HASA How-to February 2013

How do I...

...save a story to my favorites and update the bookmark?

Of course you can just bookmark a story in your browser, but there are also two ways to bookmark a story on HASA itself: Save to Favorites and AddThis.

AddThis is available to all readers, and lets you print a story, bookmark the page, email the URL, or link it to a service such as Facebook, Twitter etc.

On every story list and every Reader Toolbox, you will see a bright orange button with a plus sign on it. This is the AddThis button. How it works:

1. Hover your mouse over the button.
2. A pop-up window appears with various options (print, bookmark, send to..., etc.).
3. Click on the option you want.

Save to Favorites is available when you are logged in, and saves the story to your Library on HASA. This means you can get your story list no matter what computer you are on because it is part of the site, not bookmarked on a particular computer. Your Favorites list is available on every page of the site in a drop-down list at the right hand end of the site header.

To save to favorites:

1. Go to the Stories section of HASA.
2. Click on either the overview or any chapter of the story you want to add.
3. In the Reader Toolbox that appears at the top and the foot of these pages, click the button that says "Add Story".
4. The page refreshes and the story is added to your list.
5. If you are on the Overview, the first chapter is bookmarked. If you are on a specific chapter, that chapter is bookmarked.

For multi-chapter stories that you have already Saved to Favorites, you can update your bookmark to set it to a new chapter by using the Set Bookmark button in the Toolbox in the chapter you are reading.

And that's all there is to it!

The quickest way to get started with the Research Cabinet is to add a few items to it. It's as easy as finding an item to add and clicking a button!

How do I...

...add an item to the Research Cabinet?

1. Log in to HASA.


2. Go to the Resources section of the site.


3. Browse for a Research Library item you would like to add to your cabinet. The items you can add are:
   a.    Timeline Events
   b.    Character Bios
   c.    Places
   d.    Things
   e.    Full Text Searches (Note - you have to save a search before you can add it to your Cabinet)


4. Once you have found the Library item you want to add to you Research Cabinet, look for the right-hand menu box labeled "Research Cabinet".


5. In the Research Cabinet box, click the "Add this [item] to research cabinet".


6. The page refreshes and the item is added to your cabinet.

At this point, you can leave the item loose in the Cabinet, add it to a Notebook, and/or create a Research Note to go with it.

How to add a Notebook to the Cabinet
Notebooks are like folders inside your Cabinet where you can put items to keep them organized. Unlike real life folders and notebooks, HASA Notebooks let you add your cabinet items to multiple notebooks. For example, you might be writing a story with Elladan as a main character and Aragorn as a minor character, and another story with Aragorn as the major character, but no Elladan. You can create a Notebook for your Elladan story and another for your Aragorn story, and put the Aragorn research items in both notebooks, including Research Notes!

You can add a new notebook from any Research Library item, from the main Research Cabinet page, from an existing Notebook and from any Research Note page.

1. Log in to HASA.


2. Go to the Resources section of the site.


3. Be on any of the pages listed above.


4. On that page, look for an "Add Notebook" button.
   a.    On a Research Library item, it will be in the Research Cabinet box at the end of the Notebooks list.
   b.    In the Research Cabinet, it will be in the dark green header of your "My Notebooks" list on the cabinet main page, on a Notebook page and on a Research Note page.


5. Click the button.


6. You will see an Add Notebook form.


7. Provide a name and a brief description for your notebook. Short names display better on screen.


8. Click "Add Notebook".


9. The page will refresh and you will see your new notebook, ready for items to be added to it.


10. To return to where you started, locate the information box about this notebook in the right hand menu, located immediately under the folded up main menu.


11. Click the "Return to Browsing" button.

How to Add a Research Note to the Cabinet
Research notes are your comments, ideas, thoughts, and notes that you want to have accessible to you no matter where you are. Anywhere you have internet access, you have your story notes, organized how you need them. You can link them to any or all of your Notebooks, toss them "loose" into the Cabinet, and link any Cabinet item to them. You can have notes on characters, on plot ideas, on timelines, you name it, as many as you need holding whatever makes sense to you.
You can add a new Research Note from any Research Library item, from the main Research Cabinet page, from an existing Notebook and from any Research Note page.

