The MGF site is hosted in France by the service provider PlanetHoster. The access codes to this site are in the MGF Dropbox: Site coordinates.txt. The annual cost is currently 72€, taken directly from the MGF credit card. PlanetHoster explains that this fee provides the following:
The World platform is a web hosting solution that offers a 100 % isolated environment for each of your websites and/or web applications. You are able to choose the physical location of the server per website (France + Switzerland or Canada). Also, each site is hosted on a different infrastructure—no more eggs in one basket (server/account). What’s more, each account is unlimited and can host as many websites as you wish. Basically, we allocate you a pool of resources and you decide how to distribute them. You can choose to create only 1 account and allocate the maximum amount of resources to it. You can also decide to spread your resources over as many accounts as possible with a minimum of 1 CPU, 1 GB RAM, and 1 MB/s I/O per account; you must also allocate a maximum of 8 CPUs, 24 GB RAM, and 24 MB/s I/O per account.
MGF has only one account/website: mediterraneangardening.fr. The fee also includes the registration of the domain name. When logging in to the PlanetHoster site, there is a dashboard with six options on the left. The most important of these is Web Hosting.
Web Hosting
Clicking ‘Web Hosting’ opens a drop-down box with three options:
Account Management: see next section;
Resource Management: selecting this option and then clicking ‘The World’ opens a panel which permits the sharing of resources (CPUs, RAM, etc.) between accounts. As MGF only has one account, all resources are allocated to it;
Create Account: used to create an additional website. Not needed unless MGF decides to host another site (e.g. if MGAP can no longer host the MGi site).
Account Management
This shows a panel with a tile for each account. For MGF, there is now only one: mediterraneangardening.fr. (Figure 1). Clicking the domain name or the gear wheel to its left opens a panel showing various information about the account, some of which can be modified (Figure 2). Clicking the gear wheel in this panel opens another panel with more information about the site and with a number of options for parameterisation (Figure 3). Normally, there will be no need to use any of the options shown in Figures 2 and 3.
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
Clicking the right-pointing arrow in the Figure 1 panel opens a new tab showing the site management console (NOC).
The NOC Console
The right panel displays information and statistics about the site. At top right is a link to the documentation of the console. At left is a sidebar with a number of options. It is beyond the scope of this documentation to describe all of these options. The ones most likely to be used are:
Messaging: click ‘Email accounts’ to access all the ‘@mediterraneangardening.fr’ mailboxes;
Languages: select which version of PHP is to be used and also which extensions;
Databases: management of database users and passwords – access to phpMyAdmin;
Files: access to system terminal.
Options other than Web Hosting
My Account
Selecting this option opens a drop-down box with seven options; only the ones listed below are relevant to MGF.
Profile: manage the details of the PlanetHoster account holder, including the credit card details for payments;
Communication: list of emails sent by PlanetHoster to the account email address (intmedgard@gmail.com);
Contacts: allows the possibility to have more than one person accessing the host site (not recommended for security reasons);
Security: shows login details to the account and allows some parameterisation.
Domain Names
Click ‘Domain management’ to see information about the domain name (expiry date, WHOIS information, etc.).
Billing
Details and status of invoices received and/or paid.
My Support
Access to knowledge database as well as creation and management of support requests.
Backup and recovery of the site is performed by the BlogVault plugin (subscription paid annually by automatically debiting the MGF credit card). The backup data is stored in a different location from the site hosted by PlanetHoster. Although the location of the backup site is unknown to us, it is within the EU and so meets GDPR requirements.
Backup (or to use BlogVault’s term, syncing) is performed automatically once a day at 0540 French time. The frequency and timing of automatic syncs can be changed in the plugin settings. To do so, click the gearwheel icon on the Site Overview page (Figure 2). By default, the plugin backs up all files that it recognises as being part of a standard WordPress installation:
the WordPress database (any table in the database whose prefix is ‘wp_mgf_’);
most of the content of the public_html folder (themes, plugins, media library, etc.).
In addition to the automatic backups, you can perform an additional backup at any time (for example, before a major modification to the site). As the backups are incremental, they only take about 3-5 minutes to complete. There are a number of ways to start a backup:
on the BlogVault dashboard (Figure 1), click the rotating arrows icon;
on the Site Overview page (Figure 2), click BACKUP, and then ‘Backup now’.
