Get Your Church Online Today!

Church Name: Your Name: Email Address:

Introduction

Welcome to ThisChurch.org! We provide complete website solutions for churches and ministries. We are a turnkey website provider, which means that we take care of the basic site design and "guts" of the site, and you only need to provide content.

Let's take a concrete example to illustrate the difference. In the past, if you wanted to add a calendar to your site, you'd need to use HTML to create the calendar for the current month, populate it, and when the next month came along you'd need to go back to the site and do the whole thing over again. This is why most sites who tried this are still stuck in 2002. With us, we've already built an automatic calendar module. You just tell us when your events happen, and our software takes care of updating it for you.

With a traditional web host, you need a number of people involved to create and maintain your website:

1. A site designer would create the visual aspects of a website.
2. A site programmer would write backend applications, such as mailing lists.
3. A site hosting company would charge a monthly rate to keep the site online.
4. An HTML expert would need to maintain and update the site.

With ThisChurch, we provide you with the complete package. Instead of needing an HTML expert to maintain the site, you can do it yourself regardless of your computer skills. Adding news, information about services and events, and other unique features is as simple as typing into your word processor.

When you sign up for a trial website, you are given a temporary URL address where you site can be seen. It looks something like this:

http://abcd.thischurch.org/

Yours will not be "abcd", but instead something relevant to your church. It was sent to you in your introductory email, and if you've lost it, just contact us to find out where it is. To get to your site, type this in the "Address" box at the top of your browser.

This address will always stay around for as long as you own your site, however, we recommend purchasing a domain name (such as http://www.abcd.org/) to make your site's name easier to remember. These cost $15/year if you don't already own one. See the "Domain Names" section of the manual for more information.

Your website is updated by you online, through the website itself. However, you obviously don't want anyone in the world to be able to update your website. It is therefore required that you log on to your website as an administrator before you update anything. You may already be logged on as an administrator. You can tell if you're logged in by looking at this section of your website:

Logged Out	Logged In

When you signed up for your trial, you received a username and password by email which you can use to update your site. The username is always admin, and the password is unique to your site.

Did you forget what your password is? No problem. Simply click the "Log In" link on your website and choose the Forgot Password link. Enter your email address and your password will be mailed to you. Return to the logon page and you'll be set.

When you see yellow backgrounds, these are administrative controls that only you see. They are the way that you update your website.

The core of the administrative controls is the yellow bar you'll see at the top of your site when logged on as a site administrator. These are drop-down menus that work like the menus of desktop programs. You can access most areas of your site to add and edit content from this bar.

This bar also has a menu called "This Page", which has useful controls specific to the page that you're currently viewing. Depending on what's supported for that page, it allows you to get help, edit, delete, link to, and lockdown the current page.

For page-specific administrative content, you'll often see boxes that look like this:

X Admin:  

These boxes are page-specific administration controls, and allow you to perform actions on that page's content. Only administrators will see these boxes. One handy feature in some of these is the idea of a blurb. A blurb is simply a chunk of text you can add to the top of this page.

Often on the site, you'll be able to control lists of items, for instance photos in a gallery, news items, etc. Here are some common buttons that you'll see associated with these lists:

	This button will add a new item to the list.
	This button will make changes to an existing item.
	This button will remove this item.
	This button will move the item up in the list.
	This button will move the item down in the list.

You can use and administer your ThisChurch with almost any computer with a web browser and an internet connection. Most any modern browser and operating systems will work, including Internet Explorer and Firefox / Mozilla. Officially supported browsers are Firefox 1.5 and 2.0 (Linux or Windows), along with Internet Explorer 6.0 and above (Windows only). Firefox for the Macintosh is theoretically supported, but we have no way of testing it. We highly recommend using Firefox on any operating system.

Some popup blockers interfere with parts of our software, so you'll want to disable them or allow popups from our site. Javascript is required, and must be enabled. If using Internet Explorer, you also must have Medium-High (or lower) security enabled (see "Tools" > "Internet Options" > "Security").

Your Church's Information

Your church information (name, address, phone, etc.) shows up on the front page of your site. You can control what goes here.

1. Go to your church's page, logged on as an administrator.
2. Choose the "Church Information" item of your site's "Content" menu.
3. Update the information in the form.
4. You can elect to remove the weather image or the map and directions links from this page.
5. The "Front-Page Description" box allows you to add freeform text to the information box on your front page. You can use this for an introduction, for instance.
6. You can also upload an image of your church to display on the front page. Simply click the "Browse" button and find the .GIF, .JPG, or .PNG image on your hard drive.
7. Click "Save Information" when you have completed. It may take a few seconds to process the update.

Your website has a list of staff members for your church. It's a great place for you to tell your users about your administration family. Each person has their own profile.

To add a staff member:

1. Go to the Church Staff item of your site's Content menu.

2. Click on the Add Staff button at the top of the page.
3. Fill in the entries in the form.
   • Name - The name of the staff member.
   • Title - What is their title or position within your church?
   • Email - Do they have an email address? Add it here if so.
   • Username - If they have an account on the website, select the username here.
   • About - Tell the world about this person. Be as short or as detailed as you wish.
   • Photo - You can also upload a photograph to display on their profile. Simply click the "Browse" button and find the .GIF, .JPG, or .PNG image on your hard drive.
   • Add to Linkbar - This will add a link to this staff person in the links at the top of your site. Use this sparingly to avoid a very wide linkbar, or worse, one that spills into multiple lines.
4. Click the "Add Staff Member" button. They will now show up at the top of the page. You can repeat the process for as many times as you'd like.

Church News

About News Articles

The News section is one of the most core features to any church's website. It's the main place where your updates will happen, and is the most important method of communication with your members. To this end, we've done everything we can to make this area as powerful and flexible as possible.

The best feature of the news manager is the ability to assign start and end dates to stories. This means that the news section will always be current because expired news entries will automatically be moved to the archive. You can even post stories with a start date in the future. They will not be shown to the public until the start date arrives, and will be accessible to administrators on the news category's main page (see the "Future Stories" button at the top).

By default, your site will have one global news category, called Site News. Each Group also has its own news category. You can also create additional news categories if you wish. Drop us a line if you need help with this.

Adding News Articles

To create a new news article:

1. Choose the News item of your Content menu.
2. Click on the Add News button at the top of the News Administration page.
3. Fill in the entries in the form.
   • Title - The short name describing the news item.
   • Start Date - The first date that the entry shows up on the front page. This can be in the past, present, or future.
   • End Date - The last date that the entry shows up on the front page. This can be in the past, present, or future.
   • Summary (optional) - Shows up below the headline on the front page, to give an idea what the story is about.
   • Priority - A number from 0 to 100 (default 50) indicating the priority of the story. The higher the number, the more important.
   • Entry (optional) - This is where the actual news story goes. Type in your story, using HTML tags if you wish. When the user clicks a headline, it will bring them to a page showing this.
   • URL (optional) - If you want to link directly to another page instead of typing the news in yourself, enter the URL here. Note that this should only be used if you leave the Entry field blank above.
   • Status - "Active" means this post will be public as soon as it's been added. "Pending" means that it will be accessible to administrators only until it's been made public.
   • Topics (optional) - Assign topics to this news item. Topics must be created before they are used.
4. Click the "Add Entry" button. The entry will now show up between the start and end dates.

About News Topics

Each news category, such as the default Site News can have zero or more topics created within them. For instance, you might choose to add these topics to your Site News, using the "Topics" button from the main news category page:

• Church Events
• Youth News
• Important Annoucements
• Birthdays
• Miscellaneous

When adding news items, you'll be able to assign a give topic to the article. This will file it under this topic. All articles will still appear together in the main news listing, but it will show a link to the topic next to your article. Clicking this link will show a filtered list of other news artices with this topic.

Controlling Administrators

Global site administrators are able to make changes to all news categories. You can also assign sub-administrators on a per-category basis. This means that a given user will be able to add, update and delete news entries from a given category but will have no extra rights on the rest of the site.

To add a new news sub-administrator:

1. Go to the main page of the news category in question.
2. Click the "Admins" button at the top of the page.
3. Under the "Add Administrator:" box, choose the user you'd like to add.
4. Click "Add User".

