Writing inside of the CMS is bad, but writing out of it could make life easier. With Stratus, you can write and file, and then move on or just do it again. Write. File. Repeat.
Unless you’re a first-year journalist, you know the rule: never write in the CMS. It’s just too risky.
In fairness to the CMS, things have gotten better over the years. A decent content management system has typically hardened and doesn’t crash as often as it used to, but trusting them can be difficult. It’s very much in the spirit of living dangerously should you choose to actively write a first draft in the CMS in the hopes you can just publish and move on with your life.
No wonder so many of us decide to write in an external notepad or text editor, and then copy the content across.
That was one of the main reasons I made Stratus. I wanted to speed up my workflow, and make it possible to publish without too much thinking.
Instead of being a simple text editor (it’s that, too), Stratus Notes includes two variations of a WordPress uploader, making it possible to upload content from the note editor, and hit publish simultaneously. For journalists working in the field and needing to file, it means publishing is easy and doesn’t require a laptop nearby. You can do this from your phone.
Before you do it, however, you need to go through a step or two. It’s easy, provided you have access, and your WordPress site hasn’t just been set up right then.
Setting up a site for Stratus Notes
First things first, you’ll need to make sure your WordPress Permalinks are set for more than just question marks and numbers. The stock standard install uses question mark equals something, and aside for being terrible for SEO, it’s also incompatible with the API we’re using for Stratus.
So if you’ve never checked out your Settings > Permalinks section, please go and do that. Set it to something that doesn’t annoy you, and ideally works with an SEO strategy you’d like to follow.
Then, head to your user profile inside the WordPress admin.
From here, scroll down to where it says “Application Passwords”, and then create a name for your application. We called ours “Stratus Notes” for obvious reasons, and once it’s saved, you’ll get a 24 character code specific to that. Think of this as a token solely for your app on the website.
Setting up Stratus Notes
Now come back to the settings in Stratus Notes. Head to settings, where under “Publishing” you’ll be able to add a site.
Your options are pretty easy. First up, you need a name for the site.
Then you need a site URL. To make this work, that’s typically going to be your WordPress site’s website address, plus “wp-json” attached. If your site is baconreviewers.net.au, your URL is https://baconreviewers.net.au/wp-json.
After that, you want to enter your username (but not your password), and then that 24 character code specific to the app. We’re not using your password to make the connection work, opting for this approach instead. Leave your password in your head and with a password manager.
From there, you can hit “Add Site”, and if you want to, scroll down and “Test Active Site”, which will make sure the connection works.
Now you’re ready to start publishing from your note-taker, but you need to choose which mechanism you’re using: simple or advanced.