1. Log in to HASA.


2. Go to the Resources section of the site.


3. Be on any of the pages listed above.


4. On that page, look for an "Add Note" button.
   a.    On a Research Library item, it will be in the Research Cabinet box at the end of the Research Notes list.
   b.    In the Research Cabinet, it will be in the dark green header of your "Research Notes" list on the cabinet main page and on a Notebook page.
   c.    On a Research Note page, it will be a button at the top of the displayed note, plus the button is repeated in the right-hand "Research Notes" box header.


5. Click the button.


6. You will see an Add Research Note form.


7. Provide a name for your research note. Short names display better on screen.


8. The text field is exactly like the one for story chapters. You can copy/paste text in, type new material, add hyperlinks, and so forth.


9. When you are done entering information, click 


10. The page will refresh:
    a.    If you added a new page from a Research Note page, you will immediately view your new note.
    b.    If you added the note from any other page, you will return to wherever you were when you clicked "Add Note". Your new note will be linked in the Research Notes list on that page.

You now can link any Cabinet item to the note or add the note to one or more Notebooks. Add more information to your Research Note as you do your research.

~*~
Nath

HASA How-tos - May 2010

Keeping track of stories you read and really like is easy. Find out how to save them to your favorites and update the bookmark after you’ve read another chapter.

How do I...

...save a story to my favorites and update the bookmark?

Of course you can just bookmark a story in your browser, but there are also two ways to bookmark a story on HASA itself: Save to Favorites and AddThis.

AddThis is available to all readers, and lets you print a story, bookmark the page, email the URL, or link it to a service such as Facebook, Twitter etc.

On every story list and every Reader Toolbox, you will see a bright orange button with a plus sign on it. This is the AddThis button. How it works:

1. Hover your mouse over the button
2. A pop-up window appears with various options (print, bookmark, send to... etc.)
3. Click on the option you want

Save to Favorites is available when you are logged in, and saves the story to your Library on HASA. This means you can get your story list no matter what computer you are on because it is part of the site, not bookmarked on a particular computer. Your Favorites list is available on every page of the site in a drop-down list at the right hand end of the site header.
To save to favorites:

1. Go to the Stories section of HASA
2. Click on either the overview or any chapter of the story you want to add
3. In the Reader Toolbox that appears at the top and the foot of these pages, click the button that says "Add Story"
4. The page refreshes and the story is added to your list.
5. If you are on the Overview, the first chapter is bookmarked. If you are on a specific chapter, that chapter is bookmarked.

For multi-chapter stories that you have already Saved to Favorites, you can update your bookmark to set it to a new chapter by using the Set Bookmark button in the Toolbox in the chapter you are reading.

And that's all there is to it!


~*~Nath~*~

HASA is back online

HASA is back online a little earlier than expected: http://www.henneth-annun.net

• If you are using an older browser (IE6, Firefox 2.x, Opera earlier than 9.8, etc.) you need to upgrade for the best view of the site. HASA is usable, but not very nice under older browsers.


• The site has been reorganized. Please take time to study the new navigation menus and choices and see if you can locate the page you're looking for if you don't see it right away.


• You will have to log in again to the new site. Passwords saved by your browser probably will not work.


• A great deal of database work has been performed in the last 48 hours. Some settings have been reset to default values and you may need to restore your customizations.


• Check your profile. Everyone has been upgraded to full member (no more Readers/Authors) and all members now have an author record. Members can now list state/province and city if desired, and they can add URLS to multiple websites they own.


• If you have stories, take a look at them. Very old stories may have lost their paragraph and line breaks.


• If you have Challenge entries, make sure they are all still there. Challenges are now all public, all the time, and some old settings may keep your entries from showing.


• My Library not only shows bookmarked stories, bookmarked authors, and all alerts, you can now save searches and manage comments you make to authors.


• Alerts & Favorites under My Stuff will now show you who has you and your stories saved as favorites, as well as showing alerts and comments. You can manage subscribers to your alerts, too.


• Readers now have a Readers Toolbox on story pages to help manage bookmarks, playlists, alerts, recommendations and so forth.


• Authors have more story management tools.


• The forum thread for recording bug reports is:
  http://www.henneth-annun.net/forums/threads.cfm?confid=0&forumid=906

Happy Reading!

