mathare
2nd April 2008, 14:48
Introduction
With the new blog add-in available now I thought I should write a quick 'getting started' guide so you can at least find your way into the blogs and work out what's what once you're in there.
For those of you who don't know what a blog is, it's an abbreviation of weblog which, as the name suggests, is a log, or sort of diary, on the world wide web. And if you didn't know what a blog was - where have you been
the past few years?
For the rest of you, the blog plug-in to the forum means we can all have a blog as part of the forum without the need to set anything up ourselves and without the need for dreaming up a new screen-name etc.
What can you use your blog for? Anything, within reason. The forum rules on advertising, links, spam etc all apply equally to blog posts and comments and the blogs can be moderated by forum moderators. But you can use yours to record your progress with various gambling systems, talk about your experiences at the poker table, tell us all what's happening in your day-to-day life etc. It's up to you.
Navigation
The blog system can be launched by clicking on the Blogs (http://www.win2win.co.uk/forum/blog.php) link on the blue navigation bar between the Win2Win banner and the main forum area (where posts/threads are displayed) or by clicking on the Win2Win Blogs (http://www.win2win.co.uk/forum/blog.php) icon towards the top right of the forum. Or you can click on either of those URL hyperlinks I just posted. :) Clicking any of these links will bring up the blog system in a new browser window/tab (at least it does on mine).
The top section of the blog system will look identical to the forum but the section that usually displays forum posts/threads will have changed. At the top will be a randomly selected entry from one of the Win2Win members' blogs. Below that will be two lists. On the left will be a list of the most recent blog entries, displaying the title of the entry and who posted it, along with that member's avatar. On the right-hand side is a list of recent comments. This list shows the start of the comment in italics above the title of the blog entry that the user has commented on, along with the avatar of the member who made the comment. Both of these lists are hyperlinked so clicking on a comment, entry title or member's name will take you to the relevant comment/post/profile.
To the left of this area are a few other controls:
Blogs' Statistics - the total number of blogs, total number of entries across all blogs and number of entries made today.
Options - links to a number of features I will examine in more detail shortly
Find Blog Entries - search function allowing you to quickly find blog entries meeting given criteria
Archive - a calendar control with links on the relevant dates to posts from that point in time, useful if you are interested only in information from a given point in time.
If you want to see a list of all the blogs in the system click the hyperlink on the Total Blogs figure in the Blogs' Statistics panel. That will bring up a list of all blogs showing their title and user, the number of entries in each blog along with the number of comments and when the last post was made along with the title of that post. This is much the same as listing all the threads in the forum.
Reading a blog
Suppose you've brought up the blog list (http://www.win2win.co.uk/forum/blog.php?do=bloglist) by clicking on the Total Blogs hyperlink as stated above and have seen a blog that interests you - now what? As with the forum itself it's all hyperlinks so you can just click on a blog to read it. If you click on my blog (http://www.win2win.co.uk/forum/blog.php?u=694) you'll see a number of entries in reverse chronological order (newest at the top). Each entry will be shown in a small reading pane showing the first few lines of what I have written. Click the "Continue reading..." in the bottom right of this reading pane to bring up the whole entry. Doing this will display that whole entry (but none of the other blog entries) above any comments people have made on that particular entry into my blog. The comments can also be accessed by clicking the "Comments" link down and right a bit from the "Continue reading..." link. You can also click on the title of the blog entry to bring the whole thing up for easier reading, in the same way as "Continue reading..." works.
Once you have read an entry you can use the navigation links above the entry to move to the previous or next entry in the blog or click "Main" to return to an overview of all my blog posts. And you can click the Blogs link above the blue navigation bar to return to the main page of the blog system (showing a random blog entry plus recent posts and comments).
Writing a blog
Let's have a look at that Options menu in more detail as that's where the options to write to a blog are.
Your Blog - click this is access your own blog. All forum members have a blog available but until you actually post anything to it there's not a lot to see here
Post To Your Blog - use this to create a new entry in your blog. Works like the forum post editor. You can only write to your own blog but you can comment on other people's - see below.
View Random Entry - duh!
View RSS Feeds - I don't understand RSS so you'll have to ask someone else about this. Or just ignore it. It's probably not important.
Blog Control Panel - set subscription options etc here. With this option selected you get a Blog Control Panel on the left. Use these options to set your blog title, description etc. Also set categories here to make it easier for others to see what sort of stuff you're posting.
And that's all there is to it really. Give your blog a title and description and then hit Post To Your Blog and let the world know what's on your mind. The same formatting tags work in the blogs as in the forums so you can color text, mark it bold, italic etc.
Commenting on a blog
As I said above, you can't write entries in anyone's blog other than your own. But in the same way as when you read a forum thread and get a Quick Reply box at the bottom of the thread, you get a similar box that allows you to comment on a post in a blog. You don't have the same options to automatically reply to a given point in a post as you can on the main forum but you can still use the quote tags to contextualise things if you like.
