How To Blog
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Contents |
[edit] Introduction
The ability to blog should be enabled for all IHP Staff members. All registered members to the site can comment, however only the staff can author articles.
In order to be able to write a new article, you need to login. Once you're logged in you will see a menu on the top right of the site, that contains all the features you have access to.
[edit] The Blog Dashboard
One of those items is the Blog Dashboard. From here you can access your personal blog dashboard. Each staff member on the site is considered an author so everyone should see this when they login.
The blog dashboard gives you access to:
- My Entries
- Preferences
- Stats
- Comments
My Entries are the articles you've written. The headlines of these articles get displayed in your profile as well.
Preferences are settings specific to your account.
Stats - self explanatory
Comments - this lists the comments you've left to other articles on the blog.
Please see the picture below for a more detailed view.
[edit] Writing
In order to write a new article, click on the link labeled "My Blog". Once the page has loaded, you will see various options, as described above.
Simply click on the "new entry" button as shown below and you will be taken to the Blog authoring area.
When writing a new blog, please keep in mind that a blog needs to have a title - otherwise it can't be published. As you can see in the picture below, right at the top there is a line called "Blog Title (click to edit). Make sure to enter something there, as it's used as the subject/headline for your blog.
[edit] Inserting Images
In order to insert an image into a post you have following options:
[edit] Insert a link to an 'off-site' image
Click on the icon in the top row that looks like a tree as shown below:
Once you've clicked on that icon, a window will pop up which will allow you to enter all the parameters necessary to place the image, set the dimensions, alignment and whatever other stylistic options you want to set.
The image below shows the image editor. In the first line you will see a url to an existing image. As a good indicator of whether you've inserted the correct image, it will display in the preview window in the bottom of that window. If the image doesn't show up, it's very simple: you don't have the right image url. Once the url is correct and you can see the image, simply click on the "insert" button below and the image will be visible in your post.
As good measure, always give the image a title and description. If you don't like the size of the image your post, simply click on the image and click and drag the picture from the bottom right corner, sizing it to your liking. The same counts for images that are uploaded.
[edit] Upload an image and resize it in the post
In order to use one of your own images say right off your computer, click on browse button as shown below, and navigate to the picture you're going to use. Once the picture has been selected and shows up where the arrow points to in the screenshot below, hit the "upload button". If all works as planned you should see the image in your post, with the same resizing options as described above. Additionally once the image is inserted you can also click on the image and click the picture icon, also as described above.
[edit] Embedding Videos
Embedding videos into your post is very simple. Click on the "Embed Videos" item in the right menu and you will be presented with options as shown below:
The remaining steps are easy. Go get the URL of the video you're trying to insert. The player should be able to take anything you throw at it, no matter whether it's a myspace, google, youtube or any other type of video provider.
Once you've inserted the URL, click on the icon that looks like a magnifying glass, as shown in the picture above. The last step is to set the dimensions of the video - in most cases the standard size of 360x240 suffices, however you can use any other size up to about 640x480 I'd say - beyond that it will be too big to display in the post.
[edit] Publishing
Not everyone can publish articles, but everyone can save their blog posts, then they get published by moderators.
[edit] Other Important Notes
Please remember that the blog is tied to an RSS feed which people subscribe to. What that means is that every time we post a new blog article, this gets announced to the people subscribed to the feed.
