedDot there are some things you need to leave to the professionals to take care of. This list will let you know which buttons NOT to touch.
Read through it and if you need one of these things done please contact Web Design & Support. We’ll work with you to get it done as soon as possible.
- Adding a New Page or Section – If you want a new page on your site that links directly from your home page or from a sub-section, let us know. If you give us the content of the new page, we can build the new page for you quickly.
The important thing is that we have all the content you wish to appear in the section or page before we begin building it. We try to avoid “Under Construction” on our pages as it is unprofessional and unhelpful for users.
- Deleting a Page – If you need a page deleted, contact Web Design & Support in an email and provide a link directly to the page that needs to be deleted in your email. Or, change the headline of the page to “Delete This” using the headline red dot and then submit it to workflow. The page will be deleted when the workflow is processed at the end of the day.
- Adding/Removing a Link to the Navigation Panel – The panel of links in the sidebar of the page, called the navigation panel, has a list of links on it that you might want to change from time to time. This area is controlled by a special template, so when you want to make a change, let us know and we’ll take care of it for you.
- Renaming a Main Link/Page Title – The red links on your site’s home page are all built using properties of the pages that they link to. It’s a little hard to find these properties from the standard editor interfaces, so let us know when a page’s name needs to be changed and we will take care of it.
- Uploading an Image File – Most pages in your department’s site will have an image. You might notice that these images are always of a standard size and have a special “fade” around the edge. These are important design elements of the page and to maintain consistency Web Design & Support needs to process all of the images before they are uploaded. If you have an image you need to add to your page, send it to us throgh The Web Q. You can read more about images and image style guidelines here.
- Uploading a Document (Word, Excel or PDF) – Many departments wish to make certain documents accessible to users by uploading them to their Web site. If you want to add a link to a document, such as a course syllabus or promotional flyer, send it to us through The Web Q. We’ll upload it and then you can create the link to that file.
Almost all the documents we get are converted to PDFs. The software needed to read these files is free and is on most computers; Microsoft Office is installed in every campus computer but a lot of our off-campus users might not have it, so having the documents in PDF format makes them more universally accessible.
The PDF format also adds a layer of security, as it is harder for a user to make unauthorized changes to a PDF file that they have downloaded than it is to change a similar file in Word or Excel format.
Sometimes you might need to upload a document for internal use that has to be in Word or Excel format because you want your users to be able to add to it or modify it. That is fine, just let us know that when you send us the file and we will upload it as specified. After it is uploaded, you will be able to make the link to the file using the RedDot text editor.
- Changing the Layout of the Page – RedDot uses a variety of templates to make sure that University Web pages have a consistent and professional feel. Web Design & Support uses a complex administrative interface to manage these templates. If you would like for a page’s layout to change, there are a limited number of options you have. The main option is to add and remove various modules to and from the sidebar: a photograph, nav panel, banner boxes, or a link list. If you’d like for this to be done, or would like to discuss other layout options, please contact us.