The VBulletin Blog System - A User Guide

Hello Folks,

Being as the Blog option here is not too intuitive to use, here's a bit of a guide...

What Is A Blog?

To all intents and purposes, a blog post is the equivalent of a diary entry. It can
be about whatever subject you like and can be as structured or random as you
choose. Each post stands on its merits. For me, the main benefit is that photos
are not re-sized downwards and potentially lose their value as a result.

Where Do I Start?

Your starting point is to click on the Blogs tab just below the page banner. On
the next page you'll see a {+ Create New Post} button. Click on that and you'll
get a familiar looking editor page.

The Next Step

To dive straight in and start with adding a post title and adding new text in
the box below is jumping the gun a bit. Instead, look on the right hand side of
your screen and scroll down to the "Blog Categories" pane.

This next bit requires a bit of thought about all your posts. The reason being
that while you can add to or edit your blog categories, once the post is sent as
live, you cannot add to, edit, or delete the tags associated with your post.

If your posts are about random topics this is less of an issue. If you want to
offer your readers structured stuff they can easily follow both now and well
into the future, you'll need to give your process a bit of thought.

So, Categories & Tags, What Do They Do?

Categories are pretty self-explanatory, so choosing one in the list will put your
post in amongst others in the same category. Adding a tag, or 5 if you need to,
simply acts as a filter to narrow down the results even further. Words you add
as tags will appear in the tag cloud, depending on usage and popularity of use.

How Do I Decide Which Goes Where?

Using the existing categories, your post could be about a product review. In the
tag box you'd add the manufacturer's name and the product title and the car
type/model it was used on.

Okay, but now we want to have a category where the post content describes a
long-term report about this product. So, click on the pencil icon which will take
you a new screen. At bottom right of the dialog box click on the add new category.

In the new box you'd enter "Long-Term Report" - there's no need to add any
descriptive text as your title is self-explanatory. In the 3rd line, you can choose
a parent category, such as "Product Review".

For your first entry, you can leave the display order at 1. These can be re-arranged
at will in the future. Save your changes when you're ready.

There is one rule of thumb with both of these in that you should double-check your
spelling, else your post will/can vanish into obscurity.

Before you continue, refresh the editor window so that your new category is shown
near the bottom of the screen.

The Post Title

There is one thing to note with titles, you should avoid having the same title across
multiple posts. If your blog is a Diary Entry, adding the relevant date into its title
helps solve this. If it's about your car, then simply add an incremental number into
the title.

Before You Hit the {Post Now} Button

Look below the button and this is where you choose your post's category. If you
don't find your category listed, then beware, press Ctrl+A in the Editor pane and
press Ctrl+C to copy your text to memory. If you now go back to the Categories
Editor it's almost certain your text will be lost!

You can choose many relevant categories or just one.

In the Options dialog, choose whether visitors can comment and whether you want
to moderate any comments you may receive before they are displayed.

Go back to the bottom of the edit window and start adding your tags. Type these in
fairly slowly because you may get prompts that you can select and confirm by
pressing {Enter} Once again spelling is essential because once they're in the system
they cannot be removed or edited. Please avoid any words that could be read as
being a tad controversial. We may all be adults, but friendliness is the name of the
game.

Regards,
Steve

P.S. This is my draft text - I'll amend and or update depending on your feedback