The Teen Forums - Chat and more Tag: blog help

The Teen Forums - Chat and more Tag: blog help http://mycyc.com/forum/ The Teen Forums - Chat and more Tag: blog help en Thu, 20 Nov 2008 18:35:12 +0000 alixoxo on "Blogging Tips: Writing With Wordpress" http://mycyc.com/forum/topic/blogging-tips-writing-with-wordpress#post-640 Thu, 26 Jun 2008 17:16:24 +0000 alixoxo 640@http://mycyc.com/forum/ Hey anyone have single parents or parents who are divorced? admin on "Blogging Tips: Writing With Wordpress" http://mycyc.com/forum/topic/blogging-tips-writing-with-wordpress#post-607 Thu, 19 Jun 2008 17:02:23 +0000 admin 607@http://mycyc.com/forum/ Getting started with wordpress is probably one of the easiest things you will ever do, it really is a basic bit of software that only takes minutes to learn. Logging Into Wordpress When you first log yourself into wordpress you will be redirected to the admin panel (a.k.a. the dashboard. It should look similar to the picture below, however depending on your privileges some will see more than others. The screen shot below is what staff members see. <a title="main-dashboard.gif" href="http://mycyc.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/main-dashboard.gif"><img src="http://mycyc.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/main-dashboard.thumbnail.gif"></a> Writing Your First Post To start writing your first blog post, click on the write tab link up the top of the page, you should now be on a page with empty boxes. (see screen shot below) <a title="main-write.gif" href="http://mycyc.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/main-write.gif"><img src="http://mycyc.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/main-write.thumbnail.gif"></a> To begin writing your post, you will need to fill out the title box, in here put whatever you wish you post to be titled. If its your weekly top 10 songs, you may title it something like "This weeks top 10" etc. Directly below the title box, there is another box, this one is a lot bigger than the first and if you haven't already guessed it, this is where the main content of your blog post goes. For e.g. if you were posting the latest top 10 songs, this is where you would list what each song was. note: the 2 boxes attached to the big box (labeled visual and code) do not seem to work with Internet explorer, you can fix this in one of 2 ways, download firefox and use that instead, or edit your profile and change the bit that says use visual editor when writing. The Sidebar Tabs Once you have finished writing your post, you will then have to decide where you want to post it to, on the right (beside the boxes) you will see some sections labeled categories, discussion, post password, post slug, post status, post time stamp, author and moods. A screen shot is provided below just for purpose of a visual aid, also not each box has a +/- next to them, clicking on these will destroy the blog!!!! Only joking clicking the + or - will expand/collapse the individual tabs. <a title="sidebar-categories.gif" href="http://mycyc.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/sidebar-categories.gif"><img src="http://mycyc.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/sidebar-categories.thumbnail.gif"></a> Here is a description of what each section does: <ul> <li>Categories - from here you choose what section of the blog will you post be posted to. (e.g. top 10 songs would go into music etc)</li> <li>Discussion - will you allow others to comment on your posts? (i recommend leaving allow pings unchecked)</li> <li>Post password - protects your post with a password.</li> <li>Post slug - i do not recommend playing with this.</li> <li>Post status - for most people it will either be a draft or published. (private if you use a password)</li> <li>Post time stamp - the date in which the blog post was made.</li> <li>Post author - who wrote the post (should be left to your name)</li> <li>Moods - something extra that we added, click on the mood that you are currently feeling (can be left blank also).</li> </ul> Publishing Your Blog Post You are now ready to publish your blog post for all the world to see, but first add in some tags or keywords that will help others find your post and then hit the publish button below<a title="save-post.gif" href="http://mycyc.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/save-post.gif"><img src="http://mycyc.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/save-post.thumbnail.gif"></a> If your post is only have finished, you may wish to just save it for later, in this case click save and then when you log back in you will be able to finish off your post. For now, you do not need to worry about anything that is below the publish button, you can look at it, but unless you know what it does i wouldn't recommend touching. More Advanced Stuff As you can see, wordpress is pretty basic to get started with, however it does have its more advanced side, a side that would take forever to explain. I plan on writing more post like this to help you fellow bloggers out, however if i haven't posted before u need more help, i recommend reading the <a href="http://codex.wordpress.org/Main_Page">wordpress codex</a>*. admin on "More Wordpress Basics" http://mycyc.com/forum/topic/more-wordpress-basics#post-580 Tue, 10 Jun 2008 18:31:13 +0000 admin 580@http://mycyc.com/forum/ So far we have already gone through some of the wordpress basics (<a href="http://mycyc.com/blogging-tips-writing-with-wordpress/">how to write</a>, <a href="http://mycyc.com/blogging-tips-upgrading-wordpress/">upgrading wordpress</a>, <a href="http://mycyc.com/blogging-tips-customize-your-wordpress-sidebar/">how to customise your sidebar</a>, <a href="http://mycyc.com/blogging-tips-using-tags/">using tags</a> & <a href="http://mycyc.com/blogging-tips-using-the-optional-excerpt-in-wordpress/">using optional excerpts</a>) in this tutorial we shall cover the rest of the basic. Wordpress Categories Categories help divide your blog into sections for e.g. a film review could be posted to a category called films and an article about contraception could go in a section called sexual health. Without categories your blog would tend to be hard to navigate around (image a supermarket with no signs). You can also make it so that a post is posted to multiple categories by selecting more that one in the <a href="http://mycyc.com/blogging-tips-writing-with-wordpress/">write options</a> when creating the post. You can create/edit/delete categories by going to the manage sub tab and then clicking categories in your wordpress admin. You can also change which categories the posts is posted to afterwards by going to manage > posts and clicking on edit. Wordpress Comments Comments are a great feature of wordpress, they give the visitors the chance to voice their views about your post, maybe even add a bit more information about it. If a visitor leaves you a comment, you can then also reply to that comment. (i use <a href="http://mycyc.com/my-most-useful-wordpress-plugins/">brians threaded comments</a> for extra comment control) <a href="http://mycyc.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/comments.jpg" title="comments.jpg"><img src="http://mycyc.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/comments.thumbnail.jpg" alt="comments.jpg" /></a> Comments are displayed directly under each posts, and can be manage by various options (admin > options > discussion) and can be moderated by visiting admin > manage > comments. Wordpress Themes The theme of your site is important, to change the sites current theme go to admin > presentation. You should now see a list of themes that are currently available to you, to select a theme click on it and the re-load your blogs homepage. You can get more themes from places like the <a href="http://themes.wordpress.net/">wordpress theme viewer</a>*. Plugins, Hacks & Non-Default Features The last great thing about wordpress is that where it has such a great following, if you after that something extra, say for e.g. a picture gallery, chances are someone, somewhere has created a plugin that does just that. The best place to look for plugins is the official <a href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/">wordpress plugin site</a>*. Plugins are easy to install, however you should always read the read me file before uploading any plugins. Plugins can be managed by going to the plugins sub-tab within your admin area.