DW - tutorial of all the things I've learned (mistakes I've made)

[meus_venator]

—–

Hi guys,

I know a lot of us are new here and I've need a lot of help getting up to speed on Dreamwidth.
So far this is what I've learned.

After the TOS scare at LJ I set my journal to +18 viewed with discretion.

So I'm here but I can't seem to edit my own post 
You'll have to claim your openid in order to edit your own mod posts from previously being on lj, but claiming openid is a relatively fast process and allows you to edit any of your previous posts :) http://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse?faqid=84&q=openid&lang=
NOTE: There is a known issue with usernames with underscores in them, so you may need some support help. Wait time for confirmation is 24-36hrs.


Crediting another user/username credit code


NOTE: At this time there is no ping back notification to the user head owner that you mentioned them.


Blocking yourself by accident 
I noticed that all I am seeing on my friends list are blocked posts. But it turns out I am a SPAZ and jay128 showed me I had one too many buttons clicked on. Viewing Adult Content isn't someone seeing MY adult content, it's seeing there's DOH! So it should say NEVER.



Or you see this:






Being on your own Friend feed or READING PANE
 AH! Also answered by Jay128, you have to subscribe to your own journal
See sample



USING THE IMAGE LIBRARY

1. First you need to add an image to your DW (or copy your url from your offsite image hosting site)
Go to Manage Images / upload new images
and then  'choose your file' or drop your image into the big grey area. Note: you can add more than one image at a time. Then you need to label them. Try to think of some logical organizational structure that will be easy to remember.
 
2. Add your image to your library. Keep another window open you need to copy and paste the links
On you DW page go to the Rich text tab and see the little yellow box, that is the image placement tool.


3.  OR If you use HTML click on the HTML tab to see where the image is. You can see the old LJ link you need to swap out.



4. Go to image library and copy this section of the url of image
you can size the image later on your DW page using the image tool.




5 Back on you DW  post page go to rich text tab and paste code in Image properties box
A preview of the image will appear when you click on short descriptions (or anywhere else in the box)
You can size your image here to fit your page. And you're done. Click OKAY! : )





ADDING VIDEO
On Youtube, when you hit the 'Share' button, you open up a small box that has the tabs 'Share', 'Embed' and 'Email'. 'Share' displays automatically - which is just a shortened link to the Youtube video. You need to hit the the 'Embed' tab to find the right code - it will a long url and that is what needs to be entered into the text box if you are using the Embed Media button (which looks like a little disc) in Rich Text mode.

(Alternatively, you could also just paste that embed code from Youtube into the HTML editor.)


WRONG LINK




THE RIGHT LINK – The Embedded link






OTHER QUESTIONS

Also I'd like to solicit an opinion. I'm setting all my fic to +18 need to consent, but do you think the master post needs to have that as well? Or my master fic list?

Also is it normal that I can't see any of my tags in the tag box? sighhhh.
Help!!!!

Comments

[eisht]

I'm seeing this just fine. I don't think the master post needs to be 18 especially since some of your content isn't.
I haen't got far enough to notice the tags. Sorry.

[meus_venator]

Oh, thank god. So you can't see your own posts on your friends feed. I guess I just found it reassuring to see it there, that nothing had gone wrong with the post or I'd forgotten a cut or something.

Yes, I think the Master post makes sense. So therefore the Master fic list would be okay too. And then lock the rest of the fic under 18+

[eisht]

I love your icon. I should probably test a post out at some time.

[meus_venator]

LOL! I always forget to use this one. I think it's from Mystery Spot?

[fufaraw]

I can see this just fine.

I can also see any post I make from my friends feed, too. I can't figure out why you can't...

[meus_venator]

I had to click the subscribe button (see last image above). Maybe things were set up differently when you first joined?

Do you see your tags when you go to do a post?
I just see a blank slot no drop down to my existing tags.

