Glossary of Terms

The Basics:

• Announcements - This is where you can add headlines that will scroll across your marquee (a.k.a scrolling news ticker) at the top or bottom of your homepage. These headlines can be linked or they can stand alone. This element was previously called Breaking News.
• Category page - This page is automatically generated with stories assigned to a category. It is the page people see when they click on a widget title for a particular story category or click on a category name in the navigation menu. This page will load all stories that have ever been placed in a particular category going back to the beginning of your site (e.g. news, sports, opinion, etc.)
• Dashboard - The “back-end” view of your website for logged-in users. You can access a wide variety of tools to update your site using the various tabs and menus on the left side of the dashboard.
• Homepage - The page people see when they go to your site’s URL.
• Media library - Here you can see any images and PDFs uploaded to your site. Each item in the media library contains its own URL to allow you to link to a stand alone page with that image or PDF.
• Pages - Designed for static displays (info that won’t be regularly updated or replaced). Typically linked in one of your navigation menus. Pages can contain images and SNO Story Elements.
• Sports scores - This is where you enter data (scores, dates, opponents, etc.) that will be displayed in the score carousel or marquee (scrolling news ticker).
• Staff page - This page will display links to the staff profiles.
• Staff profiles - Here you can create a bio and add a picture for each staff member. It will display all content added to the post, but also a link to every story where the staff member has a byline. Readers will be taken to this page if they click the staff person’s name in the byline.
• Stories - Posts on your site that should be tied to different categories. Your site will automatically archive older stories to the category page and display the newest stories in a given category in that category’s widget on the homepage.
• Story page - The page people see when they click on a story’s headline.
• Support ticket- The preferred method of communication with our support team. You can submit one of these by clicking “Create a Support Ticket” on the dashboard’s primary view or by clicking on the SNO Support tab, then clicking the “CREATE A NEW SUPPORT TICKET” button. You can also send an email to support@snosites.com. If you create a ticket while logged into the site you will receive the reply via email and in the SNO Support tab.

Story Editor:

• Byline - Where you enter the name of the staff member who wrote the piece. If there are multiple writers, click the “Add Another Writer” button to create a second “Writer’s Name” field. The writer’s name must exactly match the name used in a staff profile in order for content to link properly.
• Categories- This is where you note which category the story belongs in, which will tell the site where to display it in on the homepage and which category page to archive it in via the navigation menu.
• Custom story design options - In this box you can make custom adjustments to an individual story, from selecting a custom sidebar (if you are using a template that contains a sidebar), custom header or footer, or just customizing some design options.
• Custom Teaser - This text box allows you to customize the teaser (a small portion of the story) that appears in the widgets on the homepage. If you leave this blank the teaser is populated from the beginning of the story.
• Deck - A secondary headline. This typically adds additional context while the primary headline works to grab the reader’s attention. These are optional, some sites use them on every story, other sites use them when necessary, and some sites choose not to use them at all.
• Featured image - This is the image that will appear at the top of the story page and the image associated with the story on the homepage. We highly recommend that you include a featured image with every story and that those images be properly prepared for optimal display before uploading them to the site. Here is a support article on how to do that.
• Headline - The title of a story. You must enter a headline in order to publish a post or generate a permalink (URL) for the story. This headline will be displayed on the homepage and near the top of the story page.
• Inline photos - These are secondary photos that can be added into the story body wherever you’d like. They can be resized and aligned after you initially place them. If you have many additional images to fit in the story, consider using the photo gallery SNO Story Element.
• Publish options - In this box you can save the story as a draft to continue working on it in the future, preview what the draft will look like for readers before pushing it live, publish the story now, or edit the publish date to a future date/time to schedule the post to publish.
• Story Body- This is the field where you enter the copy (text of the story). There are a variety of formatting tools available above the text box.
• Story Template - Choose which preset template you’d like for this story. Default template design option defaults can be customized in the Story Template Editor.
• SNO Story Elements - These are design elements that can enhance your coverage in a variety of ways.
• Video/Audio Embed - This is where you can drop the embed code for any audio or video that you want to place at the top of your story page. Note that you must upload those audio or video files to a third party hosting service, then obtain the embed code rather than uploading the file directly to your website. Here is a support article on how to embed videos into your story – it is the same process for audio.
• Tags - Tags are another way to group stories together. Each tag will appear as a button below the story body, which readers can click to see a page with all other stories containing the same tag. Tags do not enhance SEO results and are also not returned in the search function of your site.

