Tim
Life is good Joined: Nov 2007
Location: Kalamazoo

Here I'll be discussing how to write your first article. I'll also be exploring the different option and what they do. This is a follow-up to the article; Your first collection.

Let me first start off with explaining what the terms are. An Article is just the term used on the site for a blog post. The options for an article are as follows:

• Article Title - defines your post, i.e. My vacation, How-To.... Limit 200 characters and is required. It is the only required field.
• Subtitle - A little more detail to the post, could also be just a fun comment about the post. Limit 250 characters
• Filed Under - Tag your post here. Use comma separated values. So format it like this, minus the quotes: "Spencer,Casey,Ringo,Help". If the tag is used enough it will appear on the sidebar, if not it will just appear on the full tag list. By the way all tags are indexed by Google as is the rest of the site.
• Article - This is your posts content, this is a free text field with a WYSIWYG HTML designer. So feel free to add some flair to your text and add some images. You can also add YouTube videos but I'll go over that a little more later

Now moving to the Options tab. These options define who sees it, and how comments are made.

• Published - With this checked it will appear on the site for visitors to view. I tend to do this last once everything is added and finished
• Article Type - This sets some meaning to it and adds a fun icon to the post
• Mark Private - Only members can view this post
• Make Archive - This will remove it form your My Articles list
• Allow Anonymous - checking this allows anonymous comments to be added to your post. It's ok to allow this as comments can all be moderated by the post owner 
• Require Comment Approval - when this is checked comments will not appear in the gallery or by aggregated in the side bar until they are approved by the collection owner

Also here you can see other info about the post.

• Currently filed under - Shows a list of tags used on this post
• Created Date - The date the post was created
• Published Date - The date the post was last marked as Published

The Preview tab allows you to see your post as close to what it will look like once published. It however will not allow you to preview some BB Code, or YouTube videos.

The History tab will show you a list of previous saves of your article. You can view the changes as you go.

The Files tab will show you a list of files that you've uploaded to the post. You can link from and edit the files here too.

The File Upload & Save tab is where you can upload files and save your work. Here are those options.

• File to Upload - Click browse to fine your file
• File Comments - Make a quick note about your file or image
• Attach to Article - Checking this will "attach" the file your uploading to the bottom of your post, very useful for pod casts
• Save - This will save your post and upload your file if you've selected one
• My Articles - This takes you back to your list of articles. Your work will NOT be saves if you select this option
• Delete Article - This will delete your post and all files that you've uploaded to it

Now all of this sure does seem like a lot of things to look at. But really the only things you need to worry about are the option in the Article tab, Published in the Options tab, and Save in the File Upload & Save tab. Everything else is just there to give you more options and the most common options are already selected for you by default.

To get started click the My Articles link in your toolbox on the side bar.
Then click on the Write a new article link. Here's where you'll want to start filling things out.

I always start out with a title and then move onto the actual post. Then, by the time I'm done I've thought up something to put in the caption. I normally wait until the very very end to enter my tags. Once your done writing your post (title, caption, content) move onto the Options tab and check the Published tag.

If you have images or files to upload do so any time during the process of writing your post. Just be sure to enter a title prior to saving the first time.

Using BB Code:
One of the fun things I added was BB Code. You can view the list of different code blocks by clicking the BBCode link. I'll also list those here:

If your going to add YouTube vids, I've made it crazy easy. Start out over at YouTube and either upload a video or just view one. But know that like enverything else on the web it all works from a URL. So all you need is ONE section of the URL from YouTube.

All you really need to the string of characters after the v=. So in the image amove your would just need to string; 2LIun0BSqf0.

To use the newly acquired string open up your article and tpy ein the following:

This will automatically be formatted to a YouTube video when its viewed form a visitor.