The process to remove a sub-administrator is the same, except using the "Remove User" link above.

News Article Attachments

Attachments are a powerful aspect of your site's news manager. Each article can have one or more attachments associated with it. These are uploaded files that are related to a given news article, such as an audio file, a PDF document, an image, or most anything else.

To create a news article with an attachment, first add the news article as usual. Then, when viewing the new news article, click the "Attachments" button in the page's administrative box.

Note that adding an MP3 as an attachment automatically turns the news category's RSS feed into a valid Podcast feed.

Church Calendar

About Your Calendar

The calendar software is a central part of your site. All of your church's events should be added onto this to keep people updated. Much like the news area of your site, you add events with a date, and your site will automatically keep the calendar up to date. After a day has passed, the events for that day are automatically moved into your calendar's archive.

Adding One-Off Events

To create a single, non-repeating new event:

 

1. Choose the Calendar item of your administration bar's Content menu.
2. This is the list of church events. Click the Add One-Time Event button in the box at the top to add a service.
3. Fill in the entries in the form.
   • Name - The short, generic name describing the service, such as "Sunday Services" or "Youth Group Meeting".
   • Date / Start & End Time - The date and time that the service begins.
   • Description (optional) - The specific description of this service event, such as "God's View On Marriage". Do not fill in this field if this will be a repeating event and this will describe only one of the events.
   • Presenter (optional) - Who is presenting this service?
   • Location (optional) - Where is the event held?
   • Long Description (optional) - Give the details of the topics that will be discussed. Be as detailed as you wish. Again, do not fill in this field if this will be a repeating event and this will describe only one of the events.
   • Notes (optional) - These can be used after the fact to discuss the results of the service, or to post the entire text of the service. Again, do not fill in this field if this will be a repeating event and this will describe only one of the events.
4. Click the "Add Service" button. The entry will now show up in the service list.

Adding Repeating Events

Some events happen every week, and rather than having to add them every week, you can add them all in one fell swoop. To add a recurring event to your calendar:

1. Choose the Calendar item of your administration bar's Content menu.
2. This is the list of church events. Click the Add Recurring Event link in the box at the top to add a service.
3. Fill in the entries in the form.
   • Name - The short, generic name describing the event, such as "Sunday Services" or "Youth Group Meeting".
   • Start Date / Start & End Time - The date and time that the event begins.
   • Title - Give a short description of the service. Don't be too specific - this will apply to every event. You'll usually leave this blank.
   • Repeat? - Here you can specify how often it repeats, and for how long.
4. Click the "Add Service" button. The entry will now show up in the service list.

Managing Events

From an event list, as usual, you can click the "Edit" and "Del" buttons to make changes and remove calendar events. When editing or deleting a recurring event, you'll be presented with a list of options to determine the scope of the changes you'd like to make. This allows you to make changes to a single event in the series, or to make the change to multiple events.

Miscellaneous Calendar Information

Just like in the news section, you can assign calendar administrators who only have rights to the site calendar. See the "Admins" button on the main calendar page.

In addition to the main site calendar, each group that you create will have its own calendar. They work similarly to the site calendar. You can mirror the events from these calendars onto the main site's calendar.

Groups

About Groups

Groups, also known as Ministries, are one of the most powerful ThisChurch features. Each group is like a miniature version of your website, complete with its own membership, news, photo galleries, polls, forums, etc.

Groups can be public (anyone can view and join) or private (only those you invite can view and join). We recommend using private groups only for sensitive purposes, such as church elders or planning committees. For private groups, you'll need to use the "Subscribers and Admins" link on the "Make Changes" menu to invite members to your group.

Group Administration

Administrators can be assigned on a per-group basis, so your youth pastor can have full reign over the Youth Group area, but not have the "keys to the castle". From a given group, if you're a group administrator, you'll see a "Make Changes" link at the top of the page. This is where most of the group administration is done.

From this menu, you can assign additional administrators from the "Subscribers and Admins" link. Click the "Add" button to assign new members and administrators. Note that they must already have an account, so use the Account Creator if they aren't yet registered on the site.

Note that global site administrators are automatically silent administrators over every group, public or private.

Making Changes

From the "Make Changes" link at the top of each group, you'll see all of the options for adding, updating and removing content for the group. Most of these are the same as you'll see elsewhere on the site.

The "Edit Welcome Message" allows you to give a freeform welcome to your site.

The "Edit Group Page Layout" is similar to the "Front-Page Layout" area of your main site. To remove a column, simply delete all the items from it. To start from the default layout, remove all items from all columns. One special case: if you remove all modules except for the welcome message, it will treat the welcome message as the group's page and show only the message (no boxes). This is useful if you only want a freeform page.

User Accounts

Perhaps the most important feature that makes ThisChurch sites powerful is the idea of user accounts. Anonymous users can browse most parts of your site at will without needing accounts. However, many of the fun features require them to create an account, which gives them their own identity on your site. It's very easy for them to do, and it gives them a reason to visit over and over, and it gives them a place to share information, add friends (as in MySpace and Facebook), share photos, and more with other members.

Each account has a username and password combination that they use to log on. They remain logged on until they click the "Log Off" link, or move to a different computer.

If you have a user that would like to remove their account, you can do this for them using the User Directory menu of your site's Users menu. Alternately, you can direct them to the Customize Profile link on your site's main page to remove their account. There's a link in the upper-right corner of this page.

Each user has their own profile page, which can be seen by clicking on their name. The Choose Profile Modules link on the account editing page allows users to choose what shows on their page, and to whom.

Under the "User Directory" item of your site's "Users" menu, you'll see a list of your users. This page is not linked in to your public linkbar by default, but can be added if you choose. This page has additional controls when you're logged in as an administrator, and is your central place to control the accounts that are added to your site. In addition to the public features that allow you to view profiles, search for accounts and send messages to users, you can also edit and delete accounts, as well as view logs for individual users.

By default, anyone can view your user directory and the profiles it contains (minus the email addresses, which are only shown to logged-on users for spam prevention purposes). If you'd like to lock down the user directory, see the "Manage Permissions" link at the top of the main "User Directory" page. From there, you can set the system to only allow logged on users to view these pages, or you can also set it to specific accounts only. Site administrators can always view the directory.

By default, anyone can create an account for themselves without needing validation of their email address or approval from an administrator. If you're nervous about this, you can protect the process using the "Preferences" item of your site's "Layout" menu.

The Account Validation item on this page, there are three options:

1. No Validation (default) - Anyone can create an account immediately.
2. Email Address Verification - Anyone can create an account, but they must first validate their email address. Nothing is necessary on your part with this option. If you delete an account with a given email address, they will not be able to create another account with the same address.
3. Administrator Approval - This means the user can create an account, but it can't be used until an administrator specifically approves it. If you choose this option, your "Administration" box on your site's front page will show the pending user accounts.

Many pages throughout your site require users to be logged on in order to view. There are ways to protect pages from anonymous visitors. From the "Preferences" item of your site's "Layout" menu, you can access the following items:

• Lockdown Directories to Anonymous Users (link at top of page) - This is the most flexible option, allowing you to lock down any area of the site. You can lock down directories (such as /mod/group/ to lock down all groups), or you can lock down individual files (such as /view.php to stop profile viewing). Be careful with this, as it's possible to lock down things that should be available to everyone.
• Allow Anonymous Posts (checked by default) - Uncheck this to disallow anonymous users from posting messages. Note that this will probably eliminate most of the legitimate posts on your site as well, since many users won't want to get an account.
• Allow Anonymous Poll Votes (checked by default) - Uncheck this to require accounts for voting on polls. Note that even with this checked, it's very difficult for users to vote multiple times, so this option may only serve to reduce the number of legitimate votes.

Normally, you'll want your users to create their own accounts so that they can fill in their own information. However, sometimes you'll want to create accounts for users. This is often the case when first setting up a site, where you want to create and assign administrators.