To use the plugin, click ‘BlogVault’ in the MGF site dashboard and then ‘Visit dashboard’. This will open the BlogVault dashboard in a new browser tab. This lists all the sites associated with the BlogVault account. For MGF, there is only the one. To perform a backup, click the rotating arrows icon at the right of the page. For other functions, click the thumbnail of the MGF home page on the left to open the Site Overview page.
To see which files are backed up, on the Site Overview page, scroll down and click ‘Manage’ next to ‘Files synced’ or ‘Tables synced’. Any files which are not automatically backed up can be added.
You can restore the whole site or individual files or tables. To restore items, in the BACKUP panel on the Site Overview page. click ‘RESTORE’ to open the Restore page (Figure 3). First, select the backup version to use. By default, the latest one is selected but you can choose earlier ones by clicking ‘Change’. If you want a complete restore, click ‘Continue’. This will start the restore. A progress page will be displayed which will then state when the restore is complete. A confirmatory email will also be sent to the email address associated with the account (intmedgard@gmail.com).
To restore selected files or tables, first open the ‘Selective restore’ box by clicking the down arrow. Next, select which files and/or tables are to be restored. By default, all files and tables are selected. uncheck ‘Restore Files’ and ‘Restore Tables’ and then click ‘No File Selected’ or ‘No Table Selected’ as appropriate. This will display a file map and individual files or folders can be selected. The contents of folders can be seen by clicking the down arrows at the right of the list. Check the files to be restored and click ‘Confirm’. This returns you to the Restore page. Click ‘Continue’ as described above.
As an organisation which communicates with its members solely by electronic means, email addresses are very important to MGF. As a sensitive item of personal information, they must be stringently protected.
Member email addresses
In each member record is an email address which the member provided at the time that they joined the association. This is used for all communication with the member. It can be changed at any moment by either the member themself or by a member of the MGF’s Member Management team.
Some members share an email address with their partner. In the original MGF Member App, this was not a problem but it is a requirement of WordPress that email addresses be unique and may not be shared by more than one member. As a result, one member of the couple has to be assigned a domain mailbox (see next section). This is only an issue for couples who joined MGF prior to the establishment of the new site and, at time of writing, only affects seven pairs of members.
The member record of one member of the pair has the couple’s own email address; the other has a domain mailbox which uses the first part of this address but with the suffix ‘@mediterraneangardening.fr’. For example, John and Jane Doe have a shared email address of ‘thedoes@gmail.com’. In the MGF system, one member record will have ‘thedoes@gmail.com’ and the other will have ‘thedoes@mediterraneangardening.fr’. As explained in the next section, this process is invisible to the members themselves.
Domain mailboxes
As part of the contract with its internet service provider PlanetHoster, MGF can create mailboxes using its domain name (i.e. xxxx@mediterraneangardening.fr). It uses these for two purposes:
to provide a solution to the member shared email address problem;
to provide institutional mailboxes for the reception of mail sent to one of MGF’s management team (see next section).
These mailboxes use the webmail product Roundcube. However, in all cases, domain mailboxes are used solely as pass-throughs; all traffic received is passed directly to the recipient’s own mailbox. There is no need for them ever to connect to the Roundcube system. Creation and management of these mailboxes is made via the PlanetHoster website (see below for details).
MGF role mailboxes
To minimise the effort needed when changes are made to MGF’s management team, each MGF role has a domain mailbox whose name reflects the role (e.g. secretary@mediterraneangardening.fr). All email links on the public site and all transactional emails in the Member App use these email addresses rather than the incumbent’s personal one. As mentioned above, all traffic received in these mailboxes will be forwarded automatically to a personal email address chosen by the incumbent. Although most members of the management team have this official email forwarded to the address in their member record, this is not obligatory.
Since email via an domain mailbox is received in the recipient’s own mailbox, any reply will come from that mailbox’s email address rather than the MGF role address. In fact, any attempt to do otherwise would probably be blocked for security reasons by the mail server of the member’s own email address.
When a new person is appointed to an MGF management role, the only action required is to change the forwarding address in the domain mailbox.
