Let’s Write!
So now your blog is all set up. You’ve got a pretty new header, and a clever new tagline, but no content. It’s time to fix that. To write a new post, click the Write tab and you’ll automatically be directed to a blank page. Go ahead and fill out the title and write your post content. You’d think it would be as easy as that, and you can certainly call it a day and hit the Publish button, but there are a few things you can do to make your post easier to read and more useful.
Buttons, Buttons, Buttons
Right above the big textbox where you write your post, you’ll notice a big row of buttons. Each of those plays a different part in modifying the format of your post. In most cases, you’ll be able to highlight a piece of text and then click the button to apply that style.
- b - click this to make your text bold.
- i - click this to italicize your text.
- link - click this to turn the selected text into a link. A box will pop up where you can paste in the URL (address) you want to link to.
- b-quote - this is the blockquote tag; it gets wrapped around your whole paragraph.
- del - this is used for striking out
you’reyour text. You might also notice that it adds an attribute to tell viewers when the text was crossed out and modified. - ins - this pairs with the
<del>tag; it’s used to note the new, updated content (in this case, “your”). - img - this doesn’t wrap around any tags; click the button to add an image at the location of your cursor.
- ul, ol, & li - these tags correspond to unordered and ordered lists. This list is unordered, while an ordered list would have numbers instead of bullets. To properly format this, you’ll need to wrap the entire list with either
<ul>or<ol>, and each list item needs to be wrapped with<li>. - code - the code tag is used to define bits of HTML that you might use in your post. The result is that the content appears similar to how it would in an HTML editor:
like this. - more - this is used to insert
<!--more-->into your post; this tells the post where to truncate if you’d like to only show a fragment of the post on the homepage. - lookup - the “lookup” button simply searches answers.com for the highlighted text.
- close tags - this button looks for any unclosed tags in your post and closes them.
- SWF - click SWF to add a Flash movie to your post.
- Media - this button is used to insert YouTube videos and more into your post; simply click and follow the instructions in the popup box.
Of those listed above, you’ll probably be using link and media the most. Videos are a great way to supplement your point, and links are basically the entire foundation of the internet. If you’re talking about a subject, it’s always helpful to link to other resources that support (or contradict) your point.
Categorization
Once you’re finished with the content of your post, another helpful thing to do is assign categories for it. I’m going to assign this post to blogging and WordPress, but I’m the type of person who likes to use categories sparingly. There’s no limit to how many categories a post can have, so if you want to be more specific, go ahead.
By default, your blog shows a list of categories in the sidebar; this is a helpful way for readers to get a quick idea of what you like to write about. And remember; once you type in a category and assign it to your post, it will always show up on the list in the future so you never have to type it in again.
Talk to Me
Underneath the post area, you’ll see a section for Trackbacks. If you’re mentioning another blog post in your post, you can paste that URL here, and that site will be notified.
Below the category list you’ll see two discussion options. If you’re not interested in hearing feedback, you can turn off Allow Comments. By default, Allow Pings is also turned on; this means that you’ll see trackbacks about your post from other bloggers.
Password & Status
These three options are all pretty basic. The Password field protects your post from being viewed by those you haven’t given the password to. The Status is exactly what it sounds like: Published means that your post is live and available for viewing; Draft means that you’re still working on the post and it is not public (posts in draft also show up at the top of the Write and Manage tabs so you can quickly access them again later); Private means that your post is only visible to you (to see it you must be logged in). Be careful about the private setting, though; clicking Publish instead of Save will overwrite it.
The Slug
The Post Slug refers to the address of the post in the address bar. By default, it will be the title of your post, but with punctuation removed, and hyphens in place of spaces. The post slug for this post is lets-write. You can change your post slug to anything, but if that slug has been used before, it will automatically be appended with a number. Most importantly, though; this allows you to easily change your post address if you decide to change your title after publishing. If I changed the title of this post to “Write Now!”, the post slug would remain unchanged unless I also edited that. It’s not generally good practice to change a post slug unless you absolutely have to; a person who may have linked to your post with the original slug will now have a broken link.
Time to Go
The last thing I want to cover today is the Post Timestamp. This option lets you change the date and time of your post; just make sure Edit Timestamp is checked when you save the post. For example, you might be inspired one day and write two posts, one after another. If you don’t want to post them both right away, you can adjust the timestamp on the later one to a different day, and when that time is reached, the post is published automagically. I’ve used it on my site at times when I’ve gone on vacation or know that I won’t have computer access.
That wraps it up for now. This was a very long-winded post, but there are an amazing amount of options for such a simple page. It should be assumed by now, but comment here if you are having any troubles.
joyinthejourney said:
Good morning, Andy~~
Thank you for all you do here at Citizen Wausau, keeping us in line and all.
I have a question about categories. When I try to add a category, I receive the error message, “You do not have permission to do that.” It makes me sad!
Can you please help me???
Joy
December 7th, 2007 at 9:15 am #
Andy Laub said:
Joy, that’s an interesting issue you’re having. What browser (Internet Explorer, FireFox, etc) are you using? I tried creating a test blog and recreating the issue but didn’t have any problems.
One other thing I would try is to add a category under the Manage » Categories area. Let me know whether that works for you.
Is anybody else having this problem?
December 7th, 2007 at 9:32 am #