Posting a Blog Entry 101

Edit: I cut the post, yahoo!

As I have promised, here is the blog entry about how to post a blog entry. To make it less boring, which it might become for some of you at one point or another, I'm going to include a number of illustrations and pop culture references for your entertainment.

If there is something that you don't get, sorry.

While writing this entry I'm trying to remember all the problems that cropped up, when I myself was a n00b at blogging. I hope that will mostly cover more or less every issue that you might have to solve while posting the best blog entries in the history of this class. If there is something I should've discussed but haven't, let me know.

The very basics

The first thing you need to know is that Blogspot and most other blog engines have two modes when you write a blog entry: WYSIWYG and HTML. The default is Texmaster Szigetvári's archenemy, the What You See Is What You Get mode, which works basically like every other word processor. So you type, then highlight a bit of text and click on a button which will magically make something look a lot bit different. Test these buttons, they are lovely. You can also change alignment, add lists, change the background colour of the text, etc.

It's going to get more interesting, I swear!

About hyperlinks. Piece of cake, highlight a bit of text, click on the 'Link' button and add an URL. Same with a picture, it might be a bit difficult to highlight it (I've just tried and I hope it's only me who's clumsy with this), but yeah, you can do that too.

Blockquotes. This formatting style is denoted with two big quotation marks in that row up there. Click on it and the active paragraph (so where your cursor is) will be put in what looks like a text box in the middle of the entry.

"Today I got up at half past seven in the morning. As the first rays of the morning sun were reflected on my retina, I sadly realized that I will not have to catch the 8:15 train, and travel to see you guys to have fun, but I will have to go to work. I lifted up my untrained, rapidy aging body and made my way to the toilet." (Márton Kovács: Personal Blog Hygene or How Not to Write an Entry)

Longer quotes look nice this way, at least some people might think.

Adding some visuals

Let's start with pictures. First of all, direct linking is not okay. It will never ever be cool. Seriously. Save the picture on your computer and upload it to the blog by clicking on the obviously named 'Feltöltés' tab in the 'Kép beszúrása' popup, or add an URL, but first upload the picture to a site created for this reason. Like this or this.

Unrelated picture is unrelated but awesome. (ThisIsNotPorn.net)

Wherever your cursor is, the picture will be aligned to the centre, as well as automatically resized to a size fitting the page, so nothing to do there. You can add a caption by clicking on the picture after inserting it, there will be a 'Felirat hozzáadása' option.

Adding videos is also equally simple. Well, at least if you want to upload one yourself or post something from YouTube. Click on the 'Videoklip beszúrása' button and follow the instructions. If you want to embed something from Vimeo or such, you will most probably need to switch to HTML mode.

Credit where credit is due

So in class we have agreed on including all sources we use in our blog entries. You can call it netiquette or just not being a little piece of shit, it is common courtesy denoting where you found what you are posting. Especially things from 9gag and such, of course, there are a lot of macros and demotivation posters whose creators would be impossible to find, but there are also a lot of comic strips posted up there with the 9gag watermark. Just do a little research, mmmkay?

It is highly recommended.

What this means in practice is putting either a link at the end of the entry or putting a hyperlink on the part that you got from somewhere else. Like if I ever one day sit on a rollercoaster, I'll definitely take a chess board with glued down chess pieces with me, like in this xkcd comic. Also, maybe not everyone on the Internet would agree with me, but I think it is a very nice thing to make the link open in a new window. There is a handy little box in the 'Link' window, saying 'Link megnyitása új ablakban', just click that. Please.

When all hell breaks loose

Sometimes even if you've done everything right, your entry might not look the way you wanted it. There might be strange colours, underlined sentences, picture in places it shouldn't be - in this case, do not worry, do not hit your computer and do not ask all the gods to smite down Blogspot.

Calm yourself, boy.

Instead, find the button in the formatting row that says 'Formázás eltávolítása.' It's the second from the right, and it features an italicised 'T' and a little red cross. Highlight the part of the entry that looks weird (or all of it) and click that button. This is especially useful when you copy-paste some text from another site, because the formatting is copied as well.

One more thing!

... is what I forgot to do obviously. And that is the cut or that Read More thing. If you're planning to write a really really long entry, you might want to click on that torn paper icon after your introductory paragraph. That will put everything after that behind a cut, so you won't make the main page a mess. Like I did today, hah.

Yeah, sorry for that.

About the HTML mode

I wanted to include a bit about HTML codes, but I'm watching The Phantom Menace in 3D tonight and I really have to get going if I want to catch my train. So we'll leave that for next time if you guys are interested.

<3

All macros are from the deep realms of the Interwebs.