Maintenance of domain mailboxes
To make changes to the domain mailboxes, login to PlanetHoster and go to Email Accounts as follows:
Login -> Web Hosting -> Account Management -> login to mediterraneangardening.fr (click the right arrow) -> Messaging -> Email Accounts
(If the text appears in French, click ‘EN’ which will be at top right or bottom left of the pages).
A list of the mailboxes will be displayed, each with a number of action icons (hover over them to see what they do).
To change a forwarding address, login* to the mailbox and click ‘Settings”-> ‘Filters’. Next click the filter name (normally, there should only be one) in the Actions column to open the filter details. Update the email address as required but do not alter anything else. Click ‘Save’.
* Logging in will require the password. If this is unknown, change it. As the only people who access these mailboxes are site administrators, this will have no impact on use of the mailbox by others.
To add a new mailbox, type the role name in the box, press ‘Create’ and follow the instructions. Once the mailbox has been created, login to it and create the necessary filter: Settings -> Filters -> Create. Enter the filter details as follows:
Filter name: name of the new role;
Filter enabled: ON;
Scope (dropdown box): all messages;
Actions: Send message copy to [incumbent email address] (click ‘+’ to add another recipient);
Click ‘Save’.
When creating a new role who will be able to send messages to members, it is necessary to add the new role to the list of approved senders in Brevo. See the Brevo page for how to do this.
The email address table
Placing email addresses on a web page is a security risk as they can be harvested by malware. To prevent this happening on the site, the real email address is replaced by a slug and a call to a special routine. This routine uses the slug to find the real email address in the email address table and then starts the mailto function of the browser. This table must be updated whenever there is a new contact person, a new partner organisation or a new MGF role.
To add an email address link on a page, create a link with the editor. This link should be as follows: ‘https://mediterraneangardening.fr/webmailto?addressee=[slug]’ where [slug] is a one-word, unique identifier for the addressee, e.g. JSmith or MGMR. Apart from the slug, the table contains three elements:
Type: Can be ‘Individual’ (email to be sent to a named individual); ‘Partner’ (email to a partner institutional mailbox, e.g hortusacl@orange.fr); or ‘MGF Role’ (email to an MGF institutional mailbox, e.g. treasurer@mediterraneangardeningfrance.org). See also section below on Former Members.
Name: The name of the addressee. This name is what is displayed when using the Forthcoming Events table.
Email address: The addressee’s email address.
Former members
EU privacy legislation requires that, when someone ceases to a member of MGF, they may not be contacted on MGF business and their personal information (including their email address) be removed. The Member App routine which performs this function updates the email address table. Type is changed to ‘Former’ and the email address to ‘secretary@mediterraneangardeningfrance.org’. This is to ensure that, in the event of a viewer clicking a link on a public page that still points to the individual concerned, the resulting email is redirected away from them to an MGF official.
Member to member emails
Some features of the Member App (e.g. the Member Directory) allow the user to send an email to another member by clicking on the name of the desired correspondent. Such emails are normally sent using the mailto function of the user’s browser. However, some people do not have this function activated. To avoid problems, all Member App pages with an email feature call the page ‘Send an Email’, passing the correspondent’s id as a parameter. This has a button initiating the mailto function but also displays the correspondent’s email address to be used if necessary.
Security of email addresses
Email addresses are stored in the WordPress database which is protected by a firewall. Access to this database is via the Member App dashboard and (for administrators only) the system dashboard. Ordinary members who are part of the Member Directory can see the email addresses of other members of the Directory; otherwise they can only see their own. They can also amend their own address. All members of the MGF management team can see the email addresses of all members but only those in the Member Management team can amend them.
Provided that the slug mechanism described above is used, there are no email addresses on the public site. Within the Member App, all pages containing email addresses are generated dynamically; there are no static pages with email addresses.
Member email addresses are also stored in the Brevo database which has its own security arrangements.
For in-house: something about list pages and how to call a plugin – list of in-house plugins
Introduction
Most pages on the site are created using the Gutenberg editor in the normal way. Pages which consist mainly of lists, however, are created using a special procedure which is described below. These pages are proper WordPress pages and are stored in the WordPress database but they should never be edited in Gutenberg, only by the special procedure.
