BlogGuide

The following guide will explain the function of the Blog module and how to use it.

What is a Blog?

Blog is short for Web Log. Blogs can be written on any subject the Blogger wants. Blogs are commonly used as a place for people to post their opinions on events or to simply write a journal of their day. Blogs are usually mainly text but commonly incorporate images, links and any other multimedia items that tie in with the topic being written about. To learn more about blogs, visit Wikipedia's page on blogs: Wikipedia - Blog.

How do you use the Blog module?

The Blog module for phpWebsite is easy and intuitive to use. The first step is to create a new blog by going to your Control Panel and then your Content tab. From there you should select the Blog icon.

http://phpwebsite.appstate.edu/images/wiki/Blog1.png

Now the first thing you will want to do is create your new blog entry. There are many ways to personalize and add to your blog to make it unique, interesting and informative.

http://phpwebsite.appstate.edu/images/wiki/Blog2.png

  • Title - Enter a title here for your blog entry. This can be anything you want, however a useful title should have some connection to the entry.
  • Summary - Add a summary for your entry. This can be very helpful for visitors viewing your blog entries to determine if they want to read the entry. The title and the summary are the only part of the blog visible to visitors unless they select the entry. The summary can also be helpful to you in remembering which blog entry is which. Note: The summary field gives you access to the FCKEditor. It is a very powerful tool for formating your text. It can add images, smilies, links and many other things. Follow this link to learn more about the FCKEditor.
  • Entry - This is where you write your actual entry. Don't forget, if you're discussing an event it can be very useful to include images, videos or links to articles about the event. The FCKEditor makes this all possible and they can make your entry that much more interesting. Note: Visit this link to find out more about the FCKEditor.

http://phpwebsite.appstate.edu/images/wiki/Blog3.png

  • Publish date/time - This is the time the entry will be posted. By default it will be at the hour and so the entry will be posted as soon as you create it. (Example: You start writing the new blog at 11:30, the publish time will be 11:00 by default). However, if you want the entry to not go up until later or another day, simply change the date/time to the appropriate selection.
  • Expire date/time - By default all entries will not expire. However if you want an entry to only appear for a limited amount of time you simply have to add the date/time you want the entry to be taken down. It shows on the page, but the formating for this is YY/MM/DD HH:MM so if you wanted the page to be up until December 3, 2009 at 12:30 you would enter 09/12/03 12:30.
  • File - This allows you to add a document, image or media file from your file cabinet to your blog (Read more in the File Cabinet Guide). You can post documents for your blog's readers to download and look at. You can also add an image, video or sound file. Note: Instructions on how to do this below.
  • Image settings - This allows you to change the settings for adding an image. This allows you to add an image that is online else where (by providing the link below) or to choose settings for showing your image.
  • Image URL - If there is an image some where else online that you want to use, enter it's URL here and it will appear in your blog.

To add a file, the first step is to click on Edit File. This will bring up your site's file cabinet, shown below. From here, select the type of file you want to add.
http://phpwebsite.appstate.edu/images/wiki/Blog4_1.png

Now you will be in the correct section of your file cabinet and will need to select the folder the file you are looking for is in.

http://phpwebsite.appstate.edu/images/wiki/Blog4_2.png

Once you are in the correct folder you simply have to click on the file that you want to add. (Note: Through out the process you can simply click on an icon at the top of the window to change which section of your file cabinet you are in.)

http://phpwebsite.appstate.edu/images/wiki/Blog4_3.png

Once you have finished with your blog simply select the 'Add Entry' button at the bottom of the page.

After you clicked 'Add Entry', you should be brought to the List tab. Here your new blog entry and any previous blogs will be displayed. You can see their title, summary, as well as when they were created/published and when they will expire. You are also given several Actions you can do to each entry.

http://phpwebsite.appstate.edu/images/wiki/Blog5.png

  • Edit - Allows you to edit everything about the entry. Title, summary, entry, and image.
  • Delete - Enables you to delete an entry you no longer want.
  • Restore - Allows you to restore a blog entry if you made changes and end up wanting to go back to a previous version. Using the Version module, phpWebSite automatically stores older versions of blog entries (default five). To learn more about this, or to learn how to change the number of versions saved, visit the Version Guide.
  • Sticky - This allows you to sticky a blog entry, which will make it always appear at the top of the list. If you have more then one sticked they will appear in the order they were added.

