Frequently asked questions

Registering for an account on FocalPlane allows you to write and post content. You are also able to comment immediately on posts without having to provide your name and email address every time.

Please note posts for commercial, marketing or publicity purposes are not permitted. Please contact advertising@biologists.com to discuss advertising and sponsorship opportunities.

Go to our registration page and fill in the form. You should receive an automatic email asking you to follow a link to verify your email address.  When you follow the link you will be able to set a password for your account.  Once you have set a password you will be taken to the ‘edit your profile’ page; from here you can check the box to indicate that you would like to write content for FocalPlane.  You still need to wait for your account to be approved before you can post content.

In order to prevent spammers from posting on FocalPlane, each new account must be approved manually. It can therefore take up to a couple of days for your account to be approved. You will receive an email when you are given author status. If, after a few days, your account has still not been approved, contact us.

Your name will appear at the top of each of your posts.  If you choose to have a profile page (by checking the box in the ‘edit your profile’ page), people can click on your name and this will link to your profile page. This page will automatically include a list of all of your posts on FocalPlane, but if you add additional information on your profile people will be able to see it here. This information could be useful for making new contacts and forming collaborations within the community. If you have any questions or concerns about how your data are handled, please contact us. Please refer to our Privacy Policy for further information.

You can update your profile by following this link.

To delete your FocalPlane account, please email the FocalPlane Community Manager and request that your account be deleted. Deleting an account on FocalPlane is permanent and irreversible, so think carefully before deleting!

Go to our registration page and fill in the form. You should receive an automatic email asking you to follow a link to verify your email address.  When you follow the link you will be able to set a password for your account.  Once you have set a password you will be taken to the ‘edit your profile’ page; from here you can check the box to indicate that you would like to write content for FocalPlane.  You still need to wait for your account to be approved before you can post content.

No! FocalPlane is your community site, so you can post anything that you think is of relevance to the microscopy community. You are of course welcome to contact FocalPlane if you would like to discuss an idea, but you really don’t have to.

The one exception to the above is posts for commercial, marketing or publicity purposes, which are not permitted. Please contact sponsorship@biologists.com to discuss advertising and sponsorship opportunities.

You are always welcome to contact FocalPlane to talk through ideas.

No! You can write as much or as little as you want.

To log in to FocalPlane, select ‘Log in/register’ from the menu bar on the homepage. This will take you to the dashboard, where you can choose ‘Posts’ and then ‘Add new’ from the menu on the left-hand side. If you are logged in and navigating the site you can place your mouse on the very top banner of FocalPlane. This should bring down a new bar. Click on ‘new’ and then ‘Post’.

To save a post without publishing it, click ‘save draft’ on the right side of the page. You can always find your unpublished post later and finish it when you’re ready.

To add images to your post, use an ‘image’ block fron the editor. You can upload your image, but note it must be smaller than 8 Mb. TIFF and PDF files are not supported. Give your image a title so that it is easy to find in the gallery, and a caption. Once you have inserted the image in your post, the easiest way to change its size is by clicking on the image and then using the arrows that appear in the corner of the image. To change the position on the page, click on the image and choose one of the four options provided. You can also click on the pencil symbol to open a new window where you can change a variety of settings. You can add a caption under the image in the text using the ‘Add caption’ button, which is in the tool bar when your image is selected. Please note that you must have the copyright owner’s permission to use the image. Company logos and branding are not permitted as images.

To remove an image from your post, click on the image and then click on the image block and select ‘remove block’. This will delete your image from your post, but not from the image gallery. To delete your image completely you must open the gallery, select your image and click ‘Delete permanently’.

Select the text that you want to make into a link and then click the ‘chain’ symbol in the options at the top area of the writing box. This will open a small window where you can add the link. After adding the url, press enter or click the arrow button. You can also connect to a different page within FocalPlane.

To add a YouTube or Vimeo video to your post you can simply paste the URL for the video in the writing box and it should load automatically. We do not recommend uploading video files to the media gallery, as videos added in this manner often encounter problems. If you would like to add a video to your post but don’t have a YouTube/Vimeo account get in touch with the FocalPlane Community Manager, who will be able to help.

You can use LaTeX to insert mathematical formulas. For instructions on how to do this please see this link.

Categories provide an easy way for readers to find the type of post that they are interested in. You can find all the posts on a specific category by clicking ‘Topics’ on the top menu bar. When you are writing your post you can select the appropriate category from the menu on the right-hand side. It is particularly important to add any job adverts to the ‘jobs’ category. You can add your post to more than one category.

Tags are keywords that make your post easier to find. You can add tags to your post by using the box on the right-hand side. If a tag already exists, it should load once you have typed it. If your tag does not exist then you can create one by simply typing the new word in. Please use an existing tag whenever possible.

When writing your post you will see a ‘Preview’ button on the right-hand side. Clicking this button will open a new tab or browser window where you can see what your post will look like (but it will not be published on the site at this stage). You can do this at any time while you are writing (although you must save the draft first).

Yes! This allows you to write your post now and publish it at a later date. Just click on the schedule option on the right-hand side and set the date and time when you would like your post to go live.

If your content has incorrect formatting, consider pasting first into a text editor, such as Notepad, then copying the content from Notepad into FocalPlane. This will remove Word-based styles and formats, but might mean you have to do a little more styling in FocalPlane’s editor. If you are still having problems, contact the FocalPlane Community Manager.

