Lengthy contemplation and discussion between Trish, Sharon and myself have produced a new idea for ATP: a feature called Gardening Ideas.

What we're going to do is combine the Articles feature with the Tips feature. The new combined feature will be called Gardening Ideas. Ideas will behave almost exactly like the articles and tips have worked: there will be daily tips and frequent articles posted to the homepage just like always, but instead of being separate they will be together.

The new system will be MUCH more flexible than what we currently have. Members will continue to be able to submit full-length featured articles, but they will also be able to submit shorter articles. Tips, of course, will continue to be presented as always.

The other good part is this: once this feature is relaunched, you will be able to submit tips and articles directly! No more tree-mailing your tips to Trish. This will make things easier for everyone, and hopefully will also encourage even more participation in this fun feature!

I'm still working on putting the finishing touches on this, and I am sure that once it's launched (today? Maybe tomorrow) you are all going to love it.

Waiting with bated breath....

The launch is complete!

This was a massive update that affects virtually the entire site. I tested it quite extensively before upload the change, but I might have missed things so if you find any problems on the site, please let me know!

Sweet!!
Couple of things....

1 - can we have a search for it all?

2 - where do members access it to write a tip or idea?

Both excellent questions. I'll answer them very soon.

1) Search is coming.

2) Here's how to access it. Click on "Gardening Ideas" up top, then in the top-right hand corner, click on "Access the Ideas Posting area".

From there you will see your list of any working items you may already have, and you can post new stuff.

I encourage you all to experiment around and poke around in there.

Anybody can submit tips, articles or anything they'd like! The screen will give you information and walk you through the process, but do post any questions here.

No Articles Editor program?

wow!! Super easy!!

Love the fact that you can choose between regular "forum type" or the Articles Editor!!

And will anyone double check our work? Spelling, grammar errors?

Will there be some kind of notification when it's been approved?

YUP.

It has to be submitted to the editor.

I was answering Sue, Lee Anne.

I'm not sure about notification yet.

Got your test item, Lee Anne.
Just tested the delete feature too!

threegardeners said:Will there be some kind of notification when it's been approved?

When approved it will appear as approved in your queue. I can build in a system-message when approval happens, too.

SongofJoy said:No Articles Editor program?

Tee, were you able to find it?

A system message would be wonderful Dave!

dave said:

Tee, were you able to find it?

I found it but all the icons, bells and whistles are gone again. I had that problem before and it might be my browser. I think I need to download Firefox again or one of the others. FF crashed on me awhile ago and I removed it all. So will look into that.

Thanks for asking.

Sharon is still our editor, and will be editing everything in this feature.
I (and Dave when needed) will be acting as "publisher". We'll be scheduling articles, and maintaining the feature, and anything else that needs doing. That frees Sharon up for the added editing, and also keeps her from being the go-between when I come through and reschedule stuff at the last minute. We think that dividing the work up this way will be helpful to everyone.

This is really cool!

Thank you Dave, Trish, and Sharon