A step-by-step example

We will assume that you have selected create content and chosen "story" as a content type.

You should be looking at a form with the title "Submit story". From here, it is just a matter of filling in the form and posting it.

Administrative options

At the top of the form you may see some administrative options. For example, there is a box with the heading User comments. Bloggyland supports discussion/comments on postings--but such comments are not always appropriate. If your article is one that could be usefully commented on, keep the default settings: "Read/write". Otherwise, choose "Disabled".

Title

The title is straightforward enough.  Try to be descriptive and catchy.

Topic: (may not be visible if you do not have categories defined)

Next comes the "Topic" menu.  This is the section your article will go in--or in the technical language of Bloggyland, its ("taxonomy categories"). This list presents all the sections available on the website, with their structure. So, choose the appropriate section or sections for your story and continue down the form to supply the body of your text.

Body

The "body" field is where you put the main content of the page. If you've typed this into a word processor or HTML editor, just copy and paste it into this field. Alternately you can just type straight in. For the most basic page, just type and leave a blank line (i.e., hit "enter" twice) at the and of each paragraph.

You can optionally format your entry in friendly old HTML.  But hey, if you're a novice, don't worry--it's not as difficult as it sounds.  Here's a quick primer:

If you want something to be bold, just enclose it in <b> or <strong> tags, like this:

<b>This text is bold</b>

<strong>This text is bold</strong>

Note that there is always an opening tag (no forward slash) and a closing tag (a forward slash before the tag name, indicating that you are "turning it off").

To make something italic, put it in <i> or <em> tags:

<i>This is in italics</i>

This is emphasized

There is considerable debate about the semantic nature of the <b></code and <code><i> tags versus the <strong> and <em> tags.

To put things nicely in paragraphs, enclose them in <p> tags:

<p>This is a paragraph.</p>

To make a bulleted list, first open a list with a <ul> tag (that stands for "unordered list"), then put each list item in <li> (yes, for "list") tags. Don't forget at the end to close off your list with a closing </ul> tag. Here's how it looks:

The result is displayed below:

• This is the first bulleted item
• This is the second bulleted item

That wasn't too painful, was it?

Decide where you want the "teaser" (the part of the main text used in links to the article) to end. If you do nothing, Bloggyland will choose a breaking point for you--but it's better to decide yourself, to make sure the breaking point is appropriate. You do this by typing in a <!--break--> where the teaser is to end.

And you're set! You can preview the page you've prepared by hitting "Preview" (recommended, and sometimes required) or you can bravely or recklessly just go ahead and publish it by hitting "Submit".