To add a post or comment on another post, you must be registered. Simply click on Register and fill in desired username & your email address. Click Register button. A password will be emailed to you almost immediately. Write it down, then click on the link in the email to be taken to the Login page. Login and you will be taken to your very own Admin page called the Dashboard. Across the top of the page are the following links:
Write: adds a new post. Give it a title, click on one or more categories you want it listed under (Announcement is the default. You must click on it to remove it).
Note: photos and quicktags you add will not show up on the Home Page. They will show up when the actual post is clicked.
Next, if you want to add a photo, the best way (there is another way I will explain near the end) is to click on IMG in the Quicktags, which takes you to the Insert Image screen. As you add images to posts, they will be displayed here and may be deleted as you will. To add an image, find the BROWSE button and click to select a photo on your computer. The photo code will appear in the Upload box. Click the UPLOAD button next to the Browse button and your photo should appear above in the large white box. Now you must click on the photo to select it. It is highly recommended that you resize it, otherwise it may be too large to view properly. Click on the Width box and type in a number less than 400 (unless it is already less than 400!). That seems to be a good size. Hit your TAB key and the HEIGHT box fills in automatically (at least it will as long as the Constrain Proportions box stays checked). Now you can also click the ALIGN button to determine where in your post you want the picture to appear. Click OK to finish adding a photo and return to your post. Coding will now be in the post box. DO NOT DO anything to it! Just begin typing your post.
You may use the QUICKTAGS buttons to add emphasis to your post. Quicktags are HTML coding that makes words or phrases bold, italic, underlined, etc, but you don’t need to know any coding to use them. The coding will appear here, but not in your post. Click on one or more Quicktag buttons before the word or phrase, then just click “Close all Open Tags” after your word or phrase to end the emphasis, or click on the individual tag button. If you forget to Close the tags, the remainder of your post will have the emphasis. The tags are as follows:
b - This is for Bolding.
i - This is for italic and actually looks like it says “em” in the code.
link - This allows you to add a web page link.
b-quote -
This puts a paragraph or block of words into a colored box to set it off from the rest.
del - Crosses out your word.
ins - This is for underlining. Don’t get it confused with the “ul” code, which to me ought to mean this.
ul & ol are supposed to do different things, and I don’t know why they don’t. This version indents a list. If you do a list, each item needs to be on a separate line. Just put a “ul” or “ol” at the beginning of the list, and one at the end of the list. If you put one at the ends of each item, it simply double spaces it.
li - This make a bulleted list. Put one “li” at the beginning of each item on the list, and one at the end of each item.
code - makes words look like HTML code font.
more — Adds a … after a few lines of a long post, so people know it continues if you click on the post. You don’t really need to use this since our blog does this automatically (somewhat).
lookup - If you don’t remember how to spell a work, put this tag before the word. You will be taken to Answers.com, which will give you suggestions as to what word you meant.
Close Tags - use this to end the tags, especially helpful if you’ve used several tags for one section.
For more information on the Quicktags, click on the Quicktags link.
On to saving your post.
Save as Draft — to me its actually as misnomer. When you click on this it actually sends your post to Admin for them to approve your post and publish it to the blog.
Save as Private — this Save allows you to save it, but doesn’t post it anywhere, so you can come back and change it, and even change it to Save as Draft (in the Advanced setting) in order to be published.
Back to the other buttons in your Dashboard:
Manage — Shows links to everyone’s posts, and also includes Edit and Delete links for your posts only. If you have a Post Password post (explained below) you cannot edit or delete it. Admin is the only one who can do that.
Users — Here is your own information. You can add your name and tell a little bit about yourself if you want. This information shows up in Comments, but not in a post. You can also change your password from here.
Upload — Here is where you can upload a photo, but it’s not as user friendly to figure it out for someone not familiar with the process. If you insist on using this, you browse to find your photo, then upload. A code pops up, which you will need to copy and then paste into a new post. Not recommended for novices.
Advanced Editing — located in the Write section.
Post Password — allows posts to be read only by those who you want to read them. Type in a code of your own choice in the Post Password box. You give that password to those you want to share the post with. When they click on the post, a box is available for them to enter the code.
Excerpt — this is not needed since we automatically do an excerpt of your post on the Home Page. If you have lists or short sentences, they do not excerpt very well, so in those instances, it might be helpful to include an excerpt.