This can be done from the "Account Creator" item of your site's "Users" menu. From here, you can create up to 20 accounts on one form. Fill in the relevant details for each line you wish to use, and check the "Make Admin" checkbox to give them global administrative rights to your site.

For a quicker account setup, if you have only a list of email addresses, click the "Create By Email" link. Here you can paste a list of email addresses and not go through the username / name / etc selection process.

On either of these options, each created account will receive an email with their automatically created password, and instructions to log on. Nothing is necessary on your part.

By default, an account simply has the rights of a standard user. These accounts can post messages, join groups and chat with other members, but they can't change the core content of the website. When you create your website, the username "admin" has full rights to change anything on the website. If you'd like to assign global administrative rights to another user, there are a few ways to do this:

• If the user doesn't yet have an account, go to the "Account Creator" item of your site's "Users" menu. Add a line for the user, and click the "Make Admin" box. Click "Add Users", and the account will be created with the user receiving an email with logon information.
• If the user does already have an account, go to the "Administrators" item of your site's "Users" menu. Select the user under the "Add Administrator" drop-down to add them.
• If the user does already have an account, you can alternately view their account page by clicking on their name somewhere on the site. Click the "Edit" link on their profile page, and choose the "Yes" option for "Is this user a global site administrator?".

Note that you don't necessarily need to give away the keys to the castle. Many areas of the site allow you to appoint sub-administrators. These areas include groups, calendars, news categories, and galleries. There are two ways to assign sub-administrators:

• Go to the entity in question, and go through the steps to adding a subadmin. For instance, for a group, you'd go to that group, click "Make Changes", and click the "Subscribers and Admins" link. Each area has a different method.
• Edit a non-admin's profile in the "User Directory", and you'll see checkboxes to assign subadministrator rights to all supported areas on the site.

Walkthrough: Try Out a User Account

Before You Start

You have an account on your site, even if you don't know it. When you created your trial site, you were automatically logged on to a special account with the username of 'admin'. The admin account is just like any other account, except that it has permissions to update the site.

Since you are probably still logged on as the administrator, you will need to log off in order to use this tutorial. This tutorial will put you in the shoes of a regular visitor of this site.

Step 1: Create An Account

1. Go to the front page of your site. This is what your users will first see.
2. Log off of the administrator account if you haven't done so. Click the "Log Out" link on your front page.
3. Notice the "Create an Account" link on the left-hand side of your page. Click this.
4. Fill out the simple form and click the "Create Account" button. Depending on how you set up your account, you may need to follow the instructions of an email to validate your account. You are now a registered user on your site.

Step 2: Customize Your Account

1. Now that you are a registered user, go back to the main page.
2. Click the "Customize Profile" link. This page is the central place for you to edit your account.
3. Whenever you need to change information such as your email address, name, or password, simply go to this page to update it. You can also use the more advanced customization features.

Step 3: Submitting Your Location

1. We'll add your location the account now. Go to the "Customize Profile" page on the left side of your page.
2. Click on the "Submit Your Location" link.
3. Fill in either the City/State boxes, or the Zip Code box. For security reasons, your users are not asked to submit more detailed location information.
4. Click the "Submit Location" button.
5. Your location will now show up in your profile, and it will also be searchable in the member location search.

Step 4: Add Photos

1. We'll add some photographs to the account now. Go to the "Customize Profile" page on the left side of your page.
2. Click on the "Add Photos" link.
3. Click the "Add A Photo" button at the top of the page.
4. Click the "Browse" button and choose a photo. It will be on your hard drive in a file such as C:\photo.jpg. The photo must be in .JPG, .GIF or .PNG formats (more info).
5. Give the photo a caption.
6. Click the "Add Photo" button.

Step 5: Other Features

When viewing the profile of another member, there are a few fun things that can be done to interact with this person:

• Members can send messages to one another. View the profile of another member, and click the "Send Message" link.
• Members can chat in real time to another member, using the "IM" link in another user's profile.
• You can add members to your "Frequent Contacts" list to make it quicker to contact them. This list will show up on your front page.
• There's more features than we could ever name here. Just play around and try it out, that's half of the fun!

Mailing Lists

About Mailing Lists

In order to stay in touch with your users, you'll want to collect their email addresses so that you can send them periodic updates. We make this easy with the mailing list manager. From the "Front-Page Layout" item of your site's "Content" menu, make sure the "Mail List Signup" module is listed on your page. This will allow users to join your mailing list.

The "Mailing Lists" item of your site's "Users" menu is the center of this feature. You'll see at least one list, the Site Mailing List. This is where the front-page mailing list signups go to.

The "Template" of a given mailing list is the content that each message begins with. If you have a certain boilerplate that you'd like to start with, here's the place to enter it.

Note that users can subscribe for either plain text or HTML. The HTML editor for your site is automatically turned on when sending email. The users who have opted for HTML email will see a reasonably similar page to what you see when typing the message. Users who have opted for plain text will see the message stripped of formatting. Be sure that this is a reasonable view. It's usually best to avoid HTML formatting when possible.

Previous mailings are stored in the archive, which can be seen from the "Mailings" link next to the mailing list.

Sending Mail to Lists

From the "Mailing Lists" item of your site's "Users" menu, click the "Send" link next to the mailing list you'd like to send a message to. Go ahead and fill in the subject and mail fields with the content you'd like to send. You have the option of limiting the scope of who the message is sent to in the fields below. Click the "Preview" button to ensure that your message is formatted correct, and then click send if all is well.

Manually Adding Subscribers

If you have a pre-existing list of subscribers from a previous list, you can add them by clicking the "Subscribers" link next to a given list. Click the "Add Addresses" link from this page to add subscribers.

Note that it's far better to have people sign up themselves then to sign them up yourself, and it's against our terms of service to add users who haven't given you specific permission to do so. A tag is automatically added to the bottom of each message which allows each user to unsubscribe themselves from the list.

Discussion & Interaction

About Forums

Forums are at the core of the interactive aspect of your website. You've probably seen these on other sites; they are a way for your users to discuss things at their own pace, rather than in real time (as in, for instance, the chat area). There are several levels involved in the forums:

• Forums are at the highest level. These contain topics, which in turn contain posts. By default, your site has two forums: the Site Forum, and Prayer Requests. Each group has its own forum as well.
• Topics are contained within forums. For example, the Prayer Requests forum might have a topic called "Please Pray for Bill Malone". Each topic contains one or more posts.
• Posts are contained within topics. The "Please Pray for Bill Malone" topic may have started out with the initial post, and various people may have responded to this with words of encouragement in separate posts within this topic.

You can assign forum moderators with the "Admins" button on a given forum's main page. Moderators are able to change topic titles and remove topics, and also to edit and delete the messages that the topics contain.
The topics list in a forum is shown with the most recent updates at the top. If you have a topic in a given forum that's very important, and you want it to always be on top, use the "Stick" button.

About Chat Rooms

While forums are meant for interaction over time, chat rooms are interaction in real-time. These are not linked into your main site by default, but can be added from the linkbar. Users post messages to the chat room, and these are shown almost immediately to anyone else who is also in the chat room at a given time. Chat rooms are a great way to encourage people to visit your site often.

Each group has its own chat room. There is a static box on the group's page, with a link to the "PowerWall", which is the full chat room.

About Private Messages & IMs

Registered users on your site can privately communicate with one another using two features: private messages, and IMs.

Private messages are sent at any time to a user, and will appear on their screen the next time the visit the site. Additionally, they can choose to be notified by email when new private messages arrive.

IMs (instant messages) are similar to private messages, but work more like a chat room. These are only useful when both members are online at the same time, and work similar to AIM or Yahoo! Messenger, except that the conversation is safe within the walls of your church, rather than exposing them to unsavory characters on the larger services.

Both of these can be initiated by viewing the target user's profile.

About Discussion

In addition to the dedicated discussion areas in the forums, much of the content that you create on your site (news article, calendar events, blog posts, etc) allows users to discuss it. This is normally a good thing, since it promotes interaction in your site. Administrators are able to manage the discussion areas in order to remove inappropriate posts. They also have access to Close a discussion area, which keeps it visible but disables further posts, as well as to Hide it, which removes it from the page entirely.