There are a few more capabilities of the Blog Module. The next we will look at is under the Approval tab. This tab will show any items waiting to be approved. The approval tab is only going to be used if you have other users that have restricted access to add blog entries and edit entries they have added in the past. However, for each edit or addition you will need to go to the approval tab and approve of the change/addition.

The final tab of the Blog Module is the Settings tab. From here there are a lot of options you have for controlling your blog and what visitors can see.

http://phpwebsite.appstate.edu/images/wiki/Blog7.png

  • View - These are options that modify how entries are viewed on your website.
    • Cache anonymous views - This option will allow the page to load faster for anonymous users by creating a cache of the page they see when viewing the blog. This way it can quickly be brought up again the next time instead of having to reload the page each time.
    • Show blog on home page - if this is selected, your blog will automatically be viewable on the home page of your website.
    • Blog view limit - This is the maximum number of recent blog entries that will show up on selected pages at once. The default is set to 5 so if you have more then 5 entries, only the 5 newest entries will be viewable directly. Entries (even if they are just a title and summary) can take up a lot of space, so if you find 5 is too many, you can lower the number. However if your homepage is used just for blogs, you may want to increase the number of entries that are directly linked from the homepage.
    • Number of past entries - This option allows you to limit the number of past entries that will appear on pages. This number is also limited by the Blog view limit. If you increase the Blog view limit, you may also want to increase the number of past entries. The default is 5 as well, so if you have no new entries posted up to 5 old entries will be visible. Note: If you set this number to zero, no old entries will be displayed.
    • Show recent entries - This option allows you to decide where recent entries will appear. You have the option to select 'Do not show' which means no recent entries will show up on any pages, 'Only on home page' will make recent entries only appear on your homepage and the final option is 'Always' this will make recent entries appear on all pages.
  • Category - These options allow you to put your different Blog(s) and entries into different categories using the Category module. Note: See the Categories Guide for more information This can put together related entries and web pages and make it easier to get from one to the other.
    • Show category links - This will provide links to associated categories
    • Show category icons - This will provide icons to associated categories.
      • Only show one category icon - This option can only be selected if you have 'Show category icons' selected and limits the amount of icons to one.

*Comment - These options allow you to decide how you want to handle comments.
* Allow anonymous submissions - Selecting this will allow anonymous users to submit blog entries.
* CAPTCHA submissions - This option enables CAPTCHA authentication for users wanting to post comments. CAPTCHA authentication is used to determine if the poster is a human or a program. (Used to thwart ad bots.) To find out more about CAPTCHA visit the Wikipedia CAPTCHA page.
* Allow comments by default - With this option selected, every time you create a blog the entries will by default allow for readers to post comments. However, you still have the option when creating each entry to not allow comments. (Or by editing an entry later.)
* Allow anonymous comments by default - This option is like the above only for the option of anonymous comments. If you want all comments to be from registered users, you can de-select this option so you do not have to do so for each entry you make.

  • Use Image Manger - This option decides if you want to use the image manger or not. The Image Manager will automatically resize images that are over a certain size. This is useful because otherwise you may upload an image and have it take up an entire page or more.
    • Hide general image folders - This will hide your general image folder from visitors to your site.
    • Maximum image width - This will set the maximum width of an image you are adding to your blog. By default this number is 300. I recommend you see what 300x300 looks like on your website before modifying these numbers.
    • Maximum image height - This will set the maximum height of an image you are adding to your blog. By default this number is 300. I recommend you see what 300x300 looks like on your website before modifying these numbers.

Finally when you are done modifying settings, select 'Save Settings'

Permissions

All modules have a set of permissions that can be set to allow a user/user group or users/user groups to have different access to each module. These options are available through the User Administration module and you can learn more about permissions in the Permissions Guide. The Blog module allows you to give users none, restricted or unrestricted permission. If users are given unrestricted permission, they will be able to have full access to the module the same as you do as the site administrator. If they are given no permission, they will not be able to modify the module. If you give them restricted permission, you must choose which what permissions you will allow them, you can choose to Edit Blogs and/or Delete Blogs, or if they are unrestricted you can choose if they can Change blog settings.

Return to the Content Guide.

Return to the User Documentation main page.


Last modified 05/06/2008 01:05:23 PM by Matt McNaney

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