The reason for having this special procedure is that list pages are likely to be changed frequently and some of them are very long; trying to edit them with Gutenberg would be very cumbersome and unwieldy. The names of all the list pages can be found on the List Generation page (see below).
Update Procedure
Updating a list page is a two-step process.
First update the table which holds the data for the page. Go to the dashboard, click ‘Pages’, click ‘List Generation’. This will open the List Generation page. Now click ‘Update a list’ to open the ‘List Maintenance’ page. Select the list you wish to update by clicking on the appropriate down arrow. At the top of the List Maintenance page is a link to the instructions on how to update each list. Once you have updated the table, generate the new version of the page.
Go to the List Generation pageand click on the name of the page which you wish to regenerate. The page will be regenerated and you will see a pop-up box with the message ‘[page name] created successfully’. Generating a page will overwrite an earlier version of the page if one exists. Occasionally, this process does not work correctly and a second page will be created, leaving the old one intact. This will be noticeable if the page, when displayed, still shows the old content even after refreshing it. If this happens, delete both versions of the page and regenerate as described.
Internal Structure & Processes
The tables used to create list pages are managed by the WPdatatables plug-in. Details on how to use the plug-in can be found here. The following table shows which internal database table corresponds to each list page. Tables whose name begins with ‘wp_mgf_datatable_’ were created using the plug-in; the other tables were imported into the new site from the spreadsheets which were used on the old one.
Headers
wp_mgf_wpdatatable_5
Lists
wp_mgf_wpdatatable_6
Tab Names
wp_mgf_wpdatatable_7
Plant lists (exc. Plants for Wildlife)
wp_mgf_plants
Seed List
wp_mgf_seedlist
Plants for Wildlife
wp_mgf_wildlife_plants
Recommendation Types
wp_mgf_wpdatatable_8
Recommendations (exc. Books)
wp_mgf_recommendations
Recommended Books
wp_mgf_books
Forthcoming Events
wp_mgf_wpdatatable_10
Email addresses
wp_mgf_email_addresses
Gardens to Visit
wp_mgf_visits
are on the – database tables – page generation page (functions.php) – plug-ins
There are a number of pages on the site which are lists of items. Examples include: plant lists, recommendation lists and so on. As these pages are subject to change, they are not created in the usual way with the Gutenberg editor (and cannot be edited by it). Instead, the information contained in the lists is held in a series of spreadsheet-like tables. You can create new lists or change/delete existing ones by adding or modifying these tables. Some of the tables (especially Plants) contain a large number of items. To help you find what you want, there are facilities for: sorting the table by a specific column, restricting the rows shown by the use of a filter, and searching for specific text. which can be modified as required. Once the appropriate table (or tables) have been updated, the page is generated by a plugin which is launched via the administrative dashboard (Pages, List generation). This page identifies which tables are used for each page and provides the instructions on how to update them.
Note: As of January 2022, the Seed List no longer uses this system. The page is generated directly from an Excel spreadsheet (‘MasterSeedList.xls’) in the Media Library. See the ‘Help’ worksheet in MasterSeedList.xls for details of how to update this list.
Pages & Tables
This section identifies which tables are used for each of the list pages.
Page
Tables
All plant list pages (exc. Plants for Wildlife)
Headers, Lists, Tab Names, Plants
Plants for Wildlife
Headers, Lists, Tab Names, Wildlife Plants
All recommendation pages (exc. Recommended Books)
Recommendation Types, Recommendations
Recommended Books
Headers, Lists, Tab Names, Recommended Books
Forthcoming Events
Headers, Events, Email Addresses
Gardens to Visit
Headers, Gardens to Visit
Updating a Table: General Instructions
The tables are maintained by the wpDataTables plugin. This is a commercial product for which MGF has a perpetual licence. To access a table for update, click the link near the top of the List Generation page in the dashboard and then click the name of the table required to see the data. The following general instructions apply to all tables; instructions specific to a given table can be found in the appropriate tab below. To make changes, click in the table and an action box will appear with three options: New entry, edit and delete. Click the one you want.
To change the contents of a row, click anywhere in it and select ‘Edit’ in the action box. Another pop-up box will display the current contents of the row. Make the necessary changes and click OK. You can also add a new row after changing an existing one by clicking ‘Apply and add new’ instead of ‘OK’.
