How to Post or Comment on a Blog

A blog is an easy and accessible way for an individual or a community of people to write information to a website. You simply type in the text, and that is pretty much it. If you like, you can enhance your text with links to other websites, or add pictures and other media. These tasks are slightly more complicated, but they can be done within the blog.

There are two blogs on the Logan Town Center site. To quote from the article in Wikipidia on blogs, there are two kinds of corporate or organizational blogs: "Blogs used internally to enhance the communication and culture in [an organization] or externally for marketing, branding or public relations purposes...."

Our main blog accessible from our home page is of the second listed type, intended for marketing, branding or public relations purposes. It can be accessed directly at <logantowncenter.com/blogs/>.
Our Second Blog is intended primarily for internal use as a tool to help us exchange ideas and information in developing our plans, programs and individual projects. It can be accessed directly at <logantowncenter.com/2ndblog/>, or through a link on any of the main Logan Main Street Program pages and the Volunteer Opportunities page.

Below are explanations of how to view and write on our blogs. The examples shown are for the Second Blog, but the main blog works essentially the same way.

Writing a comment on a blog post:
Two kinds of entries make up the content of the blog: posts and comments. The first view of the blog shows only posts. The Welcome post stays at the top of the page. After it, the most recent post appears and then older posts. The page looks like this:

The "Log in" link for writing a new post is under Meta in the menu on the right side of the main blog page:

Log In menu

At the end of each post will be a statement of how many comments are associated with the post. To see the comments or add your own comment, click on the title of the post. When you do this, the view changes to show the individual post and its comments:

To make a comment on a post, go to the bottom of the page for that post to where it says "Leave a Reply," and fill in your name and e-mail address (which will not be published). Typically you will skip entering anything in the box labeled "Website." Just below that box, enter your comment. Then just click "Submit Comment."

"Leave A Reply" space

Notice at the bottom of the page the opportunity to "Leave a Reply." This is where you write a comment. Simply enter your name and your e-mail address, skip the "Website" blank, type your remarks, and then click on "Submit Comment." The first time you submit a comment on either blog, the comment will not appear on the blog until it is approved. Subsequent comments should appear as soon as they are submitted.

Writing an original blog post:
Before you can write a new post to the blog, you will need a username and a password. (For more about passwords, see below.)

To write a new post, go to the front page of the blog, the one that had posts starting with the Welcome post. In the list on the right hand side, below Archives and Categories, click on Log in, which should be the first entry under Meta.

After you log in, you will see a screen that looks like this:

On the left-hand side, under Posts, select "Add New," and you will see a screen like this:

Add New Post - html

Enter a title for your post in the top box in the middle of the page.

Type the text you want to post in the larger box below the title box. (There are two tabs at the top of this box: "Visual" and "HTML." You can enter text with either tab selected. If you select "HTML" the screen may show computer language commands in your text between brackets like these: <>, but these commands will not show in the post. The image above is the "HTML" screen; the image below is the "Visual" screen.)

When you have finished writing, select "Publish," and you are done. (Alternatively, you can save your writing as a draft, and come back to finish and publish it later.)

How to Post - Visual

Feel free to make your post as long as you feel the subject warrants. The software may show only the first part of the post on the main blog page and insert a link to the rest of your entry. (You can see an example of this in the first post at the top of the main page.) You can manually insert this break point by putting the cursor where you want the break to be, and then selecting the "More" command (in the "Visual" screen, the 4^th button from the right).

We will soon be adding a page describing how to upload and insert a picture into a post.

To get a temporary password, e-mail your request to <wasson@pipeline.com> with the username you would like to use. We will then e-mail you a temporary password. After you log into the blog, you can change the password by selecting "Profile" in the left-hand column.