Adding Content

File Manager

Adding Freeform Pages

As hard as we try to automate page creation with ThisChurch, you may occasionally need to create a page that we don't have a template for. Before doing this, make sure that there isn't a good place to put it. The news section is a great place for many documents.

Your site's file manager works much like Windows Explorer. There's a root folder, called "Documents" by default. In this folder are files, along with nested folders. These folders can contain more subfolders and more files, and so on. You can navigate to a given file or folder using the tree on the left of the screen, and on the right side you'll be given a list of commands inside of a yellow box.

You can add a file by:

1. Go to the File Manager item of your site's Content menu.
2. Optional: navigate to a given folder where you'd like to add the file. By default, there's only the "Documents" folder, so this isn't necessary.
3. Click either the "Create New File" link (if you'd like to type or paste the contents by hand), or the "Upload New File" link (if you'd like to send an existing file from your hard drive).
4. Follow the directions on the form to add the file.

Additional File Manager Features

You can assign administrators for each file manager group. See the "Administrators" button on the file manager page. This will only give them access to this area of the site.

When non-binary files (text, html, etc) are edited, a revision history is saved. In other words, if you make a change you didn't intend, you can roll back to a previous version at any time. You can also see what has changed from revision to revision with the "Diff" link.

When uploading images to the file manager, you can resize them if you wish. See the "Resize" link when viewing the page for the image.

Each group has its own file manager as well, and any group admins can add and manage files for their own file manager. There is a global quota for all files in all file managers and photo galleries combined.

Nested Documents

If you have a group of pages you'd like to easy create and link together, you can use nested documents. When viewing a regular HTML file in your File Manager (rather than a directory), you'll see a link called "Add Nested Document". This will create a subpage of the current document, and will automatically create a link to it in the top-right corner.

You need only to link the "root" document into your site - the rest are accessible from there.

Using and Linking to Your Documents

Upon creating a document in your site's file manager, it's just sitting online and is not being used. You need to link it into your site in order for it to be seen by your users. Here are a few methods of doing that:

• When viewing the site's properties page in your file manager, click the "Add to Linkbar" link.
• Take the "Full Path to This File" URL address and link it into your site by hand. You can do this with your HTML editor.
• When viewing the page itself, if it's templated, see the "Add to Linkbar" item of the admin bar's "This Page" menu.
• Simply take the "Full Path to This File" and send it via email to someone if you'd rather not link it into the site but you still want to share it with specific people.
• Use the front-page modules (described below).

Front-Page Modules

Your file manager can produce special front-page modules that link in trees of documents. There's one available by default, called "File Manager", that will link to the entire tree of documents in your main file manager.

You can also create modules for specific folders. Go to the folder in your file manager, and click the "Add to Front Page" link. It will link in only documents within this folder, along with any nested folders.

Note that admin-only documents will never be linked, and documents which are only visible to logged-in users will not be shown to anonymous users.

Images and Photos

Image Format Guidelines

Your image must be in one of the following formats:

1. .JPG - This is the best format for photos.
2. .GIF - This is a good format for non-photo images.
3. .PNG - This is another good non-photo image format.

A common error is to try to use an unsupported format such as Word documents, PDF files or BMP files. You'll want to find the original images, or convert these into a supported format. Due to the wide number of variables in this realm, we do not provide support help for this.

It's not usually necessary to resize your photos if they're large - this is done automatically.

About Adding Images

Adding images and photos to your website is such a broad topic that it deserves its own section. Depending on where you'd like to add your image, see the directions below.

Your Logo and Church Photo

Your website starts with a default church image in the corner. You can change this if you'd like. You can also add a photo of your church to the "Our Church" box on your front page. Here's how to do this:

1. Choose the Information item of your Content menu.
2. At the bottom of this page you'll see an "Upload Church Photo" field and an "Upload Church Logo" field. The Photo field will add a picture of your church to your church information module on the front page. The Logo will replace the image in the top-left corner of your site.
3. Click the "Browse" button next to this field.
4. Locate the image file on your hard drive.
5. When you've found it, click the "Open" button.
6. Click "Save" back on the web page to submit your photo. It will show up on your main page.

Staff Member Photos

See the Listing Your Staff Memebers entry for information about how to add staff member photos.

Adding Images to Other Areas

You can insert images using your HTML editor. See this section for more information.

For other spots, you can upload the image to your File Manager and then link to it using HTML.

Photo Galleries

About Photo Galleries

Photo galleries are collections of similar photographs. For instance, your website could have galleries of pictures of your church, your members, your events, and anything else you want. This is where "freeform" photograps can go.

Your site starts with a single photo gallery called "General Photo Gallery". If you don't plan to add many photos on a regular basis, you may want to add all photos to this default gallery. Alternately, you can create new galleries from this page for each event. You can even create subgalleries within other galleries.

Each Group has its own photo gallery as well, which you can also add nested galleries into.

Adding New Galleries

If you'd like to add a new photo gallery to contain photos, here's how:

1. Choose the Photo Gallery item of your site's Content menu.
2. Click the "Add Gallery" button at the top of this page.
3. Select a name (ie, "Church Photos") and a description (ie, "Photographs of the inside and outside of our church") for the gallery.
4. If you'd like to have this gallery on your front page, click the "Add to Block List" checkbox, then use the Front-Page Layout item of your site's Layout menu to place the module on your front page.
5. Click "Add Gallery".
6. You'll be taken to your new gallery. Continue instructions below.

Adding New Subgalleries

Let's say you have a gallery called "Youth Group Events", and the youth group went to camp in 2005. You'd want to add a nested gallery within this gallery called "Camp 2005" to contain these photos logically. To add a nested gallery from within an existing gallery:

1. Go to the gallery in question
2. Click the "Add Nested Gallery" button in the yellow admin box
3. Fill out the forms to add the gallery

Adding Photos to a Gallery

Once you've created some galleries to place your photos into, follow these steps:

1. Choose the Photo Gallery item of your site's Content menu.
2. Click on the gallery where you'd like your photos to go.
3. Click on the "Add Photos" button at the top of this page.
4. From here, you can upload a number of photos at once. Keep this number small if you're on a slow connection or are using large photos.
5. For each photo to upload:
   • Click the "Browse" button.
   • Locate your photograph on your hard drive. Click "Open" in the box when you're finished.
   • Give the photo a short Caption (ie, "Pastor Brown"), and an optional lon description (ie, "Pastor Brown smiles at the congregation").
6. Click "Add Photos". They will appear in the gallery.

If you upload a photo that needs to be rotated (due to being sideways or upside-down), you can do this online. After adding the image, click the "Edit" button associated with it, and use the "Rotate" controls to align the image correctly.

Audio and Video

Basic Multimedia

Many church website administrators want to add audio and video to their sites. There are numerous way to to this using ThisChurch. The first consideration is to decide what media content you'd like to upload. Some things work better than others. A simple clickable audio or video introduction to welcome your online visitors can be an effective way to greet visitors. On the other hand, adding audio and video of entire sermons is usually not worth the hassle. While it sounds like a nice service for your visitors, we've found that in reality, these are very rarely listened to. Most people at home simply don't have the patience to concentrate on their computers that long. However, a single short (15 minute, perhaps) sampling of one of your more interesting services can be a nice "hook" for people looking for a new church in your area.

You can upload audio and video as attachments to news articles. This is a good way to organize timely information, and is the easiest way to add files. Note that adding an MP3 to a news article has the added benefit of turning the news category's RSS feed into a valid Podcast.

If you need more control over the placement of the links to the files, you can upload audio and video to the File Manager, and then link the file manually into your site in the spot of your choosing. By using nested documents, you can create one file that introduces the documents, then add the audio/video documents as nested documents, which are automatically linked in. The file manager will give you a URL link that you can use to link into your site as you'd like.

We're unable to help with media creation and file encoding, since there are too many variables involved. However, a few guidelines may help you in this realm. The most important is to use the lowest encoding quality possible while still preserving the essence of your media. Many of your users will be on slow connections, and the smaller the file size, the more chance you have of people viewing your files. MP3 is recommended for audio, and 64kbps mono is a good setting for speech.

