Learning Center

Worship Times has developed a plug-in for sites on our network that allows you to easily manage and organize a variety of different types of files. This Webmaster Class will walk you through a broad overview of how the plug-in works and then go into detail on display. Publications allows you to choose the order in which things your files display.

Publications are a way to list PDFs, MP3s, or videos. A simple list includes the name, the author, a  brief description, the date that it was published, and then the ability to view whatever it is. PDFs and videos display as a link. MP3 files have an audio player.

The default list display is simple, minimal, and clean, but our designers and developers can do anything with this data, including grid views and embedded videos. If there are other things that you’d like to do with your publication lists, contract one of our developers by emailing us at support@worshiptimes.org.

This version of the publication system isn’t meant for secure documents, but you can password protect a PDF before uploading it, protect an MP3 directly on Amazon S3, or protect a video directly on YouTube or Vimeo. We also have other tools specific to secure documentation – contact us if you’re interested in getting something set up on your website.

To get started, find your Publications tool in the dashboard.

Get organized first. Start by creating your Publication Types, which function like categories. Bulletins, newsletters, sermons, worship recordings, worship videos, etc.

Authors are particularly useful if you have sermons, but authors don’t have to be people. They could also be a committee or a department if you have a list of resources.

Also, if you’re so inclined, there is the option to set up Podcast Settings. These fields are required by Apple for podcasts on iTunes. If you don’t see it as an option, reach out to Support, and we’ll activate it for you. Once activated, you’ll see a list of RSS feeds for each of your publication types. Add the specific URL needed to your feed.

Once you’re all set up, create a new publication. Give it a title, a date, and a short description. Add the URL for your PDF (or other URLs), MP3, or video.

For large PDFs and MP3 files, we highly encourage utilizing a file storing service like Amazon S3, which is very inexpensive. This is a long-term archiving services meant to store stuff for years and years and years and years. Instead of directly uploading large files to your website, which can slow it down and take up space in your storage quote, upload it to your Amazon S3 account. Make it public and then paste Amazon S3 link into your publication. For videos, which are even larger, upload to an external service like YouTube or Vimeo.

After adding your links, select or create a Publication Type. Add an Author if that makes sense for this publication. Publish.

To get your publications on to a page as a list, edit or create a new page. Click on Add Media then Publication Lists. Select the Publication Type you want to display, how many, and adjust the other settings as needed. Click on Insert Publication List, which will drop a shortcode on to your page. Save the page.

Once a publication list has been added to a page, you can create a new publication and select that same Publication Type, and it will automatically be added to the list on that page.

You can also put publication lists in widgets, most commonly found on your home page, in sidebars, and in footers.

As always, if you have any questions, please submit a support ticket from your website or email us at support@worshiptimes.org.