New and Improved Article Publishing on Gather

Publishing articles on Gather just got easier. We have replaced our article editor tool and have added a variety of new features. The process is primarily the same and we have not removed any existing options. The new and improved publishing interface is much more reliable and easier to use. Here’s an overview of the improvements.

The first thing you’ll notice is that the editor looks different. The article formatting options have larger icons and the title field is larger to better represent the look of your finished publication on Gather.

Save As Draft

One of the most exciting new features that has been added to the publishing process is the “save as draft” feature. This new option allows you to save any article in progress and return later to complete your work. We’ll even save your work as a draft automatically when you upload an image or continue to the article options page to select groups or add other article settings.

When you have a draft saved only you can access this article. The draft article will display at the top of the article editor page whenever you return to the editor and it will remain there until you actually publish it. You can go get a snack, leave the page to get information for your writing. Even sign out and come back another day. Your draft article will be there waiting for you. Once you publish the piece the draft will be removed from the list.  

TIP: It’s a good idea to click the “save as draft” button periodically if you are working on a long article so you don’t need to worry about losing your work in progress if something happens to your computer or internet connection.

Can I have more than one draft?

You can save as many draft articles as you need. Each draft article in your list will have an “edit this article” link next to it that will display that draft article in the editor window. You can tell which draft is currently the one you are working on because the “edit this article” link will be replaced by the words “edit in progress”.

Can I delete a draft without publishing it?

Sure, using the “delete this article” link at the top of the article editor page will delete any article or draft that is currently displayed in the article editor tool.

Can I save an article that has already been published as a draft?

No, only new work that has never been published can be saved in draft status. You can still edit any existing articles and if you wish to make them private while you make changes then you can change the viewing preferences to “just me” to keep your work private until you are ready to share the article with others.

Can I preview a draft article?

Yes you can. The preview function is still available from the article options page after you click the “continue” button.

Article Formatting Options

All the regular formatting options available previously are still featured in the new editor. We’ve also added a few new toys.

Clicking the Paste as text button will remove all formatting from content copied to your computer’s clipboard memory is that content in pasted in to the new article editor. All links, html, content formatting, color, indenting, paragraph returns, etcetera will be removed using this feature. This is similar to saving any document as a text only file and pasting that in to your article.

The Paste from Word button will paste any content copied directly from a Microsoft Word document into the new article editor and will specifically clean-up Microsoft Word formatting and maintain as much as possible. All links, content formatting, color, indenting, paragraph returns, etcetera will be saved. Images, however, can not be copied using this feature.

Use the Remove formatting button to remove all previous formatting.  If content has formatting such as links, bold, italics, bullets, color, indenting, etcetera applied that you wish to remove, highlight the text and then click this button.

Edit HTML Source. This will display a popup that allows you to enter your own HTML source code, or, if you already have an article in the Editor, this popup will allow you to see the HTML source code and make changes.

This feature is available to those who are familiar with HTML and know how to edit the code. Gather does not permit all HTML because we need to make sure that no code can be published that would cause negative impact on the Gather.com site.

What HTML tags are allowed in articles?

If you know how to use them, the following HTML tags are recognized in articles: < a>, <b>, <i>, < u>, < br>, < p>, < em>, < strong>, < blockquote>, < imgs>, < font>, < span>, < div>, < pre>, <ul>, <ol>, <li>, < table>, < tr>, < td>, < thead>, < tbody>. 

What HTML attributes are allowed in articles?

If you know how to use them, the following style attributes are allowed: Font-weight, Font-style, Text-decoration, Color, Margin, Width, Height, Float.

Image Alignment

After an image has been uploaded and imbedded in your article text you can change the alignment of the images. Simply right click on the image and select “image properties” from the menu. Your options will include “left (this is the default) or right to allow the text to wrap around the image. If you don’t want the text to wrap around the image then you can select the “not set” option. You can also resize your images using the corner markers that appear when you select the image in the editor window.

Resize Editor vertically.  This allows you to resize the Editor on the Publish page that you create your article in. If the size is changed, it will be remembered with a cookie for you so it is the same next time you visit the Publish page.

Group Settings.  Also in the publishing process, you will notice that some of the groups that you belong to have the words “private” or “moderated” after the name. Members don’t always remember why their content is not visible in a particular group. This is a way of preparing you for how the distribution of your article will occur.

If the group is marked private this means that the article you are publishing will only be available to members of that group. Here are a few tips to keep in mind for publishing to private groups.

Publishing to private groups AND public groups can cause various results due to the variety of possible settings of the groups and the content.

At the “who can view” level if you have selected "everyone" and also selected both public and private groups then the article would be available to all of gather including the members of all groups selected, and the article will be searchable on Google.

If you select "everyone and only a private group then the "everyone" setting will automatically be reset to "select people and groups" and only the members of the private group will have access to the content.

If you choose "select people and groups" with both public and private groups then the members of all selected groups can see the content but not everyone. So people who are not members of either group will be restricted even though one of the groups is public.

For moderated groups, remember to leave some time for the moderator to approve your article. And if they don’t feel it belongs, don’t take it personally!

We're really excited about these improvements, We hope you are too. Now drop everything and go publish an article using the new Gather article publishing tools.

Click here to learn more about these and other existing features of the new editor in the Gather FAQ pages.