Announcements
Announcements are notices you post on the portal: planned maintenance, a new application, a change to how people sign in. This page explains how to write one, where it appears, and how to make an urgent notice pop up as an alert.
What announcements are
An announcement is a short notice with a heading, a formatted body and an optional mark (a small icon). Notices appear on a notice board on the sign-in page, the home page, or both. Unlike an Agreement, nothing is accepted and no notice replaces another: every notice that applies is shown at once, in the order you set.
Use announcements for things people should read but do not have to agree to. Use an Agreement when you need a record that somebody accepted terms.
| Announcement | Agreement | |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Tell people something | Ask people to read or accept terms |
| How many at once | All that apply, in your order | One: the most specific, newest |
| Where | Sign-in page, home page, or both | Before sign-in or after sign-in |
| Schedule | Publish on and expiry dates | On or off |
| Record kept | Who closed it (once-per-user notices) | Who accepted it (once-per-user agreements) |
Where notices appear
There are two ways a notice reaches people:
- On the notice board. The board is the Announcements block in the theme. It shows wherever the theme places that block on the sign-in page or the home page. If a theme has no Announcements block on a page, ordinary notices are not shown on that page. Add the block on Building the sign-in and home pages.
- As an alert. A notice marked hot appears as an alert over the page, which people must close before they can carry on.
Post an announcement
- Open the list. Go to Appearance → Announcements.
- Add a notice. Click the button to add an announcement. The editor opens.
- Write the heading. Type the heading people will see. A heading is required; it is also how the notice is listed in the console.
- Write the body. Use the editor's toolbar for bold, italic, headings, lists, quotes and links. You can paste text from a document; unsupported formatting is removed when you save.
- Choose a mark (optional). Click Choose icon to pick a small icon from the Icon Library. Leave it empty for no mark.
- Choose the addresses. In Applies to, leave the box empty for every address, or type one or more hostnames separated by commas. Wildcards such as
*.acme.comare allowed, and the box suggests the addresses you have bound on Tenancy & Branding as you type. - Choose the screens. Tick whether the notice shows on the sign-in page, on the home page, or on both.
- Decide if it is hot. Tick hot only for something people must see before they continue, such as an outage.
- Choose how often. Pick how often a person sees it again after closing it (see How often a notice comes back).
- Set the dates (optional). Fill in Publish on and Expires on to schedule it. Dates and times are in UTC. Leave them empty to show the notice for as long as it is active.
- Save. Make sure Active is ticked and save. The notice appears on the next page load (within a minute on every server of a pool).
Announcement fields
| Field | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Heading | The notice's title. Required. Can be written per language. | — |
| Body | The notice text, written in the rich editor. Can be written per language. | — |
| Mark | A small icon from the Icon Library shown beside the heading. On a notice shown on the sign-in page, choose one of the icons that come with DartRelay: an icon you uploaded yourself is only available to signed-in people, so the editor refuses it there. | None |
| Applies to | The addresses the notice appears on. Empty means every address. Several hostnames separated by commas; wildcards allowed. | Every address |
| Show on the sign-in page | Shows the notice before people sign in. | — |
| Show on the home page | Shows the notice after people sign in. | — |
| Hot | Shows the notice as an alert people must close. | Off |
| Frequency | How often a closed notice comes back: once per user, once per browser, or every visit. | — |
| Publish on | When the notice starts showing, in UTC. | Immediately |
| Expires on | When the notice stops showing, in UTC. | Never |
| Active | Switches the notice on or off without deleting it. | — |
Hot notices (alerts)
A hot notice opens as an alert in front of the page. It takes the keyboard focus, stops the page behind from scrolling, and must be closed before anything behind it can be used. The page itself is still loaded behind the alert, so a person whose browser cannot remember that they closed it is never locked out of the portal.
Keep hot notices for things that genuinely matter. Several hot notices at once means several alerts to close.
How often a notice comes back
| Setting | What happens after a person closes it |
|---|---|
| Once per user | That person does not see it again, on any device. DartRelay records who closed it. Only meaningful after sign-in, because nobody is known on the sign-in page. |
| Once per browser | That browser does not show it again for a year. Another browser or device shows it again. |
| Every visit | It comes back each time the browser is closed and reopened. |
The announcement editor has a reset option to show a notice to everybody again. Use it with care: it brings the notice back for everyone who has already closed it.
Ordering notices
On Appearance → Announcements, notices are shown on the board in list order. Drag a notice by its grip to a new position, or use the up and down arrows (which also work from the keyboard). The list marks which notices are live now.
Notice board settings in the theme
The Announcements block in a theme controls how the board looks. Its settings include:
- Text style – the size and weight of notice text, from the same set of styles as the Apps panel.
- Show publish date – none, date only, or date and time; placed at the top (on the heading line) or the bottom of each notice. The date is the notice's Publish on date, or the date it was written if it has none.
- Container width and height, and whether the board is drawn as a box.
- The usual Advanced settings: CSS class and spacing.
Writing notices in several languages
When more than one language is switched on, the heading and body each have a language menu. Write the Original first; it is shown to anybody whose language has no version of its own. Then choose each language and write its version. See Languages.
Example: a weekend maintenance window
The IT team will patch hosts on Saturday from 08:00 to 12:00 UTC.
- Advance notice. On Monday, post a notice headed "Planned maintenance on Saturday" on both the sign-in and home pages, every address, frequency once per user, Expires on Saturday 12:00.
- During the work. Post a second notice headed "Maintenance in progress", hot, on the sign-in page only, frequency every visit, Publish on Saturday 08:00, Expires on Saturday 12:00.
- Order. Drag the in-progress notice to the top.
- Afterwards. Both notices disappear by themselves at 12:00. Delete them later, or leave them switched off for reference.
If something goes wrong
A notice does not appear
- Check that it is Active, that the right screen is ticked, and that the current time is between Publish on and Expires on (remember these are UTC).
- Check Applies to: an address spelled differently from the one you are visiting does not match.
- Check the theme for that address has an Announcements block on that page.
- If you closed it yourself earlier, it may be remembered for you or your browser. Try a private window.
- In a pool of several servers, allow up to a minute.
Saving is refused because of the mark
The notice is shown on the sign-in page and its mark is an icon you uploaded. Choose one of the icons that come with DartRelay instead.
Exported themes arrive without notices
Announcements belong to the installation, not to a theme, so a theme package carries the board block but not the notices. Recreate the notices on the other installation.
Related pages
Agreements
Terms people must read or accept.
Building the sign-in and home pages
Place the notice board block.
Tenancy & Branding
The addresses notices can target.
Categories, folders and icons
The Icon Library used for marks.