To add a new row, click anywhere in the table and select ‘New entry’ in the action box. Another pop-up box will appear where you can add the new row. Click OK or, if you are adding more than one row, click ‘Apply and add new’.
To delete a row, click anywhere in it. A pop-up box will ask for confirmation of the delete. Be careful about using this feature as there is no undo function.
Sorting, searching and filtering
Sorting. At the head of each column, the column name is displayed. Clicking on the column name will sort the table by this column. An up or down arrow at the side of a column name indicates the table is currently sorted by this column; the direction of the arrow indicates whether the sort sequence is ascending or descending. Clicking the column name again will reverse the sequence.
NOTE: Using this feature does not affect the way the lists are ultimately sorted on the page itself; this is done by the list generation process.
Searching. Above the table, you will find a search box. Enter the text you are looking for. Without the need to click anything else, the system will display any rows where there is a match in any row for the search term that you entered. Remove the search term and all records will again be displayed (unless there is a filter active – see next paragraph). The search is not case-sensitive and will look in any part of the table for matches. So, for example, if you enter as your search term ‘La’, then you will get matches for any row that contains, say, ‘Plants’ or ‘Late Summer Colour’.
Filtering. Filtering is allowed on some columns, as indicated at the top of the column (between the column name and the first row) by either the message ‘Enter filter here’ or a down arrow. Where ‘Enter filter here’ is shown, enter the text on which you want to filter. Any text entered will limit the display to only those rows where there is a match for the term in the column concerned. As with search, filtering is not case-sensitive and all the contents of the column will be searched. Where the filter is shown by a down arrow, click the arrow and select the filter you want. Filters on more than one column will be combined (i.e. for a row to display, it must match all of the filters). To clear active filters, click ‘Clear filters’ at the head of the table.
Table Specific Instructions
Fields marked * are mandatory
Fields marked † can contain the following HTML tags (but no others): <a><i><b>
This table establishes a plant list and allows you to select the elements that you want shown at the head of the page. The header table contains the following items:
List name*: A one-word, unique identifier for the list. This will be used internally and will not be visible on the page. Use something short but meaningful.
Title 1*: The title which will appear at the top of the page.
Title 2: A second title line to be shown below Title 1. Typically used for the French translation of Title 1 where the two together would be too long to fit on a single line. For the Seed List, this column should contain the date of the update, e.g.: ‘ (updated / mise à jour: January / janvier 2020 )’.
Remark 1: A single line of text to be shown below the title.
Remark 2: A single line of text to be shown below Remark 1. Typically used for the French translation of Remark 1 where the two together would be too long to fit on a single line.
Click on images?: Enter ‘y’ or ‘n’. If ‘y’ is set, the following text will be displayed immediately above the list of plants: ‘Click on the thumbnail images to enlarge them / Cliquez sur les vignettes pour les agrandir‘.
Seed list?: Enter ‘y’ or ‘n’. If ‘y’ is set, the following text will be displayed: ‘Seeds for many of these plants are available from the MGF Seed Collection’. The French version of this text will be shown immediately below the English.
Rubric English†: At the top of a list, it is possible to have a framed box below the title and remark lines with bilingual text side-by-side. Enter the English text here.
Rubric French†: The French version of Rubric English to be shown alongside it in the framed box. If you wish to display a block of unilingual text, enter it in one of these two rubric columns. It will be displayed centred within a framed box.
Use this table to enter the names of the tabs which will be used on the page. If a list does not use tabs, then create a single entry with the value ‘None’ as the Category Name. The table contains the following items:
List name*: The identifier linking it to the Headers table. Select the one you want from the drop down box.
Category Name*: The wording to appear on the tab. Select the one you want from the drop down box.
Position*: A number indicating the position of the tab on the page, beginning with 1 on the left and increasing as you move to the right.
Use this table to create and update the names which will appear in tabs.
Category*: The name that will appear on a tab.
This table contains the details of the plants in the various plant lists. Some columns have rules regarding format:
List name*: The identifier linking it to the Headers table. Select the one you want from the drop down box.
Category*: The category (or tab) to which the plant belongs (if any). Select the one you want from the drop down box.
