I've been tooling around with the library catalogue machines. They need to run a browser on a fairly restricted range of websites. Microsofts' Internet Explorer is the Uni's officially supported browser (ridiculous idea...). I won't even start.

I set up Firefox 3.01 using Blocksite and R-Kiosk which is all fine. Here are some notes for myself and anyone else who may find it useful...

To configure Firefox settings go to

C:\Documents and Settings\%user%\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\%random%.default\

and make a copy of the prefs.js file then open the original in notepad for editing.

Here are some useful values that can be edited:

Enable the nav bar in r-kiosk:

a quick step by step guide showing you how to upload and link to a file:

First upload the file, (in this case the membership form):

1. login to htp://www.qshelter.asn.au/ and go to 'Edit content'
2. find 'Members' click Edit.
3. In editing mode scroll down to, File Attachments, click to expand.
4. Click Browse and find the Membership form.pdf, Open.
5. Click the 'Attach' button
6. The file may take a minute or so to upload.
7. Once it has uploaded it will display the address where it has been uploaded. It will probably be something like: http://www.qshelter.asn.au/files/Member-form.doc
8. Highlight the uploaded files address (URL) with your mouse and copy it to the clipboard by holding down Ctrl+C or right-click on the highlighted text and select 'Copy'.
9. Remain on the Members page, edit mode for the next step.

To update the link.

1. Scroll back up the page to to the Body section
2. Use the mouse to highlight the link you want to change
3. Click the 'unlink' button:
   
4. Then (making sure the text you originally selected is still selected) click the, 'Insert/edit link' button (to the left of the 'unlink' button)
5. A small window will pop open
6. The first field is Link URL, you need to paste the address you copied earlier into this field.
7. To do this either right-click in the text space and select 'Paste'. Or just click inside the text field and hold down, Ctrl+v
8. Make sure there the address looks right and does not have a space at the beginning or end.
9. Edit the Title field to give a descriptive name to the link, e.g. "QShelter Membership Form"
10. Click 'Insert'
11. If you need to upload/insert any more files or links just repeat the steps.
12. When done scroll to the bottom of the page and click, Submit.
13. Or if you are unsure of how it will look, click Preview (this lets you preview your changes before you Submit them).

It is important that you follow the steps through very carefully. I suggest you print them out so that you can refer to them as you go.

Convert the PDF into an image for the website:
I opened the FINALCOVERDESIGN.pdf and pressed the 'Alt'+'Print Screen' keys simultaneously. Then I opened an image editing program - I'd recommend irfanview - and pressed 'Ctrl'+'v' simultaneously. This pastes a copy of the FINALCOVERDESIGN.pdf window into the editor. I then used the image editing program to crop and resize the image so that  it would make a good sized thumbnail image - between 80 to 200 pixels wide as a general rule. I then saved the picture. The file type has to be one of the following to work: gif, jpg or png.

Publishing the article(s)
Adrian has asked that the Cover picture (see above) and the Overview go on the front page and the actual Report go in the publications section. Using the system as it is currently set up we can do that in one posting.

Login to QShelter go to Create Content > Frontpage-Story
Type in a Title for the article, this will appear as a heading on the top.
 - I wrote, 'No Vagrancy' for this one
Select a Topic
 - I chose 'Publications'
Now write the article, this may involve cutting and pasting or attaching a picture.
I pasted Adrian's text into Notepad first then copied it from Notepad into the editor. This is just to remove any HTML formatting left over from the email - it can save lots of problems down the line.

Inserting  the Picture
Then I put the cursor in the place where I wanted to place the picture of the report cover. I then  clicked on the 'Insert/edit image' button:

A box pops up asking for an Image URL, Description and Title.
Click the button to the right of the Image URL text box, this pops open a 'file manager'
This shows all the files that have already been uploaded. You need to use the 'Browse...' button, down at the bottom, to select your recently created image file.
Once selected click Open, this closes the "Browse..." window >> Click 'Upload'
Your image gets uploaded and should appear in the window, just click on it to select it. The dialog window closes leaving you with the first dialog window. Here you can type in a title and description before hitting OK.

When you are happy with how your post looks you can post it. You will inevitably find mistakes and things you forgot, these can be easily rectified by editing the post. I think I generally go back and forth editing and viewing what I have just posted about five to ten times for each post.

It also pays to remember that the post will look different to different users. Dependant on whether they are logged in or not and what type of browser/computer/screen they are using.

I've not covered everything here  (attaching files) because you'd probably slip into a coma if you had to read any further.