Sunday, April 21, 2013

HASA How-to - April 2013

How do I...

...set up a workshop?

While HASA has Beta status for works in progress, sometimes you need to show stories to a smaller set of readers before you unleash them on the general public. Or maybe you and a few others jointly write stories and need a place where you can all work at the same time. The Workshop is where you make this happen. It offers a private area where several members can work together on stories. This is in contrast to the My Stuff/My Stories area where you can only work on your own stories and no one else can get in there. It's also a way to avoid sending around email attachments and wondering if everyone can read the file format. For answers to general questions, be sure to check out the Workshop FAQ.

  1. Be sure you are logged in.
  2. Go to the Workshop section
  3. Look at the top of the right hand menu area for the button "Add a New Workshop".
  4. Click the button.
  5. When you see the form, enter a name for your shop. If you are working on a story, using the story name is a good idea. You can also use your own name or your writing group's name.
  6. Add a brief description in the text box.  If you need some inspiration for names or descriptions, check out the Site owned workshops here.
  7. Click the "Add" button.
  8. The system creates your workshop and shows you the shop home page. By default, the shop is set to Private, meaning only you and invited members can see it.

Now you have to add some members to your shop, so you can work together.

  1. Go to the home page of the shop if you aren't already there.
  2. In the navigation column, locate the "Shop Info" section.
  3. In that section, click on the "Edit Members" button.
  4. You should now see the Manage Members page.
  5. Scroll down the page until your see a multi-select box. It will display all the names of all active HASA members in alphabetical order.
  6. Click on the name of the member you wish to add.
  7. To select more than one person, hold down the CTRL key while you click.
  8. When your list is complete, click "Add Members to Workshop".

OK, so you have a workshop, you have members and now you need a story (or two or three)!

  1. Go to the home page of the shop if you aren't already there.
  2. Scroll down the main shop page until you can see the Stories section.
  3. Click the button "Add Stories to Workshop".
  4. On the Add Story page you have three options:
    a. Add an existing story directly - pick a story from a drop-down list and click "Select". The story is linked into the shop.
    b. Clone an existing story - pick a story from a drop-down list and click "Select". The system makes a copy of that story including all of its chapters and adds it to the shop.
    c. Create a new story - Click the "Create New Story" button. You'll go to a standard story form. Fill it out and click "Add". This creates a new, empty story for you to work with.

You're set! You can now work in the shop just like you work in your my Stories section of My Stuff, except that as many people as necessary can work there, not just you.

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