Note that while we do support audio and video uploads, these are meant to be "opt-in" listens for your users. Adding "background music" to your site is not supported or recommended. There are many problems and reasons to avoid this, and it's always better to give your users the option to click your audio and video files themselves rather than forcing it on them.

Streaming Media Upgrade

About the Upgrade

We offer an optional streaming media upgrade to help you get the most out of your multimedia. It's a one-time $50 fee, and can be purchased from the "Upgrades" item of your site's "Features" menu. This upgrade gives a number of powerful new features to your site.

Embedded Streaming Video

You can upload downloadable video files out of the box, such as .AVI, .MPG and .WMV. However, your users will need to wait for these large files to download before they'll begin to play, and they'll also need to have an external program installed to watch the files. Plus, they'd need to leave your site's browser window to view the files.

Our streaming media upgrade fixes these problems by allowing you to embed video directly within the pages your site. The only thing your users need to view these files is the very common Flash player. Here's how to use this feature:

• Upload a standard video file to your File Manager in either the .AVI, .MPG or .WMV formats.
• Click the "Convert to Flash" button on that file's File Manager page.
• When editing content in your HTML editor, simply click the icon to choose a video to embed. 

Essentially, this feature gives you the same abilities as a site such as YouTube.

Streaming MP3s

Rather than waiting for an MP3 file to download to play it, with the streaming media upgrade, your users can start listening almost instantly. There are several ways to offer embedded MP3s.

The first, and easiest, is to upload the MP3 as an attachment to a news article. When you do this, the link to the file on the right column of the article will include a link to stream the file. It will open in their preferred audio player.

The next two methods involve your File Manager. In both cases, you upload the MP3 file first. This will give you two options of what to do next:

1. The "Code for Streaming Player" section will give you some raw HTML that you can paste into your HTML editor anywhere you'd like to embed a player within your page. Be sure to use your editor's source mode to paste this content. The advantages to this method are control over placement and the fact that the player is directly inside the page itself.
2. The "Streaming MP3 URL" link allows you to link to the file as you would any other link. The file will open up and play in their preferred external audio player. This is handy if you need to send a link by email or prefer not to embed the file in a page.

RealAudio and RealVideo

RealAudio and RealVideo streaming is also enabled with this upgrade. Note, however, that these formats are now somewhat outdated. They're also much harder to work with on your end, and requires a special plugin to be installed on your users' computers. We recommend instead using MP3 for all audio and the embedded streamer for all video.

If you would still like to use these formats, you'll need a free program called RealProducer Basic to encode the audio or video from raw .WAV files into compressed RealAudio. We don't provide support with media creation, but if you have any questions with the process of creating a .RM or .RV file, please use their support system. You can upload these files to your file manager; you'll see a URL address starting with rtsp://. Use this to link the file on your site.

Polls

About Polls

Most church websites are a form of one-way communication, but using polls, you can complete the circuit and find out what your members think.

For privacy reasons, poll voting is completely anonymous. However, safeguards are in place to prevent multiple votes from one person. We use a two pronged approach for this - cookies hide the submission form for users who have already voted, and IP addresses are recorded for each vote.

You have the choice of whether to allow anonymous users to vote on polls or not, on a site-wide basis. This can be selected from the "Preferences" item of your site's "Layout" menu. We highly recommend allowing anonymous users to vote, since multiple vote safeguards are in place and since you'll receive far more votes this way.

Each poll category has a list of past, current and future polls. Each poll has a start date, and an optional end date. There can only be one active poll per category - if multiple polls are within the start/end date parameters, only the one with the most recent start date is shown.

In addition to the poll category on the front page of your site, meant for site-wide polls, each group has its own poll category.

Adding Polls

To add a new poll to your site, first go to the poll category page. For the main site polls, this means going to the "Polls" item of your site's "Content" menu. To access polls for your groups, first go to the group, then click the "Make Changes" link, then click the "Edit Polls" option from the menu.

Once at this page, follow these steps to add a poll:

1. Click the "Add Poll" link.
2. Enter a question for the poll to ask. Try to keep this relatively short.
3. Type two or more poll options in the lines below. The option names should also be as short as possible. You can have up to 10 options per poll.
4. If desired, give the poll a start and an end date. Leaving these as they are will ensure that the poll will go up immediately.

Once saved, you'll see the poll in the list. Note that you can schedule polls into the future to create a seamless transition each night at midnight.

Other Content

Linkbar

At the top of your site below your site's header (or the left side, if you've configured it as such), you'll see a list of links such as "About Us", "News", "Calendar", etc. These links serve as the primary navigation for your visitors to the various areas of your site. This makes it very important that you organize these to point to the areas of your site that you'd like to highlight.

When logged on as an administrator, you'll see an "Edit" button next to your linkbar. Hit this button to make changes. From this page, you'll see the tree of links. Links may be nested into drop-down menus of any depth. The "Used Links" section shows you what is currently in your linkbar, and the "Unused Links" are links that have been created but are not currently in use.

To add a new link to the linkbar:

• Go to the page on your site that you'd like to link.
• Choose the "Add to Linkbar" from your site's "This Page" menu (in the yellow bar at the top of your site).
• Fill out the form. If you'd like to add a new link into the tree beneath an existing link, select the parent link in the "File Under" drop-down.
  

You can edit an existing link to change its information, and to move it to a different area within the tree. You can also remove an item. This will move it, and all child links, to the unused links area.

One important tip: make sure that the linkbar is narrow enough so that horizontal scrolling isn't necessary in narrow browsers. About 8-10 links with short names is all we recommend.

Custom Forms

There may be times when you need to collect information from your church's members. Some examples of this would be event signup forms, surveys, and data collectors. This can be done with the "Custom Forms" item of your site's "Features" menu. This is a reasonably advanced feature.

From this page, you'll see one custom form which has already been created, called "Account Questions". This works the same as other custom forms, except that the questions you add are added to the "Customize Profile" page for users, and the results will be displayed on the user's profile.

To create a form of your own, click the "Add a new custom form" link. Fill out the form:

• Form Name: The name, such as "Summer School Signup"
• Multiple Responses: If this is set to "No", each unique user can only respond once. When set to "Yes", a user can respond multiple times.
• Allow Anonymous: If this is set to "Yes", anyone can respond, with or without an account. If set to "No", only logged-in users can respond.

Click the "Add Form" to create a skeleton form. The next page will allow you to add questions to the form. For each question you'd like to add to the form, select the type of question from the "Add a Field" drop-down box, and click "Add". It will ask you a few things about the question you're adding. These can include:

• Field Name: Shows at the top of the results table column for this question.
• Prompt: This is what the user will be asked for this question.
• Must Match: This is an advanced setting. You may enter a regular expression here. If you leave this blank, anything will be accepted, including a blank response to this question. Enter a single "." (a period) to require a response to the question.
• Size: For text fields, the maximum number of letters. Leave blank for unlimited.
• Is this Unique: Check this box only if you wish this to be a unique response. If you add a "Username" field, and someone has already answered this question with "test123", it will fail if you try to answer this as well. 99% of the time you'll want to leave this option unchecked.

Note that it's unsafe to ask for credit cards from this feature. Please contact them separately to collect payment, if needed.

When you've added the necessary fields to your form, you'll usually need to link it into your site in order for people to use it. The address is shown on the main page for that custom form. You can link this into your site wherever you'd like, or you can pass around that URL yourself to the people who need to answer it.  

Prayer Requests

You and your users have the ability to make requests for prayers, using our new Prayer Requests module. Under the "Linkbar" item of your site's "Content" menu, be sure that the "Prayers" link is used on your site's linkbar. Click the link to enter the prayer request area.

When posting a request, you have some privacy options. If it's a sensitive issue that the poster would like to keep hidden from the general public, they can set the "Who Can View?" selection to "Administrators Only". If it's a very sensitive request, they can remain anonymous using the "Anonymity" selection. This will hide their identity from everyone, including administrators.

As for the administrators, all site admins are automatically included in this group. You can also appoint other users with the "Permissions" link on the main page.

