So you want to post an entry on the Flintheath A&S blog

[flintheath_as]

You are making a thing, trying something new, want to give an introduction to your art or your science. You may even have some pictures. You’re (quite rightly) proud about this and want to show off.

Great!

Here’s how you can use the communal Flintheath A&S blog to do it.

First of all, you can use this blog without having to subscribe to Dreamwidth (though nothing should keep you from starting your own blog if you fancy). You can even comment on a post anonymously.

If you want to write a post yourself, you will need to contact me for the login password (which I don’t want to post here for obvious reasons) at s (dot) huelsmann (at) gmail (dot) com.

Logging in

You need to enter the account name and password on the top right of the page and click on "Log in".

Once you’re logged in, you’ll have the option to post, which is either at the top or under the profile.

Posting

This will lead you to the posting page. You have two options, Rich Text or HTML, but unless you enjoy writing HTML, I would suggest you stay in Rich Text, as that will give you all the necessary tools that we’re used to from word processors in the toolbar above the text box.




Now, all you need to do is chose your subject line, and write (or copy/paste) your text in the text box, editing it as needed. Add some tags to the tag box, such as your SCA name, the topic, etc – anything to make sure we can find your post again. You can then either click “Preview”, which will open a pop-up window showing you how the post will look. When you’re satisfied, click “Post to: flintheath_as” at the bottom of the posting page, and your post is added to the blog. If you find that you need to edit the post for whatever reason after posting, your post will have an “edit entry” link, which takes you back to the posting page

Read More

If you have a very long post, or a post with a lot of pictures added (more on that later), there is the “cut”/”read more” – function, which I also used for this post. Put your cursor in a space where you want the cut to be, then click on “cut” and paste the text you want behind the cut into the grey box that appears – everything in there is below the cut and will be behind a link that's opened when the person reading clicks on it. This function is a very user-friendly way to prevent the blog homepage from scrolling on forever and makes it easier to find things.

Pictures

Of course, showing off your A&S is only half the fun without pictures. You can upload your own pictures from the posting page under the dropdown menu “Create”, “upload images”.



This takes you to the picture upload page.

After you have uploaded a picture, you will be given an image embed code. From this, you only need the part which starts with “https” and ends with your file name (as we are working in Rich Text mode). Then return to your posting page, click on “edit / insert picture” in the toolbar, paste the image link, click “ok”, and your image will appear. This is a little cumbersome but I believe they are working on an easier way to do this for images hosted on Dreamwidth. If you have your images on a different site (Flickr for instance), you can link them the same way. 

User Icon

If you would like to use your own user icon, you can, and please do. The icon should ideally be 100*100 pixels and can be uploaded under the “Create” dropdown, “Upload icons”.

Of course, if you already have a blog somewhere else, feel free to post a link to it – either to the blog, or to a specific post.

Finally, if you run into any problems either with posting, uploading images, or anything else – feel free to drop me a line and I’ll do my best to resolve any issues. And if you have a text and pictures, but don’t want to post yourself, let me know and I’ll be happy to post it for you.

Happy blogging!

Yours in Service,

Milada

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