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Homeward Documentation

Field updates and gallery

Updates & gallery holds the two things supporters come back for: what you have written, and what you have photographed. Updates are public once published and appear on your public profile and in your subscribers’ feeds.

The four update types

Section titled “The four update types”

Every update is one of four types. Each description is the product’s own, and each has a different shelf life:

Type Description When to use it
Newsletter “News from your own field, at its most useful while it is fresh.” Regular news from your work.
Editorial “Your view on the wider world, or a general update. Fades the fastest.” Reflection and opinion, not news.
Testimony “One story worth telling, kept in front of readers as it ages.” A single story that stays worth reading.
Report “A periodic account of activity, read alongside earlier editions.” Periodic reporting with a defined period.

Creating an update

Section titled “Creating an update”

Pressing Testimony or Letter creates a draft immediately — “New testimony” or “New letter” — and opens the editor row. A draft exists from the moment you press the button; you are never writing into nothing.

The editor fields:

  • Type — required. Switching away from Report clears a stale reporting period.
  • Period start / Period end — required dates, shown only for Report. Readers see these as the report’s period label.
  • Publishing — required. Hosted on Homeward means you write the body here; External link means the update lives somewhere else and Homeward points at it.
  • Title — required.
  • Excerpt — required when publishing externally.
  • Body — required when hosted on Homeward.
  • Source URL — “Original source URL (optional)” for a hosted update; Source URL, required, for an external one.
  • Author name, Author role, Location, Cover image URL, and Video URL — all optional.
  • Status — Draft or Published.

The update table shows, per row: Date (the publish date, or Draft), Type, Title with a 70-character excerpt, Author, Tags, Response, Status, and Edit / Delete actions.

When it will not save

Section titled “When it will not save”

Before saving, the editor validates and, if something is missing, shows This update isn’t ready to publish with the specific reason — a missing or invalid report period, or a published update missing its title, excerpt, body, or source URL, depending on the publishing mode. Save stays disabled until the reason is resolved, so nothing half-finished goes out.

Reading the Response column

Section titled “Reading the Response column”

Response shows how readers voted on each published update, as up and down counts. It is a signal about resonance, not a scoreboard — Homeward staff read the same numbers across all organizations to see how update types land, and a piece with few votes is treated as unread rather than disliked.

Section titled “Gallery albums”

The Gallery albums card holds the photo albums shown on your public Gallery tab.

  • New album creates an album called “New album” — rename it straight away with the edit pencil (an input with Save / Cancel).
  • + Photos opens a multi-file image picker. Uploads run one at a time, so the album’s order matches the order you selected the files in.
  • The Photos count button toggles the photo grid — View / Hide — where each square thumbnail shows its caption, and hovering reveals Remove for that photo.
  • Last updated shows when the album last changed.
  • Delete removes the whole album.

Empty state: No albums yet.

Section titled “Related”