news-application-project

News 4 U: user guide

Sign in and registration

• Open http://127.0.0.1:8000/ while the development server is running.
• Use Join to create an account and choose a role: Reader, Journalist, or Editor.
• Sign in with a username and password using Sign in.
• Your role decides which pages appear in the navigation and which actions the server allows.
• Sign out ends the current browser session.

The Django admin (http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin/) is optional and only for superusers; all regular tasks are available on the website.

Reader tasks

Readers see published articles and newsletters. The article home page shows approved content from the reader’s subscriptions; article pages outside the reader’s subscribed publications/journalists are not available to Reader-role accounts.

1. Sign in as a Reader.
2. Select My subscriptions in the navigation.
3. Choose one or more publications and journalists, then save.
4. Return to Articles to read subscribed articles.
5. Open Newsletters to see journalist-curated newsletters containing published stories.

The API supports the same subscription choices for programmatic clients.

Journalist tasks

Journalists use the role-specific links in the main navigation:

• Write article opens the article submission form.
• My articles lists the journalist’s own submissions and their publication status. Use Edit or Delete on a submission to manage it.
• Create newsletter opens a curated-newsletter form. Select only approved stories.
• My newsletters lists, edits, and deletes newsletters authored by the signed-in journalist.

An article submission is not published immediately. It enters the Editor review queue. If a Journalist is affiliated with a publication, it appears as an option when preparing that publication’s content. Otherwise, submit an independent article.

Journalists may edit or delete their own articles/newsletters, not another journalist’s work.

Editor tasks

Editors use these navigation links:

• Editor review shows pending articles. Inspect the submission, use Edit submission if needed, then Approve and publish or Delete.
• Manage articles lists articles and provides edit/delete actions.
• Create newsletter allows an Editor to select a Journalist author and approved stories for the collection.
• Manage newsletters lists and manages newsletters.

Approving an article marks it published, records the approving Editor and timestamp, emails the relevant subscribers, and posts an approval log entry to the app’s own /api/approved/ endpoint.

Publisher management (editors)

Publishers are created and managed on the site, not in the admin:

1. Sign in as an Editor and open Publishers.
2. Select Create publisher, enter a name and description, and tick the editors and journalists to affiliate. At least one editor is required, and you are added as an editor automatically.
3. Use Manage members on a publisher to rename it or add and remove affiliated editors and journalists. Only editors affiliated with a publisher can manage it.
4. Delete removes a publisher that has no articles.

Journalists can open Publishers to see their affiliations, and Readers see the publications in My subscriptions. A journalist can submit articles for a publisher only after an editor affiliates them with it.

Users’ groups are synchronized from their role. The website and API independently check roles and ownership; hiding a link is not the access-control mechanism.

Troubleshooting

• Sign-in gives a CSRF 403: load a fresh login form and submit it again. Login rotates the browser’s CSRF token, so an old form in another tab may no longer be valid.
• Journalist cannot select a Publisher: ask an editor affiliated with that publisher to add you under Publishers > Manage members.
• No article appears after submission: it is awaiting Editor approval.
• Reader sees no articles: check My subscriptions, and confirm the subscribed journalist/publication has approved stories.
• Email is printed in the server terminal: the default development EMAIL_BACKEND is the console backend, not SMTP. Configure an email provider before expecting real email delivery.
• Browser cannot connect: make sure python manage.py runserver is running in the Django project folder and use http://127.0.0.1:8000/.