Contributors -- Joining and Writing On Our Blog

For those of you who are a bit intimidated by posting to Blogger, don’t be! A detailed step-by-step guide is available here as an .htm file, in which I didn't have to modify the tags and spaces to prevent errors on Blogger.

We use the "show/hide" feature on our blog in order to truncate long posts and hide large objects, such as hi-res images and embedded video. This greatly speeds up pageload times and helps visitors with slower connections; it is also more aesthetically pleasing and clean.

1. Ensure that you have contributor status on our blog. If you do, you will be listed in the bottom right sidebar category “Contributors”, and you will have gotten an email invite from me. If you haven’t, and want to, please email us ASAP.
2. Sign in to blogger: www.blogger.com
3. You will be sent to the Dashboard, where the blog title appears, with a green cross icon “New Post” to the right. Click this icon.
4. When you click the icon, you will be sent to the post composer. You need to click the tab to be in “Edit HTML” mode, rather than in "Compose" mode [WYSIWYG].

(Now, before we go into detail about using this mode, you need to recognize whether or not you have a long post, or a short post (less than 300 words or so, or without large images/video))

For shorter posts

1. Click the "Edit HTML" tab
2. Erase everything you see
   
3. Click the “Compose” mode tab
4. Title your post in the “Title” field
5. Type in your post in the body, adding links using the “Insert link” icon and adding pictures using the “Add Image” icon, both of which appear in the menu bar of the Compose mode post editor. You can write your posts in Microsoft Word, then copy & paste into Blogger, but this often creates formatting problems when you publish your post, so I recommend using WordPad or NotePad instead.
6. Click “Publish Post” if you feel confident you’re done, then go to the main page URL (http://www.gatorfreethought.org) to check it.
7. If you don't see your post, click “Refresh” (F5) to view the blog’s page to ensure that it posted correctly; if you feel unconfident about the post, or want to save it as it is to proofread it later, or want me to look over it, click “Save as Draft” instead of publishing it. If you see that it did not post correctly, you should be able to see a little pencil icon at the bottom right of the footer of the post, which is the edit function. Click it to go back in to edit the post. Alternatively, email us and we'll fix it.

For longer posts

1. Directions 3-5 above can be followed for the longer post as well.
2. Now, if your post will be longer than 300 words, start in the “Edit HTML” mode instead of "Compose" mode.
3. The top of the page tells you, "This is where you put short posts" -- place your first one or two paragraphs of summary here. Don't put the large images or embedded video here.
   
4. Next, you will notice, "This is where you put the rest of long posts" with some tags above that phrase. Obviously, this is where the rest of your long posts go, and where you should put the code for large images and embedded video.
5. If you want to familiarize yourself with the tags, I've explained them below. This is optional. Otherwise, after you follow step (4) here, just follow steps (3-5) from the above "For shorter posts" entry. Then, you're done!
   

**Note that the tags that follow have been modified because I cannot publish the tags correctly in Blogger mode (or else the effects I'm trying to show you would show up in my post). These tags are all written correctly in the template of your posts, however, and you don't have to type them. Therefore, ignore the extra spaces and the missing elements "div" and "span" below.**

This is where you put short posts

< class = "fullpost">< id = "fullpost">
This is where you put the rest of long posts

________________
<>Technorati tags: Gator Freethought< / span >< / span >< / div >

• < class="fullpost"> -- this begins the hidden component of a show/hide post on the main page, type in everything you want hidden on the main page here
• < id="fullpost"> -- this tells the javascript function that there needs to be a "Read more" icon at the bottom of this post, elsewise either all posts would have this, or none would.
  

5. < /span>< /div> -- this closes the hidden section, as well as the entire post
6. If you type it in thusly:

Here is the start of your post
< class = "fullpost">< id = "fullpost"> And here is the end of it ________________
<>Technorati tags: Gator Freethought< / span >< / span >< / div >

You will see, upon publishing the post, on the main page:

Here is the start of your post

Read full post -->

When you click the “Read full post" button, you will be taken to the item page, where you will see the entire entry.

If you have any questions, or if anything isn’t clear, don’t hesitate to email us.

I hope this helps!.