Adding Blog Entries
After the blog's initial setup, you're ready to begin adding blog entries. Click the Add Blog Entry button (
). You will see the following data entry screen:
Note also that as you type, the entry is automatically saved as a draft at periodic intervals. This gives you peace of mind in using the portlet from within your browser, since you won't lose your entry in the event of a browser crash or network interruption. You can also tag your entries using the same tagging mechanism found everywhere else in VolunteerMatters Components.
The Blogs portlet also supports trackbacks and pingbacks. Trackbacks are special links that let you or another site know if you or if someone else linked to a blog entry. For example, if you wanted to write an entry in your blog and reference someone else's entry, you might put the URL to the other entry in the Trackbacks to Send field. Similarly, if you want others who link to your blog to let you know about the link via trackbacks, leave the Allow Trackbacks box checked. This will generate a URL that is displayed with your blog entry. Others who want to link to your entry can use this URL for the link, and every time the link is clicked on, your VolunteerMatters Components’ site will know about it and will be able to keep track of the clicks.
Note that trackbacks only work when the protocol is supported by both the linker and the linkee. For this reason, the Blogs portlet also supports pingbacks. Pingbacks are XML-RPC requests that are similar to trackbacks except they are automatically sent when you link to another site. So if you link to another site in your blog entry, VolunteerMatters Components will send a pingback to that site to notify that site that you linked to it. Similarly, if someone links to your blog entry, VolunteerMatters Components can receive a pingback from that person's site and record the link.
These are advanced features and at this time any data collected is only accessible by Closerware Support.
You can also enter the Abstract, Categorization, and Related Assets.
Once you have finished your blog entry, click Publish (
). You'll go back to the list of entries, and now your entry is displayed. Here is what it looks like:
To edit the “Abstract” information, if your blog is displayed in that form, while creating or editing your blog, click on the Abstract link and then you can enter the content and add an image URL or upload an image:
Once you have entered the abstract description and included image (if desired) you will click Publish ().
Additionally, the full view of a blog contains convenient links to add blog entries to popular aggregating sites such as Digg, del.icio.us, and others. This gives your readers an easy way to submit your blog entries to these aggregators, potentially driving further traffic to your site.
Editing/Deleting Blog Entries
If you wish to edit or delete an existing blog entry this can be done so by logging into your VolunteerMatters Components’ site with the appropriate privileges and navigating to the blog page and then click on either the ‘Edit’ or ‘Delete’ links:
When you click ‘Edit’ you will return to the standard VolunteerMatters Components content editing page. Here you can change the blog entry’s Title, display date, content, trackbacks/pingbacks, and categories/tags. When you are happy with your changes, click the ‘Publish’ button ().
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