In older versions of the School of Medicine Web System (Plone 2.5), Internet Explorer does not apply font colors when a page is saved.  The colors are visible in the Edit screen, but not in the View screen.

Solution:

Use Firefox to save any pages where font colors are necessary.

We are therefore disabling this feature on all sites effective immediately.

The only change you may notice is the absence of the email icon () in the upper right hand corner of every page (next to the printer).

If you need to send a page or link to someone, you can still use your local email client.

Users viewing your web site do not see the most up to date content.

Explanation:

This issue is caused by an increased amount of time that pages in the web system are cached.  In general, caching is process where frequently accessed data (i.e. web page content) is stored in a temporary area for quick access.  Web caches are used by browsers to store previous responses from web servers to reduce the amount of information that travels over the network.  This helps improve web page responsiveness for users.  As part of our commitment to improve the performance and response time of the SOM Web System, we have increased the caching retention of our web servers to add an additional layer of caching to the system.  As a result, we have noticed that some browsers render older versions of pages in the system, even though the content was recently updated.  This is most noticeable in Internet Explorer.  Firefox, Safari and other browsers should display the most recent version of a page.

Solution:

While we recognize that this delay can be frustrating to users, we have seen a significant improvement in the performance of the web system.  Below is a technique that you can use to ensure that all your viewers (regardless of browser preference) are seeing the most up to date version of your web page.

1. Log out from editing your site and open Internet Explorer (do not log in).
2. Navigate to the page that requires immediate updating for viewers.
3. Press the control key and F5 (Ctrl+F5) on your keyboard, NOT Shift+Reload/Refresh.

The above steps will purge the cached content for you and all other viewers and the latest copy of your page will be displayed in all browsers, for all users.

Reminder:

When editing your site in Firefox, you may experience similar issues related to the recent change in cache settings.  A common example is logging into your site and not seeing the green edit bar.  If this happens, press Shift on your keyboard and click the Reload button in the browser.  This action will purge your local browser cache and give you the most recent copy of the page in question. 

Please note: This method does not work in Internet Explorer and does not purge the cache for all users as described in the solution above.  This is only a local solution that should be used by content editors and other users viewing your site in browsers such as Firefox, Safari, Opera, etc.

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Problem:

Some users confuse the Text Format box's "Plain Text" option with the "Paste as plain text" button.  This results in pages with visible HTML tags that look like this:

Solution:

Check your Text Format settings.  By default, this is set to HTML.  If you have accidentally chosen "Plain Text" from the dropdown menu, change that back to HTML.

Remember, to paste plaintext, just select the following icon in your FCK Editor:

812

Problem:

When you attempt to create a Banners folder, and name it "Banner," you get the following error:

Solution:

Make sure your folder is named "Banners," and not "Banner."

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Problem:

The School of Medicine Web System editor does not work in Safari.

Solution:

Download Mozilla Firefox to edit your site within the School of Medicine Web System.

485

Problem:

When you select "Show this event on the School of Medicine home page," the event does not automatically appear on the School of Medicine's main calendar at http://www.med.unc.edu.

Solution:

You have access to manually add an event to the School of Medicine homepage.  Simply follow these directions.

784

Problem:

When you place an image next to italicized text, the image cuts off when viewed with Internet Explorer 7.

Solution:

Put the text below the image, or don't use italics here.  We are currently working on a solution to this bug, to be included in the next release of the School of Medicine Web System.

855

Problem:

Internet Explorer 7 displays site skins as if they were very wide, requiring a width scroll bar.

Solution:

We are currently working on a solution to this bug, to be included in the next release of the School of Medicine Web System.

857

Problem:

When you go to insert your image, a pop-up window appears called Image Properties.  Once you've filled in the URL of your image, either by browsing or by linking, the Width and Height fields are automatically set to 0.  You image does not appear in the Preview.

Solution:

If you click the purple Reset Size arrow to the right of these fields, your image's original width and height will be restored.

Unfortunately, until this issue is resolved, you will not be able to utilize the image resizing tools built into the School of Medicine Web System.  However, Photoshop actually does a much better job resizing images.  This software is available free for use by School of Medicine faculty and staff at the Faculty Multimedia Lab.