And that's about all there is to it. Happy blogging everyone :hearty
With the new blog add-in available now I thought I should write a quick 'getting started' guide so you can at least find your way into the blogs and work out what's what once you're in there.
For those of you who don't know what a blog is, it's an abbreviation of weblog which, as the name suggests, is a log, or sort of diary, on the world wide web. And if you didn't know what a blog was - where have you been
the past few years?
For the rest of you, the blog plug-in to the forum means we can all have a blog as part of the forum without the need to set anything up ourselves and without the need for dreaming up a new screen-name etc.
What can you use your blog for? Anything, within reason. The forum rules on advertising, links, spam etc all apply equally to blog posts and comments and the blogs can be moderated by forum moderators. But you can use yours to record your progress with various gambling systems, talk about your experiences at the poker table, tell us all what's happening in your day-to-day life etc. It's up to you.
Navigation
The blog system can be launched by clicking on the Blogs (http://www.win2win.co.uk/forum/blog.php) link on the blue navigation bar between the Win2Win banner and the main forum area (where posts/threads are displayed) or by clicking on the Win2Win Blogs (http://www.win2win.co.uk/forum/blog.php) icon towards the top right of the forum. Or you can click on either of those URL hyperlinks I just posted. :) Clicking any of these links will bring up the blog system in a new browser window/tab (at least it does on mine).
The top section of the blog system will look identical to the forum but the section that usually displays forum posts/threads will have changed. At the top will be a randomly selected entry from one of the Win2Win members' blogs. Below that will be two lists. On the left will be a list of the most recent blog entries, displaying the title of the entry and who posted it, along with that member's avatar. On the right-hand side is a list of recent comments. This list shows the start of the comment in italics above the title of the blog entry that the user has commented on, along with the avatar of the member who made the comment. Both of these lists are hyperlinked so clicking on a comment, entry title or member's name will take you to the relevant comment/post/profile.
To the left of this area are a few other controls:
Blogs' Statistics - the total number of blogs, total number of entries across all blogs and number of entries made today.
Options - links to a number of features I will examine in more detail shortly
Find Blog Entries - search function allowing you to quickly find blog entries meeting given criteria
Archive - a calendar control with links on the relevant dates to posts from that point in time, useful if you are interested only in information from a given point in time.
If you want to see a list of all the blogs in the system click the hyperlink on the Total Blogs figure in the Blogs' Statistics panel. That will bring up a list of all blogs showing their title and user, the number of entries in each blog along with the number of comments and when the last post was made along with the title of that post. This is much the same as listing all the threads in the forum.
Reading a blog
Suppose you've brought up the blog list (http://www.win2win.co.uk/forum/blog.php?do=bloglist) by clicking on the Total Blogs hyperlink as stated above and have seen a blog that interests you - now what? As with the forum itself it's all hyperlinks so you can just click on a blog to read it. If you click on my blog (http://www.win2win.co.uk/forum/blog.php?u=694) you'll see a number of entries in reverse chronological order (newest at the top). Each entry will be shown in a small reading pane showing the first few lines of what I have written. Click the "Continue reading..." in the bottom right of this reading pane to bring up the whole entry. Doing this will display that whole entry (but none of the other blog entries) above any comments people have made on that particular entry into my blog. The comments can also be accessed by clicking the "Comments" link down and right a bit from the "Continue reading..." link. You can also click on the title of the blog entry to bring the whole thing up for easier reading, in the same way as "Continue reading..." works.
Once you have read an entry you can use the navigation links above the entry to move to the previous or next entry in the blog or click "Main" to return to an overview of all my blog posts. And you can click the Blogs link above the blue navigation bar to return to the main page of the blog system (showing a random blog entry plus recent posts and comments).
Writing a blog
Let's have a look at that Options menu in more detail as that's where the options to write to a blog are.
Your Blog - click this is access your own blog. All forum members have a blog available but until you actually post anything to it there's not a lot to see here
Post To Your Blog - use this to create a new entry in your blog. Works like the forum post editor. You can only write to your own blog but you can comment on other people's - see below.
View Random Entry - duh!
View RSS Feeds - I don't understand RSS so you'll have to ask someone else about this. Or just ignore it. It's probably not important.
Blog Control Panel - set subscription options etc here. With this option selected you get a Blog Control Panel on the left. Use these options to set your blog title, description etc. Also set categories here to make it easier for others to see what sort of stuff you're posting.
And that's all there is to it really. Give your blog a title and description and then hit Post To Your Blog and let the world know what's on your mind. The same formatting tags work in the blogs as in the forums so you can color text, mark it bold, italic etc.
Commenting on a blog
As I said above, you can't write entries in anyone's blog other than your own. But in the same way as when you read a forum thread and get a Quick Reply box at the bottom of the thread, you get a similar box that allows you to comment on a post in a blog. You don't have the same options to automatically reply to a given point in a post as you can on the main forum but you can still use the quote tags to contextualise things if you like.
And that's about all there is to it. Happy blogging everyone :hearty