HASA news - November 2009

The November news focuses on Birthdays, Reviews, Playlists and Challenges.
But first, to misquote Bilbo: I have to make an ANNOUNCEMENT: in December there will be a site update. Read immediately below for more details.


Site update

In late December, HASA will undergo a code refresh. Most of this work is behind the scenes and deals with database optimization, security and JavaScript support. Some changes will affect end users. There will be some changes to page layout to work better with newer browsers and handheld devices, IE6 support is being phased out, and there will be more choices in the top navigation bar.

There will be one HUGE change that will directly affect site readers. The cookie based bookmark system is going away. The code behind it is breaking under various browsers, the cookie interaction with the server is causing performance issues, and there are new tools out there that do a better job. The bookmarks will be replaced with AddThis ( http://www.addthis.com/ ) buttons on each story. AddThis supports dozens of social networking sites, allows you to bookmark directly to your browser, has browser toolbars, and many other features that HASA support can't possibly provide.

This means you need to prepare your bookmarks ahead of the code change so that you don't lose them. Over the next few weeks, instructions will be posted to help you figure out what to do with those bookmarks.


Birthday Cards

If it’s your birthday in November, and you would like a drabble about your favourite character or topic? You can request it here.

Not sure what the birthday cards are about? Have a look at the stories written for previous requests.


Reviews

You’ll find a list of stories in review at the top of the members home page. If you are an active reviewer, log in to see the list of 6 new stories that are waiting for reviewers.

Or, if you are not yet a reviewer, why not sign up to become one? Reviewing is not nearly as daunting as it may seem, and you're eligible if you've been a member of HASA for thirty days or more.

Member participation is crucial for reviews. The more people are involved in the review process, the more opinions will be represented. Just as importantly, having more people involved means that stories pass through review more quickly - which is good for everyone.

By submitting a story for review, you are asking nine other members to read and evaluate it. So why not do unto other authors in reviews as you'd like other reviewers to do unto you: check out one of the stories already in review and give it a read. Put more simply: put one in, take one out


Playlists

Playlists are lists of HASA stories put together by authors and readers, just as music lovers put together lists of their favorite songs.

For example:
- An author uses playlists to put the stories in a series in reading order.
- A reader puts her ‘favourites’ in a playlist and explains why they are listed
- A reader makes a list of similarly themed stories, for instance Hobbit romance or critical essays on Men.
- ...

Anyone can create a playlist!

As a reader, you can collect your favorite stories by different authors together in one place. As an author, you can put one together of your own stories. Using the Workshop, a group of authors can put together joint playlists of their work.

If you are logged in, go to My Playlists for more information on creating your own lists.

Playlists are meant to be shared!

Once you publish your playlist, other HASA members can add your list to a playlist favorites collection. You can collect playlists by authors and other readers even if you don't have any of your own. On every playlist overview page is an "Add to My Collection" button. Click, and that list is added to your collection. If you don't see the button, check to see if you are logged in.


Challenges and Nuzgul

Click here for the Challenges homepage.

If you have an idea that you'd like at least five people take on, grab that nuzgul by the scruff of the neck (mind the teeth!) and see if you can get four others to make it a Challenge. Prospective Challenges can be found here

There are currently no open Challenges (except Birthdays), so if you have any spare Nuzgul lying around, don’t hesitate to see how many others it can bite!


October Stories

All of us writers love feedback. It is the lembas and miruvor that sustains us as we write our story, and leaving a few words about a story you read is always a nice thing to do, whether the story is new or old.

Every fifteen minutes HASA highlights a story chosen at random from the Reviewed and General stories in the archive. Read the currently featured story on our front page.

Many talented writers are publishing every day. In October:

--- 11 Reviewed Stories were published or updated.
--- 47 General Stories were published or updated.
--- 1 Beta Story was published or updated.
(Please note, you need to be logged in to view beta stories.)

Thank you for reading at HASA. Enjoy!

Playlists Are Public!

Reading stories is fun. Sharing favorite stories is even more fun. Until today, it was not easy for HASA readers to share their favorite stories with other readers. Playlists are HASA's answer to the question "Read anything good lately?"

What's a Playlist?

A playlist is set of stories someone has put together in order to share with other readers. They take their basic concept from music playlists that you can put together and share with other listeners. Playlists are pretty simple, really. They have a title and a short explanation of why the list owner put it together. After that, there are one or more stories on the list, each with a short statement of why it was included on the list. Once a list of stories has been created, the list owner can set the stories in order.

