All posts by John

I am a teacher, currently working in Banton Primary for North Lanarkshire Council. I also act as Product Owner/provide support for Glow Blogs. I like Blogs.
news, Releases

Glow Blogs Update June 2023

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Highlights

  • The WordPress version is now 6.2
  • We have included new themes Twenty Twenty-two & TwentyTwenty-Three
  • WordPress 6.2 and the new themes bring Full Site Editing to glow blogs.

Full Site Editing

WordPress Full Site Editing allows non-technical users to have more control over the appearance and layout of their website. It enables you to customise your entire website, including headers, footers, sidebars, and content areas, using a visual editor.

There is a lot to FSE, we will add more information and links to help on the Help Blog over the summer.

A couple of interesting improvements

Themes with FSE can allow you to easily swap from a set of predefined styles, or create your own.

Animated gif of the styles available in the Twenty Twenty Three theme
Animated gif of the styles available in the Twenty Twenty Three theme

Distraction Free mode. If you are rather overwhelmed by the new Block Editor you may like distraction free mode. This helps in giving you more space to write on and a much calmer experience. You can choose it from the editor settings, and it removes all toolbars and editing panels from the screen.

Openverse

An extensive library of free stock photos, images, and audio, available for free use.

Openverse is built into the Block editor, this allows you to search openverse for an image you can use legally. What is different from similar searches using other tools is that this also adds the attribution text below the photos.

Screenshot of openverse in Glow Blogs

There is more information on some of the main feature added in these posts:

What’s New in WordPress 6.0 (Features and Screenshots)

What’s New in WordPress 6.2 (Features and Screenshots)

These refer to standard versions of WordPress so there many be a few details of difference from glow blogs.

Remember too, general WordPress help online now often assumes the newer Blocks editor. This is not enabled by default yet on Glow blogs, but can be easily turned on.

news

Glow Blogs Adding Users improvements

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We have made some improvements to the Add users process.

It is still best to use the main “Add Curricular Groups” screen and select L.A. then School then class lists. This does need Seemis to be up to date for the school. This process is described in the Add users, Set Roles page.

Add Users

If you are adding users using the Add Users page Blogs will try and iron out any incorrect usernames.

Blogs need a username in the format gw09johnstonjohn4@glow Admins often add using a full email address like nljohnstonj1@glow.sch.uk which use to fail as the blog need nljohnstonj1@glow or nljohnstonj1.

You can only logon to Glow Blogs through RMunify with a Glow account.

Now if you put in an email address everything after @ will be replaced by @glow

So:
nljohnstonj1 will become nljohnstonj1@glow

nljohnstonj1@glow.sch.uk will become nljohnstonj1@glow

nljohnstonj1@example.com will become nljohnstonj1@glow

If you use an external non-glow email address it will create a pending user, but the person with the external email will not be able to log on with than.

Users Page

This list users, users that have been added but have not logged onto Glow Blogs used to be labelled User Pending, they are now labelled NOT LOGGED IN YET

This indicated that the user has not loggd onto Glow Blogs. They can do so by clicking the Glow Blogs tile on their RM Unify Dashboard. Once they have logged in their Name and email address will appear in the User List

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Users-list

In the screenshot, the testjohn@glow is for a user that either doesn’t exist or one that has not logged onto Blogs

How To, news

Glow Blogs Start of Session FAQ 2022

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A few quick tips that might help at the start of this new session.

Forgotten username or password

Your RM Unify Admin, who may be in your establishment or Local Authority will be able to help.

I need to access a blog where I do not have a role. For example you have moved school.

An Admin of the blog should be able to add you. Adding Users, Setting Roles | Glow Blog Help

No one in school can access a blog (perhaps staff have moved or retired)

You need to get your Local Authority to raise a call with theRM help desk.

Make sure you include the usernames you want added to a blog and the URL of the blog.

I can log on to Glow but I can’t access a blog where I have a role.

If you have just be added to the blog, get an admin for the blog check you have been added in the right way. If you are showing as Pending, see this FAQ. If that doesn’t help you need to get your Local Authority to raise a call with the RM help desk.

Make sure you include your username and the URL of the blog.

