HowTo: Blogs

Hear ye! Hear ye! The TMF is blogging! Installation of the vBulletin Blogs add-on now gives all members the power to blog. This new toy brings a great many powerful tools but may seem complex at first. Herein some of the basics of blogging will be described. As with past guides, simply click an image to bring up a full-size version.

I. Finding Blogs

II. Writing a Blog Entry

III. Commenting on Blogs

IV. Blog Options and Features

Finding Blogs

So just what are blogs? For a piece on just what a blog is, the relevant Wikipedia article may be of use. How do we find blogs on the TMF? Let us examine the menu bar at the top of every page; see anything special?



There's now a blogs entry there! Click it to see some new options.



A link to your blog, recent blog entries and other useful locations are included. To get to the main blog page, however, we have but to click the "Blogs" link above "Your Blog". There is one other place we can go to get blog information. Way down at the bottom of the page there is now a new patch of information below the list of online users.



Added below statistics is some blog information and useful links, including the most recent entry. Click on the "Blogs:" link to be taken to the main blog page. So, then, what is the main blog page? Read on.



Look at all this. Recent entries and, were there comments, recent comments. Some useful links appear in the sidebar box "Options". You can also search through blogs or click on days in a calendar in other sidebar boxes.

Writing a Blog Entry

So now we know how to find blogs. How, then, does one write an entry? Well, if we look back at the main blog page we see a link called "Post to your Blog" in the "Options" box of the sidebar. Click that to be taken to the entry creation page. Much like writing a post, eh?



Enter information as your would a normal post. Some special things to consider lie below the text box:



You can allow or deny comments, force comments to be moderated (reviewed before submission) and a few other things in this area. Note that you can save a draft of your entry and complete it at a later time, something not possible with posts. One other option, the "Publish Status" box, is worth noting.



You can set this entry to publish now, at a certain time/date, or set it as a draft, unseen.

Let us say I wrote an entry. What will it look like? (Considering I dislike blogs this is probably the only entry you'll ever see from me)



Look at that! Next we'll explore leaving a comment.

Commenting on a Blog

See the "Post a Comment" link in the lower left of the entry page above? Click it.



Posting a comment is much like posting anything else, although no attachments are possible. What happens when we make a comment? Looking back to that blog post ...



There's a comment ... at least, I think it is. Note that it is pink because I am the author replying to my own post; comments to another's blog will not be pink.

Blog Options and Features

Blogs come with many options. Let us touch briefly on some. First we must find where the Blogs options are. One way to find them is to head to the User CP. See a new option way down at the bottom of the list?



If we click "Blog" we are transported to our blog options page. One of the pages there, accessible through "Blog Options" in the "Blog Control Panel" box in the Blog sidebar, has a large number of options to control your blog. You'll also notice the "Customize Blog Style" link; it functions just like the link to customize your profile.



The "Blog Custom Pages" link in the blog sidebar takes you to a page where you can add "pages" to your blog that appear in the sidebar. This lets you create static pages, such as a profile or blog description.



Once a page is added it appears in the sidebar. Se the new link to "A page by HDS" underneath my username and information?



What about control over all those boxes in the sidebar? Well, you can do that through the "Blog Sidebar" link in your "Blog Control Panel" box.



Remove boxes, add boxes, and change the order. Say we added a sidebar box. I'll channel Kered and place a parrot within a box.



Now we have a bird in a box. Neat, eh?

Well, that's about all for the five-cent tour. There are many other pieces to the Blogs utility; explore them all!