How Do I Use a Playlist?

That will depend on whether you are a list reader or a list owner.

• List Reader - Just go to playlists, and read over the list until you see a collection that interests you. If you are a member and logged in to the site, you can save your favorite lists in your own Playlist collection. It is a great way to quickly build a library of favorite stories! Even if you are not a HASA member, playlists are available for the general public to use.
  
• List Owner -
  
• If you are a reader, you can collect your favorite stories in one place and tell people why you think they are so great. Give some visibility to your favorite writers!
• If you are an author with sets of stories (perhaps you are writing a story cycle), you can put all of your related stories into a single list and then put them in chronological order. Your readers will love you for it!
• If you co-write stories and series with other authors, you can create a joint list. Set up a Workshop, add your stories to the Workshop, and then create a workshop playlist from them. Instant story collections!

You can have as many playlists as you like, and store as many lists in your collection as you wish. You can set up a list beforehand in My Stuff/Playlists and then add stories as you read, or you can create lists on the fly. It's all up to you!

The most recently updated lists automatically appear on the HASA home apge, so be sure to take a look and see what other people are reading. Create a list today and give other HASA visitors something good to read over the weekend.

Happy Reading!

Site Updates

Over the last week, a number of changes have been uploaded to HASA, some obvious, some under the hood.

Simplifying the site

The biggest changes from a support perspective is that the site continues to be flattened out and its directory structure simplified. Two sections of the old Members area have been migrated up to the general public level - Stories and Playlists.

In the case of Stories, this simply consolidates what had become two identical sets of pages. The public level story pages have had a complete code overhaul over the last year and are in great shape for browsing. The old Members area pages have been replaced with redirects so that old links to those pages will automatically go to the correct new pages.

For Playlists, this section was languishing in obscurity in the old Members area. It was difficult to get to, not very well promoted, and not serving its chief purpose - to bring collections of stories to the attention of readers. They have had a complete code overhaul to get it in good shape and are now part of the public level. As with Stories, redirects are in place to catch any lingering links.

New features!

Playlists are a new feature for the site. There will be a more in depth new article on them shortly, but the quick explanation is that they are like song playlists you might put together on your iPod or MP3 player, keeping all your favorites in one place and in a certain order. Best of all, others can see your lists and add them to their playlist collection. There are pods for your My Stuff page to go with the playlists.

These are all of the changes in store for the summer. Several other projects are underway and due to launch after the Labor Day holiday.

Happy Reading!

How To: Create and Link a Forum

A tutorial for HASA authors on how to create a story forum and link stories to forums. There are a large number of screen shots for this how to. Rather than overload the tutorial with images, I have provided links to pop open windows with the images.

1. Log in to HASA. This will allow you to access your management screens.
2. Click on the My Stuff menu. Locate the "Forums" link. It is the second from the last link in the menu. Image here.
3. Go to main My Forums page. If you have existing forums, you will see a grid with them in alphabetical order. If you do not have a forum or none of the forums you already have are going to work for you, you will need to add a forum. Image here. There is an on-line tutorial to help you with creating forums. Look for the link near the text resizing links.
   