Photo: If there is no photo to go with this entry, leave blank. If there is a photo, enter ‘x’. This will display the image in the Media Library which has the same name as the plant name (or plant displayed, if this is used). If there is more than one image in the library with this name, enter the slug of the image which you wish to use.
Plant name*: the full name of the plant, including the cultivar/variety name, if present. The Latin words will be italicised by the system but the cultivar name must be enclosed in single quotes.
Synonym / Comment: will be displayed below the plant name on the page. If there is a synonym, then the content of this cell must be ‘syn. ‘ followed by the full plant name as for the principal plant name. No other content may follow a synonym. If there is no synonym, this cell can contain any suitable text as per the description lines (see below).
Plant displayed: If the image to be displayed does not correspond to the plant name, then the name of the plant displayed will be shown on the page after the description line(s), thus: ‘Photo: xxxxx’ where ‘xxxxx’ is the full name of the plant shown. This name should be put into this column, using the same conventions as for the Plant name. ‘Photo:’ will be added automatically by the system.
Description line 1*†: Any explanatory text to be displayed to the right of the plant name. Any plant names MUST be italicised by using the ‘I’ function of the editor. To insert a link, highlight the text which will contain the link and then insert the URL by clicking the chain icon.
Description line 2†: A second line of explanatory text to be displayed below the first; the same rules apply with regard to links and plant names.
The information in the Plants for Wildlife page is different from that of the other plants lists and so this table should be used instead of Plants.
Photo: If there is no photo to go with this entry, leave blank. If there is a photo, enter ‘x’. This will display the image in the Media Library which has the same name as the plant name (or plant displayed, if this is used). If there is more than one image in the library with this name, enter the slug of the image which you wish to use.
Latin name*: the full botanical name of the plant, including the cultivar/variety name, if present. The Latin words will be italicised by the system but the cultivar name must be enclosed in single quotes.
English name: the common name of the plant in English.
French name: the common name of the plant in French.
Provides*: English text describing how the plant is useful for wildlife (living space, food, etc.) and the species who will use it.
Fournit*: The French version of Provides.
Recommendations are displayed on different pages according to type (designers, nurseries, etc.). Use this table to add new types or to change existing ones. NOTE: book recommendations are treated separately.
Type*: The bilingual text which will appear as the heading of the page in question. It is also used in the Recommendations table (q.v.) to identify the type to which the recommendation belongs.
This table contains the details for all recommendation pages except Recommended Books (which has different information and uses a table of its own).
Type*: The type to which this recommendation belongs. Select the one you want from the drop down box.
Photo: If there is no photo to go with this entry, leave blank. If there is a photo, enter ‘x’. The file name of the image must be ‘recommend-xx’, where ‘xx’ is the id. no. of the recommendation; this is assigned automatically by the system and is displayed in the first column of the table. It cannot be modified.
Caption: Short text to appear beneath the image, if present. If the caption contains a plant name then the Latin words of the name must be italicised by enclosing them in HTML tags thus: <i>Punica granatum</i> ‘Mollar de Elche’.
MGF?: Set to ‘x’ if the person concerned is a member of MGF, otherwise leave blank. If set, the legend ‘(MGF member)’ will appear on the page after the name.
Company*: The name of the company being recommended.
Owner*: The owner of the company being recommended.
Address: House number and street of the company address.
Commune*: Postcode and commune name of the company address. Where the company is outside of France, precede the postcode with ’99’ and add the country name after the commune name.
Telephone: Company telephone number.
Web site: URL of the company’s website. This should be the full URL, i.e. preceded by ‘https://’. The system will automatically create a link to this website using the company name.
Description*†: Free text to describe the company and its activities.
This table contains the details of recommended books. It should also be used to store details of books that have member reviews should these be part of the site in future (currently they are on the MGi site).
List name*: Can be ‘recommendedbooks’ or ‘bookreviews’. Select the one you want from the drop down box.
Category*: The category to which the book belongs. Select the one you want from the drop down box.
Photo?: If there is no photo to go with this entry, leave blank. If there is a photo, enter ‘x’. The file name of the image must be the same as the title of the book.
Recommended?: If the book is to appear on the Recommended Books page, enter ‘x’, otherwise leave blank.