You can also set a list of email addresses to be notified when a new prayer request is posted, using the "Notifications" button on the main prayer request page's yellow admin box. All addresses listed on this form will be emailed when a new prayer request is added (whether public or not).

When a request is first posted, its status is set to "Open". Once it's been processed and you'd like to hide it from the general public, you can close the request with the "Close Request" button. You can also delete requests entirely if they're not within your terms of service.

Website Look & Feel

Our design philosophy is simple: we provide you with simple and highly usable templates to get your site started, and then we give you the tools to customize your site's look and feel if you desire. We deliberately stay away from flashy designs, because we've found that while end users may have an initial "wow" reaction, they tend to be harder to use and those users may not return.

This section details how to go about customizing how your site looks. Note that while we provide automatic software upgrades for your site, we do not automatically upgrade your site's visual templates so that we don't change your site's look overnight without you knowing. Therefore, some features may be unavailable on your site. We're always happy to upgrade you to the newest version of our templating software. Just drop us a line. Note that it's a one-way upgrade that may involve significant visual changes and minor functional changes. Ask if you have any questions.

The layout template of your site determines the overall layout of your site. The main parts of a template are the header, which is HTML code that starts every one of your pages, and the footer, which ends your pages.

Warning: This is an advanced feature which requires solid knowledge of HTML and CSS. While we don't provide HTML and CSS support, sites like HTMLHelp.com are an excellent resource for help if you need it.

To edit your layout templates, go to the "Look & Feel" item of your site's "Layout" menu. Under the "Layouts" section of this page will be listed your options. To make changes, always work from a clone rather than editing directly. Click the "Clone" link next to your current layout.

You'll see a page with raw HTML mixed in with some expansions, such as |TITLE|. These are special words that expand into other text depending on the specific page. For instance, |TITLE| turns into "Forums" when you're on your forums page. Here's a list of possible expansions for you to use:

• |TITLE| - The page title, for the <title> tag. Required in header.
  
• |HEADER| - The page header text. Required in header.
  
• |CSS| - The path to the related CSS file. Highly recommended in header.
  
• |WELCOME| - The welcome message (different if logged on). Not required.
• |UDB(entity_name)| - Returns the name of your organization. Other possibilities include entity_city, entity_state, and entity_logo.
• |LINKBAR_HORIZ| and |LINKBAR_VERT| - These will display your site's linkbar in either horizontal or vertical formats.

The following expansions can be used in the "Module Template" section:

• |HEADER| - The title of the module. Required.
  
• |BLOCK| - The body of the module. Required.
  
• |COLOR(module_header_bg)| - Expands to the six-character hex code for a given color in the current theme. Note that you must include a hash character (#) before the value yourself. Possible values: module_header_bg, module_header_fg, module_body_bg, module_body_fg, body_bg, body_fg.

When you're done, click one of the "Add Layout" buttons at the bottom to save your changes.  

The colors for layouts which are marked as "ColorControl" can be edited with a point-and-click interface using Internet Explorer 5.5 and above. To use this feature, make sure you've chosen a ColorControl layout, and then go to the "Look & Feel" item of your site's "Layout" menu.

You'll see a number of options available by default under the "Color Themes" area of this page. To use one, click the "Choose" link beneath it. To make changes, click the "Edit" link beneath it. A copy will be created that you can edit without changing the original.

There are several sections on this page that allow you to edit various areas of the site. The "Main Page" area changes the primary colors that form every page. The "Tables" area determine the color used when tables are shown on your site, such as the calendar and forums list. Finally, the "Front-Page Modules" controls the boxes on the front page of your site. Click the "Background", "Foreground" or "Link" colors to edit the colors for a given area.

Changing Your Front-Page Layout

About Your Front-Page

There are two aspects to your front-page layout: the HTML template, and the module order. The HTML template controls the basic framework of your front page, such as whether it has one, two or three columns of modules, or is completely freeform and does not use modules at all. The module order controls which boxes go where on your front-page.

Editing Your Front-Page Modules

You can start by going to the "Front-Page Layout" item of your site's "Layout" menu. From this page, you'll see a table with a number of columns (by default, two) that represent the boxes on your front page. From this table, you can rearrange the boxes. Simply click and drag a given module in to a new position to move it.  Click the "X" button to remove it from your current front-page layout (you'll be able to add it again later).

To add a pre-existing module to your front page, click and drag it from the "Unused Modules" box into the desired spot. Read on if you'd like to add a module that doesn't yet exist.

Creating Your Own Front-Page Modules

As hard as we try to automate page creation, you may occasionally need to create a front-page box that we don't have a template for. Before doing this, make sure that there isn't a good place to put it. The news section is a great place for many documents.

To create a new freeform front-page box:

1. Choose the "Front-Page Layout" item of your site's "Layout" menu.
2. Click on the "Custom Modules" link in yellow box.
3. Click on the "Add a new module" link at the top of the page.
4. Fill in the entries in the form.
   • Name - This is the "title" of the module.
   • Contents - This is the actual contents of your module. You can use HTML if you please.
   • Add to Page? - If you'd like to go ahead and add it to your front page now, choose a column. Otherwise, you can add it later.
5. Click the "Add Module" button.
   

About Rotating Front-Page Modules

We offer a special kind of front-page module that may be of use to your church. It's called a "rotating module" because you can give it more than one possible block of content, and each time your front page loads, it will show a random choice from this list of content.

The method for creating these is similar to the regular modules:

1. Choose the "Front-Page Layout" item of your site's "Layout" menu.
2. Click on the "Rotating Modules" link in the yellow box.
3. Click on the "Add a new rotating module" link at the top of the page.
4. Fill in the entries in the form.
   • Rotating Module Name - This is the title of the module, used internally to identify it for you.
   • Add to Page? - If you'd like to go ahead and add it to your front page now, choose a column. Otherwise, you can add it later.
   • Header - You can now add the first content option. Choose the title here.
   • Contents of First Option - Type the body of the first content option here.
     
5. Click the "Add Module" button. 
6. You'll now see it on the "Front-Page Layout" list. Click "Edit" next to it to add additional content options.

Front-Page HTML Template

Finally, you can customize the HTML for your front page layout. Note that this is an advanced feature that requires HTML knowledge, and most people will not have the need to change this. Note that the HTML template for the modules themselves is contained in the "Templates" area of the "Look & Feel" page.

Start by going to the "Front-Page Layout" item of your site's "Content" menu. At the bottom of this page is the front-page template functionality. The main layout is usually a table with two or three columns for modules. There are a few default layouts to choose from, and these mostly deal with the number of columns on your front page. To make changes, either Edit or Clone (recommended) an existing module. In order to use modules on your front page, you'll need to add expansions for columns. These are of the form |COLUMN(1,LEFT)| - the first parameter (1) is the column number, and the second parameter determines which module HTML template to apply for this column (LEFT, RIGHT or CENTER, with CENTER being default).

One useful application for this section is if you wish to use a completely freeform front-page layout, with no modules at all. You can clone the "Freeform Front Page" template and add any HTML you wish for the front page to have complete control over the contents.

Miscellaneous

Here are some websites we think you may find useful:

• UseIt.com - Website usability resources from Jakob Nielsen.
• HTMLHelp - An excellent resource for learning raw HTML.

Our pricing philosophy is simple: we don't want to charge extra money for features that don't cost us extra to offer, so almost all of our features are included in your church's monthly fee out of the box. However, a few features can't be included with every site, so we offer them as premium services. All of these can be seen and purchased from our upgrades page. Here is a list of our currently available account upgrades:

• Webmail: We will install a Hotmail/GMail-like software package on your site that will allow you and your staff to check your POP-based email accounts from anywhere, without installing a client on your desktop. The one-time fee is $50.
  
• RealAudio Streaming: We will install software onto your website that will allow you to stream RealAudio and RealVideo files. This means that you'll save disk space, and your users will be able to start listening immediately after clicking your file, rather than waiting for the download to complete. The one-time fee is $50.
  
• Search Engine Submission: We will submit your website to over 50 of the top Christian and secular search engines for a one-time fee of $150.
  
