Managing your weblog settings
From PixyWiki
As a pixyBlog user, you are free to customize the look-and-feel of your weblog as you wish. When you establish your user account, you can choose one of the dozen or so stock themes for your website. Later, you can use the theme switcher to switch to a different theme. Or, if you know something about HTML and CSS you can customize the look-and-feel and layout of your weblog yourself by modifying the page templates that make up your site and by adding new pages. Best of all, you can do all of this through our web-based user interface.
To manage your weblog, use the Preferences menu. You can get there from the Main Menu page, by clicking the Settings link for your blog. Or, if you're already editing your weblog, you can just click on the Preferences menu in the tabs.
In the rest of this section we'll cover each of the items on the Preferences menu.
Contents |
Weblog themes
A weblog theme is a set of templates, style-sheets and image that determine how your weblog will be displayed. A theme can define both the layout and color-scheme of your weblog. When you start a new weblog, you choose from one of the built-in themes. You can change your weblog's theme at any time by going to the Preferences:Theme page.
You can also choose to customize your theme. If you click the Customize button the templates that define your current theme will be copied into your blog where you can edit theme. See the Template Guide for complete documentation on customizing your weblog's theme.
WARNING: if you have customized your theme, then watch out. Switching themes using the Preferences:Theme page will destroy the custom changes you've made.
Uploading Files
If you'd like to upload images or other files for use in your weblog, go to your weblog's Create & Edit -> File Uploads page. From there you can upload files and manage the files that you have already uploaded.
Using this interface you can:
- Upload up to five files at a time. To upload a file click a Browse button, select the file you wish to upload on the file-system and click the Upload button to upload it to your weblog.
- Create sub-directories (one level deep) to organize your uploaded files. Just enter the desired name of the new directory in the New Directory field and click the Create button.
- Delete uploaded files and directories. To delete a file or directory, just check the Delete check-box them click the Delete Selected button at the bottom of the page.
How do I upload and include an image in a weblog entry?
If you want to upload an image to your weblog and then include that image in a post, here's what you do:
Step 1: Upload the image. From the Create & Edit -> File Upload page of your weblog, click one of the Browse buttons. You'll get a File-Open dialog-box. Use that to find and select the image that you'd like to upload. Click the upload button to upload it.
Step 2: Copy the URL of the uploaded image. Use your mouse to select the URL of the uploaded image. Use your browser's Edit-Copy menu CONTROL-C to copy the URL to the clipboard.
Step 3: Create or edit a weblog entry. Create a new weblog entry or open an existing weblog entry in which you'd like to include the image.
Step 4: Include the image in the weblog entry. Enter the text of your weblog entry and then position the cursor where you'd like to include the image. There are two ways to include the image:
- If you're using the Rich Text Editor, then click the image button and paste in the image URL that you saved in step 3. The editor will create the HTML needed to display your image.
- If you're using the Text Editor, then you'll have enter the HTML yourself. For example, to display the image indicated by the green success message above we'd use the following HTML:
<img src="http://demo.pixyblog.com/resource/weblogeditor.png" alt="Image of the weblog editor" />
Setting up a group blog
To create a group blog, create a new weblog or log into an existing weblog that you'd like members to contribute to (creating a weblog for group blogging is the same a creating a personal weblog). Navigate to the Members menu item in the Preferences tab. The Preferences:Members page enables weblog admins to invite members to a group blog and manage the group blog user access.
You can use the Invite new member link to invite any pixyBlog user to join your weblog, but before you do you should understand the three different permission levels allowed for members of a weblog. They are:
- Admin: an admin can create/edit weblog entries and publish them to the web. They can also manage the weblog by changing the theme, editing the page templates that define the look of the blog, and managing the users of the blog. pixyBlog will grant you admin rights in any weblog you create. Admin users can see both the Create & Edit tab and the Preferences tab.
- Author: author permission allows users to create entries, edit entries and upload files. But authors cannot change weblog settings, modify the theme or manage users. Authors can see the weblog Create & Edit tab, but not the weblog Preferences tab.
- Limited: limited bloggers can create and edit blog entries and save them as drafts, but cannot publish them to the web.
Select Invite new member from the right navigation to invite Admins, Authors, and Limited authors to join the group blog. You'll need to know the users individual blog username to find them in the list of users. You may scroll through the list, but it's best to begin typing their username to locate them. Set the users Permissions by selecting Admin, Author, or Limited. Click on Send Invitation.
The next time the user logs into the blog site, they will see the following on the Main Menu page:
You are invited to join weblog [weblog name will appear here] â accept | decline
Once a user is a member of your blog, you can change their permissions. Just click the appropriate radio button in the table and click the Save button. You can also remove users from the site, but note that you cannot reduce your own permissions or remove youself from the weblog.
Accept or Decline a Group Blog Invitation
If you are invited to become a member of a group blog, an invitation will be present at the top of the Main Menu page. Example:
You have one or more invitations to accept or decline: You are invited to join weblog [sputnik] â accept | decline You are invited to join weblog [dotSunNews] - accept | decline
Click 'accept' to become a member of the group blog or 'decline' to turn down the invitation.
Contribute to a group blog
Once you're a member of a group blog, contributing is as easy as creating blog entry content. To access the group blog, login, from the Main Menu navigate to the group blog you'd like to contribute to and select any of the following: New Entry, Edit Entries, Settings (weblog admins only).
For users who participate in multiple weblogs it is important to note that the Main Menu page is how you switch between the various weblogs you can author to. The Main Menu will always show you what weblogs you are participating in and what privileges you have on each weblog.
Resign from a Group Blog
To resign from a group blog, login, on the Main Menu page, navigate to the blog information for which you wish to resign. Select 'Resign'.