Library?: If the book is in the MGF Library, enter ‘x’, otherwise leave blank. Entering ‘x’ will add the legend ‘ This book is in the MGF Library’ to be displayed for this book with a link to the library page.
Title*: The title of the book.
Author First Name*: Author’s first name. If the book has multiple authors, enter the first name of the first author.
Author Last Name*: Author’s last name. If the book has multiple authors, enter the last name of the first author, followed by the full names of the other authors.
Publisher*: The publisher of the book.
Year: Year of publication of the edition of the book concerned.
Description*†: Free text to describe the book; usually an extract from the publisher’s blurb.
Quotation†: Optional field for a review quotation from an external reviewer (i.e not a member of MGF).
Source: The source of the external quotation
Reviewer: If the book has a review on the MGi Book Reviews page, enter the full name of the reviewer, otherwise leave blank.
Review slug: The book review pages on the MGi site are named bkr[slug].html. Enter the slug here if there is a review article, otherwise leave blank.
International: Enter ‘x’ if this event is to appear in the International Events, otherwise leave blank.
Photo?: If there is an image to accompany this event, enter its slug, otherwise leave blank.
English title*: The title of the event in English.
English text*: The description of the event in English.
French title*†: The title of the event in French.
French text*†: The description of the event in English.
Start Date*: Use the date picker to select the start date of the event. NOTE: on the page, the entries will appear in ascending order of start date.
End Date: Leave blank for one-day events, otherwise use the date picker to select the end date of the event.
Location*: Short text to identify the location(s) of the event. For events in France, end with the name of the département. For international events, end with the country name in capitals.
Contact*: Select the name of the contact from the drop-down list. If the name is not there, add it to the Email addresses table.
This table contains the name and email address of all people or institutions to which emails can be sent from a page on the site. Placing email addresses on a web page is a security risk as they can be harvested by malware. To prevent this happening on the site, the real email address is replaced by a slug and a call to a special routine. This routine uses the slug to find the real email address in this table and then starts the mailto function of the browser. To add an email address link on a page, create a link with the editor. This link should be as follows:
Copy the above into the link box (without the quote marks), having first replaced ‘slug’ with the slug of the address that you want from the table.
These email links must not open in a new tab.
Type*: Can be ‘Individual’ (email to be sent to a named individual); ‘Partner’ (email to a partner institutional mailbox, e.g hortusacl@orange.fr); or ‘MGF Role’ (email to an MGF institutional mailbox, e.g. treasurer@mediterraneangardeningfrance.org).
Name*: The name of the addressee. This name is what is displayed when using the Forthcoming Events table.
Email address*: The addressee’s email address.
Slug*: A one-word, unique identifier for the addressee, e.g. TChambers or MGMR.
Photo slug*: A one-word, unique identifier which will form part of the file name of the image which will be displayed for this entry. The full name will be ‘visits-xxx’, where ‘xxx’ is the slug.
Garden Name*: The name of the garden.
Address: Number and street of the garden’s address.
Commune*: Postcode and commune name of the garden. If the garden is outside of France, the first two characters should be the ISO 3166 alpha-2 country code (see here for the list).
Latitude*: The latitude of the garden, expressed decimals of degrees not degrees, minutes, secondes, e.g. 43.766772, rather than 43° 46′ 00”.
Longitude*: The longitude of the garden, also as decimals of degrees. NOTE: a longitude east of the meridan should be a positive number, a longitude west should be a negative number.
If possible, use the lat/long of the garden itself, otherwise use the nearest point possible. If not known, the best way to get the lat/long of a place is to use Google Maps. Click here for instructions on how to do this.
Telephone: Telephone number of the garden.
Web site: URL of the gardens’s website (if any). This should be the full URL, i.e. preceded by ‘https://’. The system will automatically create a link to this website using the garden name.
Description*†: Free text to describe the garden.
MGF Page 1, MGF Link 1, MGF Page 2, MGF Link2: For each garden, you may have up to two references to other pages on the site. These will appear after the garden description in the format ‘See also: xxxxx [and xxxxx] ‘ where ‘xxxxx’ is a link to the page(s) in question. Place the text to be shown in the link in MGF Page 1 or MGF Page 2. Put the full URL of the appropriate pages in MGF Link 1 or MGF Link 2.