It is possible to edit a post after you have published it, but you should try to keep this to a minimum, as it interferes with the way RSS feeds and other software scan FocalPlane. You are always welcome to add a comment to your post with extra details, or even write a follow-up post if that is appropriate.

We often feature reports on FocalPlane from different conferences and workshops, and anyone is welcome to write from a meeting. There are, however, a few points to take in consideration. The most important one is that no unpublished data should be mentioned unless you have express permission from the speaker(s).

FocalPlane is a community site, so articles do not have to be perfect literary pieces – many FocalPlane writers are not native speakers of English. However, if you would like some help with writing you can contact the FocalPlane Community Manager who will be very happy to help!

Yes, but we would like you to acknowledge where the post was first published. So if your FocalPlane post was originally posted on your own blog, please state this at the end of your FocalPlane post (and include a link to your own blog). If your FocalPlane post was published first, then include a link to the FocalPlane post in your own blog.

No.  Job adverts are free. Just make sure that it is of relevance to the microscopy community. For any other adverts for commercial, marketing or publicity purposes, please contact sponsorship@biologists.com

If you are posting a cell biology job, please follow the instructions below. To post a microscopy job, go to the submission page at our partner MicroscopyDB. All jobs uploaded to MicroscopyDB will appear on FocalPlane’s Microscopy jobs board, as well as the other partners in the MicroscopyDB community.

If your job is relevant to both the microscopy and cell biology community, you are welcome to post it on both sites.

Posting a cell biology job:

• In your dashboard, on the left hand menu hover over ‘Cell Biology Jobs’ and then click ‘Add new’ (alternatively use the + New button on the top menu bar)
• Add a title and the relevant text in the freeform box
• Complete the Job info boxes – job type, expiry date and location are mandatory, all other categories are optional
• Once you click Publish your job will appear at the top of our jobs board

Job posts do not appear on the main page of FocalPlane. If your post has been published successfully, you should be able to see it by clicking on ‘Jobs’ on the menu bar.

Spam robots scan the internet for email addresses. If you would like to add an email address to your job post but prevent it from being targeted by spammers, you can take precautions. For example, typing [at] instead of the symbol @ may make the address harder to find by spam robots, while still being legible by your potential candidates/applicants.

FocalPlane has an events calendar where conferences, workshops and courses of relevance to the microscopy community are listed. You can add an event on the calendar by selecting ‘Events’ and then ‘Post an event’ from the menu bar.

Fill in the following fields:

• Title of the event
• Start and end dates
• Event location
• Link to the meeting’s webpage
• Select the type of event from the box on the right hand side

In the main text box you can add registration deadlines or other necessary information, but please keep this short (no more than 2 sentences). Click ‘Publish’ and your event should show up on the events calendar page on FocalPlane.

If you would like to advertise your event in a more prominent manner or provide more detailed information you can also write a post about the meeting that will be visible on the main page. To do this just compose a post as normal and select the category ‘Events’.

At the end of each post you will see a box giving you the option to comment. If you have an account with FocalPlane and are logged in, you can comment directly. Otherwise you can add your name and email address (not displayed) and comment. Comments are not moderated, and are immediately posted on FocalPlane.

You don’t need to have an account on FocalPlane to comment; you can simply add your name and email address and your comment will appear on the website (your email address remains confidential). But if you are registered and logged in you don’t need to add this information every time you wish to comment.

Sometimes FocalPlane has discussions on sensitive issues. Although we would encourage everyone to comment using their own name, you can also comment anonymously. Simply write an alternative name when commenting.

FocalPlane has software in place to stop spam comments, but sometimes a genuine comment is marked as spam by mistake (for example, if you have included multiple links in your comment). Please contact FocalPlane to have your comment approved.

Unfortunately not.

If you add a website address, after your comment is posted anyone clicking on your name will be directed to your website. This is a good way to provide an easy link to your own ‘blog or to your lab’s website.

The images that show up next to some users’ comments are hosted by an external service called Gravatar. Gravatar lets you upload an image that is associated with your email address, and any website that uses Gravatar (such as FocalPlane) will then display your image alongside your comments. To link the image to your FocalPlane account, make sure to use the same email address on Gravatar and  FocalPlane.

Company logos are not permitted as pictures.

If you would like to express your approval or disapproval for a post or comment, you can give it a ‘thumbs up’ or ‘thumbs down’ using the symbols at the end of each post/comment. This is a great way to show that you like a post, and is very motivating for authors – so please rate posts and comments!

FocalPlane has new posts almost daily – it can be hard to keep up with new content! There are two ways to keep up with new posts:

• Sign up for weekly emails
• Use our RSS feeds

You can subscribe to receive email alerts by checking the box in the ‘edit your profile’ screen.

Yes. There are links to all our social media accounts in the footer of every page of the website.

Just follow the link at the bottom of our latest email.

Please let us know if you discover any spam by contacting us. The FocalPlane team will remove spam as soon as they find it. The full procedure for the removal of spam is outlined in our Acceptable Use Policy.

As for spam, the best way to report inappropriate or offensive content is by contacting us. We will review the reported content and make a decision about its content and any potential offense. Inappropriate content includes profanity, libelous content, threats or copyrighted content. Please read the Terms and Conditions for a complete list. The full procedure for the removal of inappropriate content is outlined in our Acceptable Use Policy.

Yes. We have a range of advertising and sponsorship options available. Get in touch with us at sponsorship@biologists.com to discuss your requirements.

You can find different versions of the FocalPlane logo here. Please use them if you would like to link to FocalPlane from your own blog or website.