• Disk Space and Extra POP Mailboxes: Contact us if you need more of these. Extra disk space is available for an extra $50/year for each block of 50 MB, and extra POP mailboxes are available for $50/year for each block of 5 mailboxes.
• Custom Software Development: If you need a piece of software that we don't offer, or if you need modifications to our internal software to fit your needs, drop us a line with your detailed needs and we'll give you a free estimate. The hourly fee is $50 for this service.

Additionally, you'll also probably want a domain name for your site. See the "Domain Names" section of the FAQ for more information.

Your website comes with a temporary website address to get you started. It looks like myname.thischurch.org. You're welcome to keep this as your site's primary address, but most people choose to give it their own name, such as myname.org. This is called a domain name.

Once signed up, you'll be able to set up a domain name for your site. If you already own one from a previous site, you can use it with us for no additional charge. Alternately, you can purchase one through us for $15/year. Both of these can be done from the "Domain/Email" item of your site's "Features" menu.

The process of transferring an existing domain name to your site with us is relatively simple:

1. Sign up to activate your website.
2. Go to the "Domain/Email" item of your site's "Features" menu and select the domain name to transfer.
3. Wait a short while for us to process this, then go back to the "Domain/Email" item of your site's "Features" menu. At this point, any email addresses used at the old host must now be recreated on our end.
4. Once you've done this, make the quick change outlined here. The domain name will be moved within a day (usually an hour or less).

Email at Your Domain

Receiving Email

Most people who get a domain for their website, say, mysite.org for this example, will want to be able to receive mail at their domain name. In other words, webmaster@mysite.org can go to the webmaster of the site. We offer a fixed number of POP email accounts, depending on your church size. These are true mailboxes, separate from your existing mail. In order to view the mail they contain, you must separately check them.

Everything is controlled from the "Domain/Email" selection of the "Features" menu in your administration panel.

Accessing POP Mailboxes and Sending Mail

Any POP mail client will work for reading and sending email. Microsoft Outlook and Mozilla Thunderbird are popular. You can also use GMail. The settings that you will need to use are as follows, using terry@mysite.org with password "mypass" as an example:

POP Server:	mail.mysite.org (substitute your domain name)
POP Username:	terry@mysite.org (the @mysite.org is important!)
POP Password:	mypass
Outgoing/SMTP Server:	[Check with your ISP]

Important: POP accounts are unrelated to website accounts. The username and password you use for email may or may not be the same as the ones you use to access your website. Please see the "Domain/Email" item of your site's "Features" menu to reset your email password if you're having authentication failures.

Due to spam concerns, you'll want to use your ISP's SMTP server to send mail. You can contact your internet provider if you don't know the correct settings for this.

If you don't know how to set this up, or you're on the road a lot, you may want to set up our webmail client. It is similar to Hotmail or Yahoo! Mail. See the "Upgrades" item of your site's "Features" menu to purchase this, for a one-time fee of $50.

Your Site's HTML Editor

About the Editor

The HTML editor is one of the power features we offer that makes it possible for you to update your site without knowing HTML. Whenever you see a box that looks a little like a Microsoft Word document that allows you to use controls such as Bold, Italics, etc. to edit your content, this is the HTML editor.

Note that only users of Internet Explorer 5.5+ on Microsoft Windows will see the HTML editor.

Uploading Images

NOTE: There are two versions of the HTML editor. If these images don't match up, your trial site was probably created before July 21st, 2005, and you haven't yet upgraded to the new editor. See this document for information.

When using the HTML editor on your site, you can add images into the editor box. Here are the directions.

1. When editing data on your site inside of the HTML editor, place your cursor in the editor box in the location where you'd like the image to go.
2. Locate and click the icon that looks like a picture frame:

    

   

    

3. A box will pop up. Click the "Browse Server" button:

    

   

    

4. Another window will pop up. Click the "Browse..." button:

    

   

    

5. Another box will pop up. Locate the image file on your hard drive. Note that it must be in .JPG, .GIF, or .PNG format! When you have selected the file to upload, click the "Open" button.
   

    

6. Back at the first popup box, click the "Upload" button.
7. You should see your image appear in the box above. Click it.
8. Click the "Ok" button on the next window, and your image will be inserted into your document.

Adding Links

A key feature of your site's HTML is the ability to add links. Since this may not be apparent if you've never used an HTML editor, here is the process you'd use to link a word of text to another website, in this case, Yahoo!.

1. Type out the text you'd like to use in your document, which will contain the link:

 



 

2. Use your mouse to highlight the text you'd like to use to link to the other site:

 



 

3. Click the "Link" icon, which looks like a globe with a chain on top of it:

 



 

4. A box will pop up asking you for the address you'd like to link to. Fill this in, then click the OK button:

 



 

5. You will be returned to your document, and your link will be blue and underlined, to signify that it is an active link:

 



 

Adding Raw HTML

Most times, when using the site's HTML editor to add and edit content, you can do what you need to do using the buttons provided. Occasionally, however, you may need to add raw HTML. The most common reason for this is to add scripted content from another website, such as a news feed. Or, you may just want to have more control over formatting if you know HTML.

Our editor provides this functionality. If you'd like to switch into raw HTML mode, simply click the "Source" checkbox in the editor:

 

 

Type or paste the content you need to insert as raw HTML, and then uncheck the source checkbox when done to return to the standard editor mode.

One other common question about formatting within the editor involves how to insert a single linebreak. Since the editor was designed to work like a word processor, pressing "Enter" adds a double-spaced paragraph break. If you'd like to only add a single linebreak, hold the "Shift" key while pressing "Enter".

Helpful Ideas

Publishing a Newsletter

This is a common request from churches - they have an existing newsletter that they print on paper monthly, and they'd like to also publish it online. This is a great job for the news module, which allows you to post articles with a starting and ending date. They'll show up on your front page only between these dates, and will then be moved to the archive. Another feature of news is the ability to add file attachments, which is a great way to publish your newsletter.

To start, make sure you're logged on as an administrator, and you'll see an button next to the "News" box on your front page. Click that, and then click the "Add News" link. Add a title for this edition of your newsletter, and set the start and end dates to your liking, usually a month. In the "Summary" field, type an abstract of this edition.

At this point, you have three options: to paste the text of the newsletter into the "News Text" field, or to attach the original newsletter document as a file, or convert to PDF.

If you'd like to paste the contents (recommended for easiest reading), simply select all of the newsletter text from the original document, select Copy (probably in the Edit menu), then move back to your web browser window. Place the cursor in the "News Text" box, and use your browser's Paste command. The text will appear in the box. Note that your images will not show up, and the formatting may look different, however, users can read the content directly rather than having to load a file and make sure they're able to view the file.

If you'd rather attach the newsletter as a file, then leave the "News Text" field blank, and click the "Add News" button at the bottom of the page. The next page will come up with a box labeled "Article Attachments". Click the "Add Attachment" link in this box. The next page will have an "Upload Attachment" field with a Browse button. Click the Browse button and locate the newsletter file on your hard drive. Give the attachment a name in the next field, and click the "Add Attachment" button to send it. Repeat this process for all related files. Note that if you use a proprietary format, such as Microsoft Word or Publisher, only users who have installed this software can view your document.

One other option you have for some document formats is to convert to PDF, which is more widely supported than other proprietary document formats. One benefit is that images are inline, which means that you only have one file to upload. The file size can be rather large, but it's a decent compromise in some cases. See Adobe Acrobat for a program to convert to PDF.