Photos:

• Color mode - This is a setting that you can adjust in your photo editing software. For digital display we recommend setting the images in RGB color mode.
• File type - When you finish working on a photo you should either “save as” or “export” the product you intend to upload to your site as one of the following file types: JPG, PNG, or GIF. Wordpress does not support HEIC images, which is an image type sometimes used on iPhones.
• Photo galleries - This is a tool that will package multiple images into a slideshow that readers can view either as either inline or overlay style. A photo gallery can be used in the featured image area or in a story using a SNO Story Element: Gallery.
• Pixel - The smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest addressable element in a dot matrix display device.
• Ratio - A ratio is a way of comparing two or more quantities. For site purposes, ratios are used to compare width and height dimensions. SNO recommends using horizontal images with a 3:2 width to height ratio for featured images, which means three pixels wide for every two pixels tall. You can set a ratio when cropping a photo in most photo editing programs.
• Resolution - This is the number of pixels per inch. For digital display we strongly encourage using 72, as that will still be a clear display for your reader, but keep the file size smaller.

Design Terms:

• Border - A line or border around or on a designated side or sides of a specific element. Borders can be increased in increments of 1 pixel, but must be set to at least one pixel wide in order to be visible.
• Copyright Notice - This is the verbiage that will appear after the copyright symbol at the very bottom of your site. If you do not add anything more to it than it displays the copyright symbol and the current year. You can add wording in the General Settings tab of the SNO Design Options page.
• Corner radius - This will increase the round-ness of a given element. A higher corner radius will give the element a more circular shape.
• Custom Widget-Based Page - A unique page using Widgets, which allows you to create a custom page, much like another homepage.
• Design draft - A copy of your site where you can make adjustments to design settings without changing the look of the live site. You can have up to five design drafts on your site. Once you are happy with your new design, you can push it live to make it your new homepage design.
• Footer - The area below any widgets on your homepage.
• Header - The area above any widgets on your homepage. It typically contains (at minimum) a site title element, search element, and menu element.
• Headline link - All headlines link to the story page, so they are considered links, but you can adjust those display settings (e.g. colors and styles) separate from standard links in the Links tab of your SNO Design Options.
• Hex code - A six character alpha-numeric code that represents a specific color. All colors on your site are set using a hex code.
• Hover bar - An element that will display your site’s name at the top of the screen once readers scroll down on the page. This is a legacy element. SNO encourages users to customize their header and set their own elements to display at the top of the screen upon scrolling in the Site Designer.
• Inline gallery - Photo gallery style that will display buttons to rotate the photos on the story page screen, and can be set to automatically rotate. 
• Margin - The outer space (or lack of space) surrounding an element.
• Master Colors - The tool that appears when you select Master Colors under the Appearance tab on your dashboard. This will display every color being used on your site, the number of times, show you where each color is being used, and allow you to update/adjust those colors. Changing a color in Master Colors will change it everywhere the color is used. The best place to adjust a color is within the individual elements.
• Overlay gallery - Photo gallery style that requires readers to click a button and open the gallery in a new (overlay) window.
• Padding - The inner space between the content and the border of an element.
• Pixel - The smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest addressable element in a dot matrix display device.
• SNO Design Options/Design Options page - This is a sub-set of tools that contains all of the controls to customize your site’s design. It can be accessed by selecting SNO Design Options under the Appearance tab on the dashboard or hovering over the SNO Dashboard dropdown button in the upper left corner then selecting Design Options.
• Splash Page - A landing page that shows the image and link to an individual story that will be seen when users go to your site, instead of your homepage. Please note that the featured image of the story must be a horizontal image with a 3:2 width to height ratio in order for it to appear on the Splash Page.
• Standard link - Any non-headline link on the page (includes bylines). Colors for these links can be set in Design Options -> Links.
• Text weight - This refers to the bold-ness of the font. You can set a different weight for normal font and bold font weight in Design Options -> Fonts.
• Widgets - A WordPress term for a small module of content that appears on your site. You can think of them as the blocks of content that you see on your homepage and elsewhere. Widgets can be composed of different categories, such as news or sports, or they can display other content, such as an embedded playlist, a poll, a list of sports scores, etc.
• Widget style - The style applied to a widget that appears most prominently in the widget title on the homepage. SNO offers eight customizable widget styles. Adjusting the widget style in Design Options -> Widget Styles is the best way to alter your widgets' appearance. It allows you to change the design of many widgets at one time.