Working with Shortcuts & SCC "Pearls"

Using shortcuts is the easy way you can add external web sites to your pages. (If you've got "gems" down pat, shortcuts will be a breeze!)

Adding a Shortcut

In addition to websites, shortcuts include the story, picture, and gem titles. This can grow to a long list... The shortcuts page displays 25 items at a time, along with links at the bottom of the page go to listed items, alphabetized by the first letter of the title.

You don't have to make a shortcut for each webpage url you want to include in a story. Copy the url of a webpage and paste it directly into any story. When you post changes, the full URL will become an active link.

Did you notice the checkboxes on the Shortcuts page? To manage your shortcuts, to delete them, click the checkbox beside the shortcut name and then scroll to the bottom of the page and click the Delete button. You can delete several shortcuts at a time. There is NO UNDO for deleted shortcuts!

Need to update a url in a shortcut? Delete it and create a new one with the same name!

Deleting a shortcut does not delete the story reference to it. Once you've deleted a shortcut, any story referencing that shortcut will still show the shortcut, but it won't be an active link. The text still shows up in the story, but will be enclosed by quotations marks. Yet another reason to think through your site structure for content and style!

Activating Shortcuts and Pearls (Placeholders for Commonly Typed Information)

"Pearls," for the purpose of SCC's Manila sites, are a way to have the system automatically fill in information when you just type a few letters or words in double quotes (a "pearl"). (Think glossary or "shortcut" here.)

For example, if you type Sacramento City College
3835 Freeport Boulevard, Sacramento, CA 95822-1386, Manila will automatically fill in the correct address for you-in your story page. (The beauty of this feature is that if something changes, like our web address, one change by the system admins in the shortcut look-up table will update on every Manila site! Just one more thing that happens behind that scenes!)

There are two ways to avoid accidentally activating a pearl:

1. 1. Type a / (slash) in front of the text you want to appear in quotes. (EXAMPLE: /Sacramento City College
   3835 Freeport Boulevard, Sacramento, CA 95822-1386.
2. Use single quotes instead of double quotes. EXAMPLE: 'FAQ' instead of FAQ.

For a list of SCC's pearls, go to http://web.scc.losrios.edu/scoop/pearls.

Reminder: "scc" (using straight double quotes, not curly quotes) activates a shortcut. Deleting Shortcuts or Pearls

For shortcuts, there are two elements to delete, the actual shortcut and it's quoted title in a story.

1. In the Editing mode, click on the Shortcuts link on the Editors Only menu.

   You'll see a list of Shortcuts. Notice that they are in alphabetical order.

   (If you have lots of shortcuts, you'll see "More: 1 2 ..." at the bottom of your list. If you click on the 2, you'll jump to a second page of your shortcuts.)

2. Mark the shortcuts you want to delete by clicking the box to the left of the picture's title. It will put a checkmark in the box. If you click the checkmark again, it deselects the shortcut.
3. Click the Delete button at the bottom of the shortcut list.
4. Locate the title in stories edit the story text to remove the quote marks.

Pearls are maintained by the Manila system admins and to stop using a pearl, simply edit the story and remove the quote marks. Remember to click the Post Changes button to submit your edits.

Sacramento City College
3835 Freeport Boulevard · Sacramento, California 95822
This page was last updated: Friday, February 6, 2004 at 3:02:24 PM