I can’t work out how to…

  1. Search the help blog
  2. Check the FAQ
  3. Use the contact form to get personal help.
  4. Leave a comment on one of the pages if you think that is appropriate.
  5. email gw09johnstonjohn4@glowmail.org.uk

New to Glow Blogs

If you have not used blogs for a while or not kept up with the help blog a lot of new features have been added for example:

Accessibility they are new ways to make you sites accessibly to different visitors.

The Blocks Editor is a new way to edit posts and pages. It allows a lot more flexibility as to content and layout.  We have a blog that explains more:  Using the Blocks Editor in Glow Blogs.

H5P is a plugin that allows you to create & display on your site a whole range of interactive content, from quizzes, multi-choice and close exercises all the way to 360 tours. H5p examples

Extra help

WE have developed a few more help sites in addition to the main Glow Blogs help.  Here is a list of other help sites on Glow Blogs.

Fixed Issues, news

Glow Analytics plugin problem – Fixed

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July 2022: Update: this issue is now fixed. The Glow Analytics plugin is now working as normal.

The Glow Analytics Plugin is not working at the moment, 16 Jun 2022. The Developers are aware of this and working on a fix. This may take a few weeks to complete, test and put into a release.

news, Releases

Glow Blogs Update April 2022

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Glow Blogs has had another update. Here are some highlights

Use H5P content on other blogs via shortcode

You can now allow your hp5 interactive content to be used on other Glow Blogs. See the H5P example blog Sharing page for details.

Plugin Copy Posts

This post allows you to create template posts that can be copied to other users blog and edited there. This will be useful for providing a starter for e-Portfolio posts by pupils. More information here on the help blog.

Plugin Block/e-Portfolio compatibility

The e-Portfolio plugin has been updated so that profile posts can now work with Gutenberg blocks: Gallery, Cover, Audio File, Video, Media/text, Pull quote, Table, Verse, Next page.

Some inappropriate blocks: Buttons, Search Field, Social Links, will not be shown in a pdf profile.

Other Changes

  • Many plugins and themes have been updated to newer versions
  • Security Update for WordPress
  • A bug in the comment form was fixed
  • A bug in Jetpack Sharing links was fixed

Other recent changes

Remember you can use the newer Blocks Editor for composing posts now.  We have started a Block Blogs to give more information.

The H5P plugin allows you to make all sorts of interactive content.  See the H5P examples blog for examples and more information.

news

The Block Editor and e-Portfolios

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Glow blogs have had the ability to switch to use the new WordPress Blocks editor.

There a few possible issues with using the Block Editor for e-portfolio blogs. Some blocks are not compatible with producing pdfs.

We have listed some of the possible issues on the Block editor blog.

Most of the problematic blocks are unlikely to be used in e-portfolios, but many folk may prefer to continue with the default classic editor.

news, Releases

H5P Plugin

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New to Glow Blogs the h5p plugin. This plugin allows you to create a wide variety of interactive content, From 360 tours to word searches, cloze procedures, quizzes and more.

We have a blog with some more information to get you started: H5p examples

H5P makes it easy to create, share and reuse HTML5 content and applications. H5P empowers everyone to create rich and interactive web experiences more efficiently – all you need is a web browser and a web site with an H5P plugin

from: H5P – Create and Share Rich HTML5 Content and Applications

news, Releases

Glow Blogs Update 26 Aug 2021

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The Glow Services has had a major update

WordPress has been updated. As usual we are slightly behind the latest version from WordPress.org

Many of the plugin and Themes have been updated.

It is now possible to use the Gutenberg Blocks editor on Posts and Pages. You can read more about the Blocks editor. We will be updating the help site to cover this over time.

The Lightbox plugin has now been removed, if a site has used the Lightbox plugin then this will be picked up and Jetpack will be enabled with the Carousel module also enabled.

There is a new plugin Advanced Search and filter plugin This allows large complex sites to create searches which include filters for categories, tags and other taxonomies.

You can now upload ppsx (PowerPoint Slide Show) files to Glow Blogs. These files may be large if they contain audio narration, this will take files space in your media library.

We are looking feedback on how people use Glow Blogs this will help us develop new functionality. Please fill in this short survey. It is linked from all the LA home pages.

There is a new ‘jQuery Migrate’ plugin that is activated across the service. This requires no activity from blog users. The plugin does send email to some blog admins, these can be ignored. We hope to stop the service sending these emails.