news: December Newsletter Released

The December Newsletter has just been published as a prototype, but not widely distributed (whilst we tweak some of the mechanics).  Feel free to have a look at how it works and provide feedback.

We've been labouring somewhat on the best approach to develop and publish a site Newsletter.  Newsletters add another dimension to our objectives of Community collaboration and communication.

Whilst we have settled on the Drupal module, Simple Newsletter, we wanted to build some dynamic content using Panels (at least for the online version of the newsletter).  So what happens (for now), the Simple newsletter node (and page) provides the administrator (or Editor) a means of both testing and distribution the Newsletter online (to all registered users.  Note that the newsletter is a simple text page with a link to the full online newsletter, which happens to be a Panel node, called NewsCorner Dec 2012. Try the link from within the Simple Newsletter document.

Some smart use of taxonomy terms is used with a custom View (right panel), to build the Latest News column.

As with all our documents and publications, these 2 objects are registered and linked on the Newsletter Index, which is located under our Documents menu (Publications). Some smart use of taxonomy terms are used with a custom View (right panel), to build the Latest News column.