Blog Settings

This is the blog settings icon, it is a link to the blog settings pages and can be found not only on the blog management page and homepage, (in your blog list), but also on the post management page.

The blog settings page consist of five different tabs, each relating to different areas of the blog settings, so you can easily access the blog setting you are looking for.

In the above picture the General tab is highlighted, this is because the page is showing the general blog settings, you can click on any of the tabs to view those specific settings. You will find on the General Settings tab options to change the blog title, descrition and blog category, all of which you came across when you were creating a new blog. There is also the option to notify Ping-o-matic...

Ping-o-matic

Blogging has become very popular and there are sites dedicated to logging blog changes. These websites are used by many individuals and services tracking changes to blogs. By notifying Ping-o-matic, when you create a new post or edit an existing one, Ping-o-matic automatically notifys a huge range of these sites, making your blog more accessible to more people.

Whether you check this box is entirely up to you. It only makes a difference to where your blog is listed, it does not affect the content or 'look' of your blog. Below this check box is a delete blog button, this takes you to a page where you can delete your blog - be careful once a blog is deleted there is absolutly NO WAY of recovering it!

The other part of this from is the Time and Date Settings for your blog. The blog timezone (which is separate from your personal timezone, found in your Profile Settings) is specific to that particular blog. The time and date formats relate to how your date and times are displayed when viewing your blog. Both are drop down boxes where you can select your preferred format. To save any changes you have made, click on the save changes button. The reset button returns all the fields to their default value - or in other words goes back and shows the infomation which was viewable when you first accessed this page.

The second tab is the Post Settings. These are settings which are relavant to each post in your blog. (For more infomation about posting to your blog please click here). Posts Per Page is the first option. This defines how many posts are shown per page of your blog - for instance if this was set to ten, then someone viewing your blog would be able to read ten posts before going onto the next page. The Simple Post Editor checkbox is related to the editor which you use when typing posts. Its default layout is an advanced one, with a lot of formatting features (much like an email editor or Microsoft Word). Checking this box means showing less of these formatting options, and therefore making a simple editor. This can be useful as you may find you dont need alot of the formatting options and they can get in the way. Dont worry about not being able to refer back to the advanced version of the editor, this checkbox is not permanant and can be changed at any time.

The Post Template box is slightly more complicated, which is why there is an example to view below. It is for the more advanced user and you have to have a degree of HTML knowledge before embarking on making a template. This is also optional, it does NOT have to be filled in A template is useful if you find your posts are all following a set format, as the code is inputted into the post editor when you come to post to your blog. (For more infomation about posts please click here). The example below is for the orange blog created earlier in these help files. Each post will be about a certain type of orange, so common elements in every post will be an image of the specific orange, a few critieria which every type of orange will be tested for and then some notes specific for each different orange. The first image belows shows the post template box, with some basic HTML in and the second is what the post editor would look like with the template automatically inputted, and then filled in. The last is a view of the actual post, following the HTML template already specified in the template box.

The third tab contains the options for comments, (for more infomation on comments please click here), they are fairly straight forward. If you check the disable comment box, the comments are disabled, this can happen at any point during the life cycle of your blog. Therefore even if people have placed comments on your blog already, you can still check this box and that would mean no one else would be able to comment, (unless of course you unchecked the box at a later date, in which case commenting could start again). The hide comments check box on the other hand, doesnt stop people from commenting but it stops people being able to view the comments, when they are viewing your blog. You, the blog owner, is the only person able to see the comments relevant to your blog. The who can comment drop down lets you choose who you want to comment. The options are All Users, My Friends, or if its a group blog, Members of this Blog. All users obviously means all users of the site. My Friends are the people/contacts who are on your friends list, (for more information about My Friends please click here). The last option, which is only relevant to group blogs, is Members of this Blog, which means the only people who are members of the group, of which the blog belongs, can comment. The final checkbox enables email notification. This means you will receive an email everytime someone comments on this blog. The email will be sent to the address supplied when you first registered, which you can change on the My Profile page. If it is a group blog, the email notifications will be sent to the member of the group who first created the blog.

Next come the layout settings, these are settings related to how the blog will look when viewed by other people. The first four options are all things included in the blog, which you can choose to show or hide. Quick Edit(C) is a link on each post (that you are the author to), which you can click to be taken to the text editor with that specific post ready to be edited. This link is only availiable if you are logged in and you are the author of the post. No other users of Heaven Blogs will have access to it.

Show Profile Photo(A), displays the profile photo of the author of the blog. This option has been removed if it is a group blog because groups do not have profile photos.

The View Counter(D) is found at the bottom of the left hand menu when viewing your blog. It increases everytime someone views your blog, and therefore shows how many times a blog has been viewed. It is entirely up to you whether you want it displayed or not. The Posts Calendar(B) is an easy access to all the posts written for blog, organised by date. You can select any month, and the days in that month where a new post was added will be highlighted. When clicking on the highlighted date you can view all posts made on that specific day. You can also select a whole months worth all at once, by clicking on the months name. The last checkbox in the Show/Hide part of the form lets you choose whether to display this calendar or not.

The layout tab is also where you choose the template for your blog. The template is the style of the blog (how it is laid out, what colours it is etc...). There is a small preview picture for every design which is avaliable. To choose which one you want, simply click in the circle underneath your chosen design (a green spot should appear in the middle of this circle), and click on the save changes button .

The last tab in the blog settings, is the links tab. This is where you can add any links, that are shown alongside your blog. To add a link, you only have to fill in the two boxes in the Add a Link section of the page. The Link Label is one or two words describing the site that is being linked to and the URL is the web address of the website. So for the Oranges blog we may want to link to an encyclopedia entry telling us what an orange is. The label may read something like Orange Definition, then in the next box, the URL of the web page is typed. Click on the Update Links button to add this link to your blog, you can add up to ten links per blog.

Once a link is added it appears in a table above the Add a Link box.

There are two small icons next to each link in this table. The edit icon ( ), this allows you to edit any of the infomation in that specific link, and the delete icon ( ), which removes that particular link.