Creating a blog

[mikeandnel]

Andy

Can you please guide me as follows:

I can see how to start a blog but have the following questions:

How do I insert photos in a blog in the place where I would like them to be, rather than at the end of each entry as happens in the forum?

Can an entry in the blog be duplicated also in the forum?

 

I would like to be able to make entries in the blog and also enter them in the appropriate part of the forum if the content is relevant to that forum

 

Your guidance would be appreciated.

 

Regards

Michael

[DonB]

In both blogs and Forum entries you put your pictures within the text at the places you wish by simply inserting an empty line then using your cursor to Left-click at the beginning of the line.

This places a marker for the picture, then you click on "Add to post", which places a URL at your marker. You need to do this individually for each picture at the places you choose.

 

I usually complete my text entry before inserting my pictures, rather than inserting them as I go along. (Actually, I generally compile my text and edit it in "Word" and copy and paste it into my blog, adding pictures at that stage.)

 

Hope this is clear and helps.

 

I don't think Andy is too keen on double-posting, but most people seem to use a link in the forum, if they want to direct others to the subject in the blog.

Doesn't seem to happen the other way round too often as far as I have noticed, (but I've often been proved wrong!)

[buffalo]

Unlike Don, I usually write and edit my blog entries directly, though sometimes I prepare some text in advance in a simple text editor. I avoid word processors like Word because copied text will sometimes include font information that leads to funny looking or even unreadable text. I usually load and insert the photos as I go along. After all, much of my text is usually a commentary on the photos and I find it useful to use the 'Preview' button to see if everything looks right. As Don mentions, insert photos on a separate line otherwise you can end up with odd bits of text alongside the photos. I usually insert a blank line before and after the photos as I think that improves the layout. Except for one time a few years ago when the server was a bit flakey, I've never suffered any loss through entering everything directly.

 

As to double posting, I think that misses the point that the forum sections and the blogs are quite different animals and entries should reflect the differences. In a forum topic it makes sense to post daily, or less frequent, updates as a project progresses, and these can be interspersed with discussions and comments from others. With blogs, it makes much more sense (to me at least) to limit an entry to a single substantial piece of work. Examples, showing my own biases, might be the building of one or a few wagons, or a major milestone in the construction of a loco, or part of a layout.

 

There are some excellent examples of blog entries that follow this pattern, for example, Mikkel's Farthing series and Wenlock's 7mm stock, buildings and layouts, to choose but two. There are also many examples that should never have been posted because their content is just too insignificant. Some of the latter would have been fine as forum posts, but they just make me feel that I've wasted my time looking at them.

 

If you post something about a project one day, don't post another the next and so on. The blog index or VNC pages are not very long and it is easy to fill a large chunk of the page very quickly and push other recent entries off the front page and into potential obscurity. Instead, save up your material until you put it together into a substantial post that others will appreciate reading.

 

Above all, take your time to look through the blogs and get a feel for what works and what doesn't. There's also an old topic on Blog Quality that arose when we were seeing some real junk being posted in the blogs. From your other posts, I don't think there's any danger of you doing that, but IIRC there's some useful comments in there about how folk see the blogs.

 

Finally, I look forward to seeing you join the RMWeb bloggers and thanks for the opportunity to get some thins off my chest.

 

Nick

 

ps, another 'don't', don't post all you photos to a gallery than link to them in the blog - you get images that are too small to see and we have to click on them to see what is there.

 

pps. once you've created a few blog entries you'll encounter the problem of how to find them. You might then find this topic useful.

[mikeandnel]

Good morning Nick & Don

Many thanks for the mine of information from you both which covers many aspects that I would never have thought of.

Had I just started as I thought was the way to go, my efforts would have been like a dog's breakfact and achieved nothing atall.

I will give it a try and see how I get on, following your advice, and I am sure that I will be guided on the correct path if people like you two see me going wrong.

Again many thanks

Michael