Writing.Com 101

Portfolio Highlighting

Portfolio Highlighting allows you to highlight your personal portfolio listings with colored borders. This highlighting is not visible to anyone except you. By default, all private items in your port are bordered with pink. To set up additional highlighting, click on Portfolio/Portfolio Highlighting in the left navigation menu. This opens the Manage Portfolio Highlighting page where existing portfolio highlights will be listed chronologically from oldest to newest by their last modify time.1

To Add a New Portfolio Highlight
On the Manage page, click on the Add a new Portfolio Highlight button to open the create/edit form.

Note: The way the highlighting is applied has changed since this page was created. Ignore the directions on the page and follow the directions here.

Name this Highlight: A text box for you to name the particular highlight you're creating. You may use spaces between words. This content can be edited. Note: It will be helpful for the highlight name to include the 6-digit color identifier you choose for this highlight. Including this information will help prevent using duplicate colors with your highlights.

Match for Highlighting: Use the options in this section to set criteria that Writing.Com will automatically match in order to make your selected items the appropriate color. You can set your highlighting based on any or all of the following criteria:

Match Access Restriction: This setting allows you to highlight all items with a particular access restriction. For more information on access restrictions, see "Access Restrictions" .

For example, this could be used to show which of your items are for a particular group or accessible to a certain membership level or case color.

Match Title/Description: This setting allows you to highlight all items that contain a particular word or phrase in the title and/or short description. The word or phrase needs to be long enough to be unique to the items you want it to apply to, meaning that it doesn't coincidentally appear within other unrelated wording that might be used. Using a special character in the text of the intended items (similar to the # of hashtags) can help in such circumstances.

For example, this could be used to show which of your items have similar titles, such as a set of chapters from the same novel, or a group of Images, Static items, and Forums related to a group or contest/activity.

Match Genre: This setting allows you to highlight all items that have a particular genre selected as their primary genre.

For example, this could be used to show which of your items are erotica, or horror, or poetry. If you use the Contest Entry genre only for items that are current submitted contest entries, the color can be a reminder not to edit those items.

The matching process uses the logical operator AND, so it will select only the items that match all of the specified criteria. To ignore one of the criteria options, leave it set to the default setting or blank.

Color Settings for Highlighted Items: The options in this section allow you to select how your highlighting appears.

The Background Color setting you choose will instead be shown as a narrow colored border around your item listing.

Note: When you come back to the form for editing, this selection will not be shown, and the default white [ffffff] option in the menu will be selected. This is why noting the color identifier of the highlight in the title will be helpful. If you do not note the color you choose in the highlight title, use the No Change option for this menu when you edit the highlight and want to keep the same color border. If you forget to change this default setting during an edit, the colored border will be removed from all applicable items.

The Text Color setting is no longer used. For this menu, always select the No Change option.

To change the default pink highlight for Private items, choose another Background Color option, set the Match Access Restriction to Keep Private, For My Eyes Only!, leave the Match Title/Description text box blank, and leave the Match Genre set to Match To Any Genre.

If one set of matching criteria cannot define all the items you want to highlight, you can use another highlight of the same color with different matching criteria to "include" additional items.

Once you have finished choosing the settings, click the Update Highlight button at the bottom of the page. You will be returned to the Manage Portfolio Highlights page with the new highlight added to the list. Your portfolio listing will be updated with the new highlighting criteria, which will be visible on a fresh page load of your portfolio listing.

From the Manage Portfolio Highlights page, you can use the Tools section of the list to edit the highlight, delete the highlight, or list all the items the highlight is applied to.

Remember, this highlighting is only visible to you when you're logged into your account; no one else will be able to see it.

Why is Portfolio Highlighting useful?
Customizing your Portfolio Highlighting can help you organize your port in several ways, including:

To highlight all items of a particular genre.
To highlight a set of items that are all related to the same story series, contest, group, etc.
To visually organize which of your items are accessible to specific membership levels or case colors or Group memberships.
To highlight all your entries for a particular contest, include the contest name in your item's brief description, you can .
To organize the items in your port without creating folders or making a visible distinction to anyone else. For example, if you include a "word count" or "WC=" in the item's brief description if they are under a certain word count, the highlight (or lack thereof) provides that differentiating information.

Recommended Reading

1. "Portfolio" Tab
2. Access Restrictions

Footnotes
1  Updated by northernwrites; written by Jeff