4. Add a new forum (if desired). The Forums sub-menu is at the bottom of the page so you will have to scroll. Look for the "Add a Forum" link. Image here.
5. Pick your forum options. As you can see, there are some instructions right there on screen, too. Image here.
   For best results, it is usually a good idea to:
1. Put your name or the story name in the title of the forum.
2. Add it to the Stories Forum
3. Provide a descriptive introduction so people have a good idea of what they will find in the forum before they click on it.
4. Be VERY clear if your forum is intended for discussing mature topics! Give people an opportunity to avoid topics and discussions they may find objectionable.
5. Share or allow linking. This option will become more clear later down, but in general you should say "Yes" to linking.
6. It is a good idea to sign yourself up for email alerts. This way, whenever a message is posted to your forum ,you get a copy in your email box.
6. Fine tune your discussion. After you add your discussion, you will want to double check a few more details. From the grid of existing forums, click the "Manage" link. This takes you to the management screen for an individual forum. At the top is information about the forum itself, while below is a list of all the posts to the forum. For now, just click on the "Edit Discussion" link in the upper right. Image here.
7. Set forum options. The editing screen looks very much like the add screen, except you have two more choices. Image here. They are:
1. Active. Your forum must be active to be shared. If you need to take something out of view quickly, switch it to inactive.
2. Open. The default for forums is Open. If you want to limit your forum to only invited readers, set it to closed, then use the "Manage Users" screen to add the desired members. In general, keep your forum open. You'll get more comments that way.
8. Link a story. Once you have a prepared forum, you're ready to link a story. Click on the "Link Stories" link in the Forums left-hand sub menu. On that screen, you have drop downs for linking stories to forums. You can link one story to several forums and you can link one forum to several stories. Begin by selecting a story from the first menu. Image here.
9. Link a discussion. In the next drop-down, you will see your forums at the top and then all forums available for linking below that. Why would you want to link you story to someone else's discussion? You might be working with other authors on related stories and want to reference their discussions. You might want to link to a Resource discussion, or a general discussion on a relevant topic. All you have to do is select a linkable forum from the list and click link story. Image here.
10. You're done! You now have a forum discussion linked to your story.

How To: Find a Story Forum

1. Locate a story.
Not all stories have forums attached to them, so you may have to look at a few of them to find one. (Authors, be sure to set up forums for your readers to comment in!)

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2. Forum links in overviews.
Look towards the bottom right hand area of the first table on a story overview page. The forum link will be the last one in the "Feedback" box.

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3. Forum links in chapters.

Look at the left-hand navigation column. Scroll all the way to the bottom of the content in the column. If you are logged in, there will be a lot of items in the column.

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4. Viewing the forum.

Once you can see the link, click it. A window will pop up showing you all discussion threads in that forum. If it is a closed discussion, you won't be able to read it. If it is open, you will be able to read, but not post.

---

• Only registered HASA members can post.
• Both Readers Club and Writers Workshop members have posting privileges.
• You must be logged in to post or the system can't recognize you.
• You can create new threads or reply to existing ones.

If you don't see a forum linked to a story, email the author and ask if she would be willing to create and link one.

What's the difference between a forum and a comment?

The difference between forums and comments is mostly their length.

• A comment should be just that - a quick response to a story. You can post a public or a private comment. Since public comments automatically display on the home page, please do not put spoilers in them! Comments are not threaded or related to each other in any way. If you want to give an author a quick thumbs up, use a comment!
• A forum is where you can post discussions. These are by nature longer and more detailed, they may contain spoilers, and you can subscribe to them to receive new posts by email. All forum posts are available to all readers, though an author can make a forum closed to allow only invited people to read them. Forum discussions are threaded to keep conversations together. If you want to get into a conversation about a story, use a forum!

Story Forums for Everyone

New today! Forums linked to stories are now available for all readers to see.

When Readers Club launched last August, 2006, the site began to split into two, with many features remaining in the old Members area. Since then, I've been slowly rebuilding parts of the site to bring these hidden areas where all members - Author/Editors or Readers - can use them, as well as showing off as much as possible to non-member readers. It is a complicated process to unearth the old code and rework it to fit into the new structure.

When HASA forums were first created, they were only available to members. Trying to sort out members from non-members, reading permissions, posting permissions and the like was a huge headache. As the site started to open up, the Forums remained tucked away down in the basement of the old Members area.

Forums existed before Comments and gave members a place to comment on each others' stories. When Comments were activated and then moved up and out to the public side, members stopped using the Forums so much. They were buried, hard to get to, and more complicated to use than Comments. However, as we've seen over the last month, there is a need for a place for threaded discussions where people can post longer messages and have better spoiler control.

Now we do. Stories can be linked to Forums (How-to posts coming up later) and these links will appear on the story overview and individual chapter pages.

• If you are a registered member, whether Reader Club or Author/Editor, you can join the forum and post messages.
• If you are a non-member reader, you can read all posts in open status forums, though you cannot post any replies of your own. This is in keeping with our standard site rules of no anonymous posting.

This is only the first step in freeing Forums from the basement. It will take substantially more work to migrate the entire Forum system to the public level, but it will be done. In the mean time, authors, think about linking a forum to your stories and, readers, look for forum links on the overview and chapter pages.

Happy reading and commenting!

Anglachel,
HASA Site Manager