Securing Your Website

When getting your church online, you will be sharing a lot of information about your church with the world. You must take care in doing this that you don't share too much information about your members. Here are some tips for protecting the privacy of your users and to keep your website free of bad guys:

• Don't publish your member directory online. This is an important guideline. Many churches want to publish their members' addresses and other contact information because it seems like a logical step on the path of what they've always done, but this is very dangerous. It's impossible to publish this information without opening your users up to dangerous people online searching for information about them.
• Use care in photo galleries. The world can see your photo galleries. Never use full names of the people in the photos, and consider not sharing names at all, especially in the case of children. In their case, it's best to first get parental permission to post photos.
• Don't post email addresses. When posting text for news entries and such, don't share email addresses in these. Plain text email addresses will get harvested by spammers and will be sent unsolicited email. The email addresses in profiles are safe, because only logged-on users will be able to see these.
• Consider requiring validation for accounts. By default, anyone can create an account on your website. This is usually a good thing, as it increases particpation, but if you run into problems, you may wish to validate accounts before they can be used. You can set this up under the "Preferences" item of the "Layout" menu.
• Consider requiring accounts to post messages. By default, anonymous users to your website can post messages in your discussion forums. Again, this is a good thing because you'll get a lot more posts, but if you run into problems, you can lock this down. This is also under "Preferences", and is effective especially with the account validation.
• Don't be too liberal with admin rights. You can appoint various users on your site to be administrators over various parts, or the whole. Be sure that the person can be trusted before doing this, especially in the case of global administrative rights. A person can easily do damage to the site, whether maliciously, or unintentionally (if they're not good with computers).

Creating a Blog

If you're a pastor or other church leader looking for an innovative way to communicate with your members, try out our Blog feature (from the Blog item of your site's Features menu). Also known as weblogs or online journals/diaries, this is a great way to informally keep others up to date with what's going on.

Here are some things you should know about our blogs:

• Each blog post has a start date associated with it. If this date is set to the future, it will not show up until the day you specify.
• A blog entry can be either set to "Active" or "Pending". Pending entries will not show to the public until you activate them. This is a handy way to save entry ideas for a "rainy day", or to save a partial entry to finish later.
• Topics can be created to tag your content. For instance, you could create topics for "Personal", "Music", "Events", etc. Each post can have multiple topics, and users can filter based on topic.
• When adding an entry, you can post an image. This image will show as a thumbnail in the top-right of your post. You can click the image to reveal the whole image.
• If you have a long post, consider clicking the "Add Read More..." button to put most of the content into. This will keep your main blog page shorter.
• Each user can have multiple blogs, and each blog can have multiple owners. Admin rights are not normally required to create a blog. To disable non-admin blogs, click the "Disable User Blogs" button in the Preferences item of your site's Layout menu.
• The blogging code is shared with the news code. By editing the category, you can turn a news category into a blog, and vice versa.

Getting Visitors

Now that your church is online, the next step is getting people to use your website. You'll get two types of visitors: members of your church who want to see upcoming events, and community members who are looking for churches. You'll reach these two groups separately, so let's look at each of them.

Members of Your Church

The first group that you'll want to attract are the members of your church. They will be the majority of your traffic, and can make your site a very vibrant and fun place if you get them started. Here are some ways to promote your website to your church members:

• Give them fresh content to return for. Every week, update your upcoming news, events, etc. This is the most important thing you can do to have a popular site! A stale site gives your members no reason to return.
• When you're first launching your website, consider sending letters to your members.
• Announce your site to your members. Remind them weekly to visit.
• Facilitate community. Add ministry groups to your website, and encourage your users to create accounts and chat on the "Forums" portion of your site.
• Create accounts for your members. Use the "Account Creator" on your administrator menu.
• Use your website address everywhere! Stationary, newsletters, advertisements, inside and outside your building, and anywhere else you can think of.

Remember that it may take awhile before your site community reaches a "critical mass". At first, only the braver users will post messages. As things become more active, more people will feel comfortable with participating. Encourage discussion by setting an example and reminding people to talk!

Members of Your Community

When people move into the area, or otherwise decide that they need to find a church to attend, make sure that your website is there for them! One very important thing to remember is that your site will not automatically show up in search results. You must submit it to a given search engine in order to be listed.

While the hints above also apply, some different ideas apply here:

• Submit your site to as many search engines as possible, especially Google. Your site may eventually get found through links to it, but this could take months or years, and you can speed this up immensely by submitting them yourself.
• If you'd rather not go through the process of search engine submission yourself, we can add your site to dozens of search engines and local church lists for you. See our packages page for details.
• Encourage other relevant sites to link to you. This improves your search engine ranking. Local churches, sites for your denomination, and other local websites may be happy to link to your site.
• Use Google to find the local online church lists for your area. Make sure your website is added to these.
• Encourage your members to post messages on your site. When a new prospective member visits your website and sees how friendly your members are, they'll join for sure.
• Your site should have a domain name. Instead of xyzsite.thischurch.org, you can be xyzsite.com, which will help with name recognition. See the "Domain/Email" item of your "Features" menu to set one up.

Asking For Donations

You can use your site to ask for donations from your members if you wish. The easiest way is to set up an account with PayPal to accept the funds. They will give you the HTML to use to link into your site. Most ThisChurch users choose to create a custom front-page module to paste their code into. Be sure to use your HTML editor's source mode to paste raw HTML code.

Note that you should keep reasonable expectations about the amount of donation s that you'll pull in. Most of your visitors will be nervous about paying online, especially if they already give donations in person each week. You'll be best off using it as a fund for a specific purpose. Let's say your church needs a new roofing job done. Specifically saying that donations accepted online will go towards a specific purpose should help to increase the amount given. Also, be sure to educate your users that they can give online, and that the process is very secure.

Selling Merchandise

It's possible to sell merchandise through your ThisChurch website using a third-party payment provider. We recommend PayPal, since it's widely supported and easy to set up. You can sell individual items using the Buy-It-Now buttons, and they offer shopping cart software that you can use to sell multiple items. In either case, they'll provide you with HTML code that needs to be pasted into your website. This can be done anywhere you see your site's HTML editor, using source mode.

Note that accepting credit card or other payment information directly via your website itself is strictly forbidden, as this information is not properly encrypted. It's necessary to use a third-party secure billing company (such as PayPal) to collect payment information.

Publishing a Podcast

Podcasts are a hot topic on the internet these days, but few people really know what they are or how to create them. Long story short, Podcasts are like online radio shows that anyone can create. It's typically very hard from a technology standpoint to create a podcast, but we make it possible for any intermediate user to create one.

First, a quick background in the theory. An RSS feed is a computer-readable file that contains updates from a certain area of your website. Your users can subscribe to these RSS feeds using a syndicator program, and they'll then be notified when you post new items to that area of your site. A podcast is nothing more than a special RSS feed that contains MP3 files.

Every news category on your site has its own RSS feed. To podcast, here's all you'll need to do:

1. Create a news category. The best way to do this is to create a group and to use its "News" module for your podcast.
2. Create an episode. This is the main challenge. You need to think of something to say, and you need to find a way to record it. While we don't provide support with this step, we've heard good things about Audacity, a free sound editor. Be sure to use very low-quality compression settings to avoid large files.
3. Add a news item to your news category. Title it "Episode 1" or something similar, and tell a little about it in the news text.
4. Add the MP3 file as an attachment to the article. Give it any title, this part doesn't matter. Be patient, it will take awhile to upload.
5. Share your podcast with others! From the news category's list page, notice the "Notify Me Of New Articles" box at the bottom. Click the "By RSS" link. Take the URL of this page - this is what you publish as your podcast feed URL.

Note that it's possible to post non-MP3 items to your podcast feeds. These will be ignored by podcast syndicators.

Troubleshooting

The most common reason for this is that you're using a popup blocker. Many of these buttons will pop up windows to ask for more information, and your popup blocker is preventing this from happening. If you aren't sure if you're running popup blocking software, you can check from PopupTest.com. If you do have a popup blocker, the most common places to find it are any toolbars you've installed to your browser (Google, Yahoo, etc), the browser itself (Firefox, Mozilla, Netscape, etc) or your internet service provider (Earthlink, AOL, etc). Please consult your popup blocker's support information for help on disabling it. Many allow you to enable popups for a single domain, which would allow you to only use popups on your site with us.

This is usually caused by a browser which has cookies disabled. These are required to log onto your site, and it's safe to enable them. Here is how to enable cookies for your browser.

If cookies are enabled and you still can't log in, the problem is most likely further up the chain. Check with your firewall and proxy server to make sure that they are not blocking cookies. We use persistent cookies (rather than session cookies) to store our login. Be sure that you aren't blocking third party cookies for our domain as well.