[fufaraw]

No, and it's one of the *little* things that bug me. The tag bar will fill in the tag when you start typing, but it's guessing off the first letter, so you sometimes have to type more than the first letter to correct the autofill. And I've got 200- tags and I can't remember them all. The tag box doesn't pop up when you're composing a post, so what I've been doing is opening a second tab, going to my profile page and hit the "tags" link under Profile and next to my icon. That brings up my reading page with "Visible tags" in a column, and I choose from that list. It's clunky, but it gets faster as you practice. I should actually weed the tags, I don't use all of them that often.

[meus_venator]

Yes, I really miss it. I also miss being able to browse through my scrapbook for images. Right now you need, like with the tags, to have a second window and scroll for the url of the image you want to place, it's about as intuitive as a kick in the head. My fics have tons of images...sigh
I also find the image placement window on the regular formatting side doesn't work, so I need to keep flipping over to the html tab to past my image urls....Kill me now.

[sylsdarkplace]

Yes! I figured that out too! I was so frustrated by image window. Get it together, DW!

[meus_venator]

It kind of reminded me of the first macs. This little tiny rectangle when you know it's capable of sooooo much more room. It's actually quite hard to get the flow of your story with such a little periscope view. Hopefully with thousands of LJers arriving all wanting the same mod cons and paying for membership DW will be able to update.

[sylsdarkplace]

Oh my god, I hadn't even looked at tags yet.

[meus_venator]

As far as I can figure, there is no browsable tags when you go to post a fic. Again you need a second window with your tag list open.
DW will try and fill in your tag as you type, but that only goes so far. I really took the browsable image library and tags and bigger viewing screen when I posted my fic for granted. They added all those features the first year I joined.

[tygrrlyli]

I'm glad you posted this because I've been stumbling from one thing to another. Thank you for the tutorial of sorts.

[meus_venator]

I am feeling so lost on this journal right now, it's crazy LOL! Jay128 has posted a couple of very helpful DW info posts, but I find I'm getting caught by the little things. I just figured out how to add an image from the DW image library. I'll post those images on this page too. Such a learning curve right now, right?

[sylsdarkplace]

I'm using Photobucket, and it's working great. You can make albums, title the pics, and copy the url easily. I figure this way, I can link to DW and AO3. I'm feeling pretty good about image posting now.

Text however ... yikes, what a mess I'm making. I made that Big Bang master post as sort of a test page, and copying the fic summaries, etc and then pasting was terrible. The text was coming in at all different sizes. I finally copied the text from a previous post, pasted it into notepad to strip out the formatting and then pasted it into the post. I need to go back and fix all my masterposts now. (Yeah, I know -- plural?)

What's really frustrating me is DW's cut tags. Whenever I pasted a new entry into a masterpost, I'd end up with cut tags all over the place. I had to go into html and do a search for all the random tags. Ugh.

But, hey, getting the hang of it. Oh, DW, you're so five years ago. LOL

[meus_venator]

Yes, it's true, I feel like I'm in some dream where they sent me back in time. With all of LJ's friend page and weird cellular adoptions that didn't work, they have a lot of features that are really nice.

In my fantasy world I was hoping I could hang onto my LJ to format fic and host AO3 images until DW allowed for AO3 crossposting. Formatting on LJ is so much easier, then past the html into a DW page.

I do find by using their visual editor rather than going in the html side, I have less of a chance of destroying all my paragraph returns like I was doing : P

[majestic_duxk]

Yeah thank you. I got as far as importing everything and went... ehhhhhh. Which isn't very helpful in the scheme of things XD

[meus_venator]

There's just so much new to take in. I'm a bit exhausted by it all. : S

[deanshot1]

I have a question about OpenID. Can you still use your livejournal account like normal even if you claim your openid? Just want to make sure.
Is the OpenID just so you can edit old entries that you've imported to DW?

Sorry for all the questions.

*hugs*

[meus_venator]

Yes, I have it and when I am on LJ I automatically am using my LJ id, but if you've commented on a story, or community that's been ported from LJ to DW, you need an Open ID to be able to claim your comments. Also if you decide to delete your LJ (not advocating that), but then you can still comment on LJ with your open ID.