Writing a post
Everything works as before - except how we are dealing with the geotags (i.e. the lat / long info).
Geotags
After you write the post, etc.
- scroll down the page to the 'Location'
- you now have three ways to include lat / long info:
- enter a lat / long in the form [lat, long] (e.g. [56.41, -5.49]) & optionally a name to save this for future use. Note you may save lat / long to many decimal places if you so wish
- select one of the 'saved locations' (i.e. one that you entered previously and put a name in for
- click on the map and it will automatically fill in the lat / long for you (again, you can attribute a name if you wish to use it later
- in the future I hope to make lines on the map like in the 'route' page. To this end I have made a 'Custom Field' that I would like you to fill in if the post you are writing is \"on your route\". Scroll down further to 'Custom Fields' and enter for key 'on_route' (which can be selected from the drop down menu) and for value 'yes'. If the post is not 'on your route' then you may leave this blank.
Adding pictures to posts
To add a picture to a post, you will see as you are editing the post along the top the words 'Add media:' then some symbols. The first is add a picture. You may add a picture from an existing 'gallery' (under NextGEN), or upload new pictures here.
Categories vs. tags
We haven't been making use of the 'tags' previously in the blog. The difference between categories and tags is subtle. There should be only a few categories on the site, but there can be as many tags as you wish. A post should belong to one to four categories and may have as many tags as you wish. I have reduced the number of categories to the following:
- About
- At Sea
- Atlantic Leg
- Contacts for good info
- Friends & Family
- Indian Leg
- Pacific Leg
- Photographs
- Random
- Roaming Taste
- Route and dates
- Uncategorized
- Weight Challenge
Please think carefully before adding more categories - but add as many tags as you like!
By default, if no other category if selected then the post will have the category 'uncategorized'. There is also the category 'Random' for posts that don't fit into a current category, but that doesn't warrant a category all to itself
'About' category
The 'About' category provides a way for you to add content to the 'About' page. If you wish a post to show up on that page then add the 'About' category to it.
Email addresses of commenters
To find the email addresses of commenters; navigate to: Dashboard \> Comments and scroll down the list to see emails at the top of each comment.
Change weather
To change the location of the weather in the sidebar you need to be logged in as an administrator (i.e. not as 'David' or 'Mary'):
- navigate to: Dashboard > Settings > Weather Icon > Preset Locations
- add a new location, then
- navigate to: Design > Widgets > WeatherIcon1
- select location from 'Preset Locations' and save the changes
Gallery
The photos are now handled in a different way. The software at the back end handles images in 'galleries' and galleries in 'albums'. I have created albums one for each year and set it up so as all these albums will be displayed on the 'Gallery' page.
To add photos in new gallery:
- first select the photos that you wish to form your gallery locally (i.e. on your laptop) and resize them as before
- I'm suggesting to name the folder that contains the new gallery in the form: 'YearMonthDay_Name_of_folder_without_spaces' e.g. '20081216_Andrew_in_Martinique'
- make a zip file of the folder - in both ubuntu linux and windows xp this can be achieved by right clicking on the folder and selecting 'Create Archive' or something similar. Note that the maximum size for uploading files to the server is 2MB. If the folder is bigger than this, then we shall have to split the new gallery into different folders and recompress each folder.
- to upload the zip file(s) - navigate to: Dashboard > Gallery > Add Gallery > Upload a zip-file
- upload to zip-file to 'a new gallery'
- a gallery will be created with the name of the zip file
- if you need to upload further zip files to the same gallery, repeat the process as before, this time selecting not 'a new gallery' but the name of the gallery you wish to include the photos in
- once you have all the photos in the gallery that you want, goto
'Manage Gallery' and select the new gallery. There you can:
- change the title to a longer one (it will still be set as the name of the first zip file)
- add a description for the gallery - this shows up in the 'Gallery' Page on the site
- choose a cover picture for the gallery
- don't forget to click the 'Save Changes' button underneath the 'gallery settings!
- add a description for each photo and an alternative text. The alt. text shows up when you mouse over images and the description shows up under the pictures when you view them full-size.
- again, don't forget to click the 'Save Changes' button at the bottom or all will be lost!
The photos can now be added to posts, etc. For them to show up in the 'Gallery' page we need one final step: navigate to 'Album' and select the correct album for this year from the drop-down menu. Click 'Show All' above the 'Select Gallery' column. Now drag and drop the gallery into the Album column on the left. It will now show up on the 'Gallery' page.